View Full Version : Acceptance or Distraction
Hi
I've been reading a variety of information on anxiety - I've been sufferring in various degrees for the last 15 years (the last 3 months have been the worst so far).
I'm a bit confused, probably because I'm doing so much research on the subject trying to find an answer. The Claire Weekes books stress the importance of acceptance of thoughts and feelings and not trying to fight them. Paul David, author of At Last a Life, also advocates this. However other strategies suggest thought stopping / challenging and distraction or diversion techniques.
Can anyone give me some practical strategies that have worked? I feel like I'm wasting too much of my precious life on something that I am causing myself.
Any help or advice appreciated
M
ladybird64
19-10-10, 16:28
Have sent PM x
Hi Meg, I too have read the same as you and to be honest self helped using the Claire Weekes method for about 12 years. However the last three months have been hell and I feel right back at square one. I think if I didn't have the physical feeling of dizziness 24/7 then I would be better able to cope with the anxiety, but because of this my anxiety levels are through the roof and I just don't know what to do. I've tried distraction but cannot relax enough and as for relaxtion and breathing exercises, when you feel so anxious, it is hard to concentrate.
I'm sorry I cannot give you any useful advice, but wanted you to know you are not alone. Are you on medication or receiving counselling?
xxx
Yes I am - Cipralex 10mg and counselling twice a fortnight.
I thing I am bombarding myself with too much information, but it's difficult when you just want to be well again.
MidnightCalm
19-10-10, 16:45
I'd also like some help and advice, get's so complicated at times and I find it so hard to work out how to deal with all this from just being an inexperienced 21 year old who's never really been ill until now.
I too think if you are researching for info, help and advice, you do find you are concentrating more on this horrible affliction. I tried EFT, but was tapping nearly six hours a day and it made me feel so much worse. I just wish there was a magic pill so we could all go back to being the happy go lucky people we used to be.
xxxx
i know... i would like the magic pill too. from a CBT perspetive, acceptance would always be encouraged rather than distraction. this works on this principles that many people who continue to struggle with anxiety try to manage their anxiety rather than face it. so a cbt therapist would encourage you to literally face your fears, whether they be of a physical symptom, of a situation, or of a thought. the idea ( and reality) being that once you allow yourself too face a situation/ thought/ feeling etc, rather than distract yourself or recoil away from it, you learn that your worst case scenario does not happen. so for example, if i feared that if i exercised i would have a heart attack, then by avoiding exercise i would never find out that exercise would not cause me to have a heart attack ( beign a young, physically fit person!). it works on the principles of habituation, that is, once you allow yourself to face something and find out nothing awful happens, your brain stops sending the fear signals incorrectly. so if i feared spiders ( i do... even though i don;t know why) and i sat with one in my hand for an hour each day, by the end of the week my anxiety would have gradually reduced as my brain woudl be starting to recognise that nothign awful happens and would no longer be producing the fear response. obv, this is not as easy to do in practice and i def find it hard to do without the support of a cbt therapist ( and sometimes when by GAD is crazy as it is as the mo find it hard to do at all, i have so many thoughts i would constantly be facing them!). hope i haven;t confused you more, are you getting any professioanl help? x
I feel instead of OR, Acceptance AND Distraction should be used together.
I feel like I'm wasting too much of my precious life on something that I am causing myself.
Believe it or not, your statement above is very true. The symptoms we experience make us "feel" ill so we convince ourselves we Are ill but in truth, all we experience we create ourselves in the way we "think" which is why acceptance and distraction can work so effectively IF we are prepared and are able to change our thinking patterns which cause our anxious symptoms.
I agree that we need to confront our fears to prove to ourselves that the only thing we are actually afraid of is the fear we create ourselves - "Fear of feeling fear". It isn't situations or circumstances that actually frighten us. It's the fearful feelings we associate with them.
Confronting our fears build confidence and that new self-confidence causes us to feel less afraid and therefore anxious feelings lessen so in effect we "cure" ourselves by conteracting our fear. However, confronting fear is only part of process because it's How we confront our fear that is key to recovery.
For instance, if someone is agoraphobic, they will be sat a home feeling terrified of going out. When someone then tells them that tomorrow they'll be taking them out, the sufferer then sits there for 24 hours "worrying" about the next day so that by the time the event arrives they've already worked themselves up into such a state that as soon as they step outside they suffer a panic attack.
