Stressed32
08-07-09, 18:32
When I forst came to this site I stumbled on these words about anxiety that really made the old light bulb light up. I understood WHY even though I no longer felt stressed all my symptoms were still there. I also understood what started my HA. There a lot of new people here and I hope this helps u too. I have no idea who wrote it....but if you wrote this and your reading this...THANKS! You have at least helped 1 person on this site...me!
What basically happens is that over a period of years we employ bad anxiety management and our anxiety threshold is slowly increasing...in other words the barrel is filling up! Now, because this happens so gradually we are actually unaware that our anxiety threshold is increasing...AND if we where able to tranfer our anxiety level onto somebody with a normal level, it would feel incredibly intense to them!
So, we keep filling the barrel up and all the while our body adjusts and we just fail to realize that we are on a collision course. Now, what generally happens is that we then experience a stressor (can be good or bad) and our anxiety threshold responds by increasing but today is the day that the barrel is full!! Basically, this is the point that our emotional anxiety HAS to become physical..the water is pouring over the top and it is the same with our anxiety...we think that this is all 'out of the blue' but the reallity is that years and years of poor stress and anxiety management have finally come to a head
At this point it is incredibly common for physical anxiety to manifest itself as neurological sensations. This is because we have, in effect, fatigued our central, periphiral and sympathic nervous systems and this causes a whole host of wierd and wonderful neuro sensations. The problem now is that instead of thinking that we need to allow our bodies and minds time to recover we fall into the trap of literally pouring fuel on the anxiety fire and we analyse these symptoms and convince ourselves we have MS, ALS or whatever is your disease of choice...you are now in the health anxiety loop.
One of the things you hear time and time again is 'how can this be anxiety if I'm no longer anxious'? The thing is that even though we may have turned the tap off the barell is still full. Another useful analogy is to think of an overweight person...years and years of a poor diet will have made them overweight. Iif they decide to go on a diet, after a week of eating the healthiest and best food ever they are still going to be overweight...it is the same with anxiet! We fall into the trap of thinking that it is all about what we are thinking at the moment...this is our biggest mistake, once anxiety has become physical this indicates it is a chronic condition and therefore it can take us just as long to correct the problem as it took to get into the state we are in. The sooner we stop dumping anxiety on top of anxiety is the point that recovery will slowly start but because we fail to see immediate results we doubt everything and once again employ all those old stalwarts such as over catastrophising, black or white thinking etc etc that are going to keep us locked in the loop.
PS. I have no idea why part of this red and part is black...SORRY!
What basically happens is that over a period of years we employ bad anxiety management and our anxiety threshold is slowly increasing...in other words the barrel is filling up! Now, because this happens so gradually we are actually unaware that our anxiety threshold is increasing...AND if we where able to tranfer our anxiety level onto somebody with a normal level, it would feel incredibly intense to them!
So, we keep filling the barrel up and all the while our body adjusts and we just fail to realize that we are on a collision course. Now, what generally happens is that we then experience a stressor (can be good or bad) and our anxiety threshold responds by increasing but today is the day that the barrel is full!! Basically, this is the point that our emotional anxiety HAS to become physical..the water is pouring over the top and it is the same with our anxiety...we think that this is all 'out of the blue' but the reallity is that years and years of poor stress and anxiety management have finally come to a head
At this point it is incredibly common for physical anxiety to manifest itself as neurological sensations. This is because we have, in effect, fatigued our central, periphiral and sympathic nervous systems and this causes a whole host of wierd and wonderful neuro sensations. The problem now is that instead of thinking that we need to allow our bodies and minds time to recover we fall into the trap of literally pouring fuel on the anxiety fire and we analyse these symptoms and convince ourselves we have MS, ALS or whatever is your disease of choice...you are now in the health anxiety loop.
One of the things you hear time and time again is 'how can this be anxiety if I'm no longer anxious'? The thing is that even though we may have turned the tap off the barell is still full. Another useful analogy is to think of an overweight person...years and years of a poor diet will have made them overweight. Iif they decide to go on a diet, after a week of eating the healthiest and best food ever they are still going to be overweight...it is the same with anxiet! We fall into the trap of thinking that it is all about what we are thinking at the moment...this is our biggest mistake, once anxiety has become physical this indicates it is a chronic condition and therefore it can take us just as long to correct the problem as it took to get into the state we are in. The sooner we stop dumping anxiety on top of anxiety is the point that recovery will slowly start but because we fail to see immediate results we doubt everything and once again employ all those old stalwarts such as over catastrophising, black or white thinking etc etc that are going to keep us locked in the loop.
PS. I have no idea why part of this red and part is black...SORRY!