suzannacorfu
18-07-10, 18:12
This is going to be an “Us” and “You” Tale.
“We” are the sufferers (I would really prefer to call us “fans” much more empowering, I feel) of Anxiety, Generalised Anxiety Disorder, Health Anxiety, Social Anxiety, Panic Disorder, Agoraphobia etc. and “You” are the friends, family, spouses, partners of “Us”.
We like to abbreviate ourselves very much in manner of highly educated gentry (Sir Francis Wobblybottom BA. MA. PhD.) and therefore I become -as an example - Ms. Suzi Harris GAD. PA. HA. AG.).
In writing this I will try and be as objective as possible but I remain firmly in the “We” camp although I do now and again make a foray into “You” lot to try and see what the f… you are doing. But then, as if catapulted back by legendary-length rubber band, I return to the combined shaking, palpitating bosom of “Us”. Where I am safe in the knowledge that “We” are all worrying about everything imaginable and this calms me greatly. I know that I don’t have to worry that we’ve missed anything out.
So, there you sit. You’re a spouse/friend/parent of one of “Us” and you’re at a complete loss aren’t you eh? Abso-bloody-lutely flummoxed aren’t you? Well don’t worry, you are in good company because; so are we. So this is not meant to be a definitive guide to dealing with an “Us”, just a modest Quick Guide to “Coping With an “Us”” (or, as we probably are to you, a “Them” but this will confuse matters unnecessarily because for “Us” you are “Them” …you see?)
10 Tops Things never to say to “Us”:
1. “Pull yourself together” – all of our trembling, palpitating, sweating, numb, tingling, jittery, breathless parts are so far flung that this is, at present, impossible. Believe me we would like nothing better than to pull ourselves together but first we must find them all and fit all the pieces back together like a 3D jigsaw puzzle. Every time we get almost there we find a piece missing and we have to take it all apart again. This is extremely tiring so please bear with us. For those of us with puppies this process is even more difficult because we have to find missing pieces which have, more often than not, also been chewed…
2. “I understand” – NO. You don’t. And because we love you we hope that you never do. For all the longing that we feel to be understood we would not wish this on our worst enemy as the hackneyed phrase goes. Well, maybe on our worst one…
3. “Make me a cup of tea while your up” – I just slipped this one in here because it really bugs me…
4. “Everything will be fine.” – You don’t know that for a fact. We cannot believe that and you cannot promise us that. What we are having problems with is coping with the infinite number of things that could go wrong. We google, we chat, we compare symptoms, we read tabloids we trawl for more and more information, more disasters that could befall us and our loved ones. We see that no one is safe and we don’t have an “off” switch. We are incapable of coping with the sheer mammouth –ian proportions of “things-that-could-go-wrong”. We can see the cloud wrapped around every silver lining…
5. «Ελα τωρα» - do not say this because we will not understand you cos we don’t speak Greek (the same would apply in this case even if we didn’t have GAD/HA/PA/SA/AG)
6. “Come on, just get in the car and let’s go to that Mega Mall and just have a quick look around” – this would be like me saying you one of “You”: “Come on, just stick your hand in here and get the grass stuck from between the blades of this lawnmower while I hold the “ON” button. If you’re quick the blades won’t catch you”. No, I didn’t think so…
7. “Stop worrying” – But that’s what we do. We are Champion worriers. If there is objectively nothing to worry about at any given time we worry about that too. If something good happens then we worry that something bad is bound to follow. We worry that when things are bad, they could get worse, when things do get worse we worry that they will get even worse and then when they do, we worry about…you get the idea I am sure.
8. “I don’t understand you” – ummmmm…we know that.
9. “Do it for me, for the kids” – Ah guilt!!! Wallow, wallow, roll about in manner of pig in mud. Yesssssss!!!!!! Guilt. Oh Lovely just what we needed! Some more guilt!!! This is probably the hardest thing for “You” to comprehend. We already feel guilty. About EVERYTHING. We feel guilty about you, the kids, the dog, the neighbor, our sisters, brothers, global warming, Canadian Spruce Tree Disease, the economy, having bought no loo-roll. We feel guilty about being like this. We feel guilty for snapping at you, for not being any help to you, for letting you down, for being miserable, for not cleaning the house, for sitting on NMP chat while penicillin is growing in our teacups. You name it; we feel guilty for it. It is our fault. If we were, faster, slower, prettier, uglier, taller, shorter, cleverer, dafter, older, younger we’d be good enough. But we aren’t and never will be so we feel guilty.
10. “Oh come on I’ve had bad days and just snapped out of it!” – there are no words to describe to you why this is sooooooooooooo wrong…
On the bright side though, there is something that you can do!!! It’s the only thing that can possibly help us and it’s really simple:
You can say: “I have no idea what you must be going through but if it’s got YOU so down then it MUST be really tough. I am here for you. I’ll just walk beside you quietly while you go through the woods and if you stumble I’ll prop you back up. You can beat this.”
So, to all of my new friends here on NMP I say the words above to you… you know who you are.
Suz
XX
“We” are the sufferers (I would really prefer to call us “fans” much more empowering, I feel) of Anxiety, Generalised Anxiety Disorder, Health Anxiety, Social Anxiety, Panic Disorder, Agoraphobia etc. and “You” are the friends, family, spouses, partners of “Us”.
We like to abbreviate ourselves very much in manner of highly educated gentry (Sir Francis Wobblybottom BA. MA. PhD.) and therefore I become -as an example - Ms. Suzi Harris GAD. PA. HA. AG.).
In writing this I will try and be as objective as possible but I remain firmly in the “We” camp although I do now and again make a foray into “You” lot to try and see what the f… you are doing. But then, as if catapulted back by legendary-length rubber band, I return to the combined shaking, palpitating bosom of “Us”. Where I am safe in the knowledge that “We” are all worrying about everything imaginable and this calms me greatly. I know that I don’t have to worry that we’ve missed anything out.
So, there you sit. You’re a spouse/friend/parent of one of “Us” and you’re at a complete loss aren’t you eh? Abso-bloody-lutely flummoxed aren’t you? Well don’t worry, you are in good company because; so are we. So this is not meant to be a definitive guide to dealing with an “Us”, just a modest Quick Guide to “Coping With an “Us”” (or, as we probably are to you, a “Them” but this will confuse matters unnecessarily because for “Us” you are “Them” …you see?)
10 Tops Things never to say to “Us”:
1. “Pull yourself together” – all of our trembling, palpitating, sweating, numb, tingling, jittery, breathless parts are so far flung that this is, at present, impossible. Believe me we would like nothing better than to pull ourselves together but first we must find them all and fit all the pieces back together like a 3D jigsaw puzzle. Every time we get almost there we find a piece missing and we have to take it all apart again. This is extremely tiring so please bear with us. For those of us with puppies this process is even more difficult because we have to find missing pieces which have, more often than not, also been chewed…
2. “I understand” – NO. You don’t. And because we love you we hope that you never do. For all the longing that we feel to be understood we would not wish this on our worst enemy as the hackneyed phrase goes. Well, maybe on our worst one…
3. “Make me a cup of tea while your up” – I just slipped this one in here because it really bugs me…
4. “Everything will be fine.” – You don’t know that for a fact. We cannot believe that and you cannot promise us that. What we are having problems with is coping with the infinite number of things that could go wrong. We google, we chat, we compare symptoms, we read tabloids we trawl for more and more information, more disasters that could befall us and our loved ones. We see that no one is safe and we don’t have an “off” switch. We are incapable of coping with the sheer mammouth –ian proportions of “things-that-could-go-wrong”. We can see the cloud wrapped around every silver lining…
5. «Ελα τωρα» - do not say this because we will not understand you cos we don’t speak Greek (the same would apply in this case even if we didn’t have GAD/HA/PA/SA/AG)
6. “Come on, just get in the car and let’s go to that Mega Mall and just have a quick look around” – this would be like me saying you one of “You”: “Come on, just stick your hand in here and get the grass stuck from between the blades of this lawnmower while I hold the “ON” button. If you’re quick the blades won’t catch you”. No, I didn’t think so…
7. “Stop worrying” – But that’s what we do. We are Champion worriers. If there is objectively nothing to worry about at any given time we worry about that too. If something good happens then we worry that something bad is bound to follow. We worry that when things are bad, they could get worse, when things do get worse we worry that they will get even worse and then when they do, we worry about…you get the idea I am sure.
8. “I don’t understand you” – ummmmm…we know that.
9. “Do it for me, for the kids” – Ah guilt!!! Wallow, wallow, roll about in manner of pig in mud. Yesssssss!!!!!! Guilt. Oh Lovely just what we needed! Some more guilt!!! This is probably the hardest thing for “You” to comprehend. We already feel guilty. About EVERYTHING. We feel guilty about you, the kids, the dog, the neighbor, our sisters, brothers, global warming, Canadian Spruce Tree Disease, the economy, having bought no loo-roll. We feel guilty about being like this. We feel guilty for snapping at you, for not being any help to you, for letting you down, for being miserable, for not cleaning the house, for sitting on NMP chat while penicillin is growing in our teacups. You name it; we feel guilty for it. It is our fault. If we were, faster, slower, prettier, uglier, taller, shorter, cleverer, dafter, older, younger we’d be good enough. But we aren’t and never will be so we feel guilty.
10. “Oh come on I’ve had bad days and just snapped out of it!” – there are no words to describe to you why this is sooooooooooooo wrong…
On the bright side though, there is something that you can do!!! It’s the only thing that can possibly help us and it’s really simple:
You can say: “I have no idea what you must be going through but if it’s got YOU so down then it MUST be really tough. I am here for you. I’ll just walk beside you quietly while you go through the woods and if you stumble I’ll prop you back up. You can beat this.”
So, to all of my new friends here on NMP I say the words above to you… you know who you are.
Suz
XX