If on the other hand, someone told the sufferer they're going out Now, they will have a better chance of not panicking because they wouldn't have been given time to sit and worry.
This is where acceptance come in. If someone is terrified of going outdoors, they'll focus their thoughts on their fear which in turn makes them feel so ill that they then panic even more. If the sufferer can learn to accept the feelings as being perfectly natural, they then learn not to be afraid of them.
If you put a lion in place of the outside world, a lion will induce exactly the same anxious feelings. The sufferer views their "feelings of fear" of the outside world the same as they would if someone said you're going to meet a lion. They'll be terrified! However, the difference is a lion will eat you but anxious feelings won't so in reality there is nothing to fear. Anxious feelings just make us feel afraid when they're really perfectly natural.
Once you learn to accept anxious feelings as being natural, this is when distraction can be used. It's true that when we're feeling anxious, distraction is a good technique to use to stop us "thinking" about how we're feeling. However, you could also say that once you accept anxious feelings as being normal, you are then more able to think about other things around you rather than internally on how you're feeling.
This then leads back to your statement that anxiety is caused by ourselves. I believe anxiety is in our make-up but it affects people in lots of different ways. Some are born worriers. Some have experienced a traumatic event....there are lots of causes and lots of reasons why we experience anxiety but I feel in all cases there are probably underlining causes - too much stress and fear - and these have surfaced due to events in our lives. This is why I feel every sufferer needs their own package of treatment.
Anyway, the main point is that anxiety is created by our "thinking" so if we can learn to tackle the way we "think", we can then learn to cope with anxiety. If we continually focus internally on our feelings, we'll end up in a panic but if we learn to focus on thinking externally and ignore our feelings, the feelings will subside on their own.
One last thought - if you could picture everything around you and every thought within you as a cream cake, what would happen to your anxious feelings? You'd be too busy looking forward to your next cream cake to worry about anything and therefore you wouldn't feel stressed or afraid so you'd then feel relaxed which hopefully shows anxiety is caused by the way we think about situations.:hugs:
Hi...Great post Bill............I am reading The Art of Happiness,A handbook for Living.It is written by His Holiness the Dalai Lama.I give it the thumbs up.:yesyes:
Love Petra xx
Thank you Bill for taking the time to reply.
Your words make sense. I've been reading some stuff on mindfulness which also speaks about living in the present moment, ie focussing on what is really going on around you, rather than what is going on in your head.
Have you any thoughts on this?
Meg x
Hi megmillan,
My personal opinion about the acceptance vs distraction is that for me personally, a combination works. I also do not think there is a right or wrong answer as to what an anxious/depressed/panicked person should be doing in terms of this, it is purely what works for you personally.
I ACCEPT my conditions of anxiety/panic disorder in so much as I know that is what they are, and I accept that there is no other cause for my feelings other than that, but in terms of accepting them to the extent I will LIVE with them and put up with them well no, I will not accept that and do everything I possibly can to fight them, which is where the DISTRACTION comes in by attempting to move my mind away from my anxious feelings by any means possible - tv, exercise, internet, whatever.
In terms of my increasing social phobia and agorophobia which I could see was beginning to take over me a few weeks ago, my way of coping was to accept it and face it head on and it terrified me, but despite how bad I was feeling and how scared I felt about going shopping and talking to people I made myself go, because as far as I was concerned, to hide at home and prevent myself going would be a slippery slope downwards. Being bloody minded in the face of anxiety/panic has helped me as well as medication of course.
My point is that I really do feel that we have to find what works for us, and the things that help us cope. We are all individuals with a common condition(s).
I have to say also that, like you, I have done a huge amount of reading and researching and I actually feel that this has helped as it breaks down a lot of self-doubt about if what we experience IS actually anxiety/panic and is a reassurance in a way that we are not crazy, losing our minds and all those other things that terrify us. I also think that gleaning ideas about coping strategies and finding ways to fight anxiety from all this information can be very useful, but again, we need to find the things that help us personally.
Megmillan, like Alfie1967 said, I can't really offer any real methods to help you cope apart from the standard things which I'm sure you have noted already, but please do believe that you CAN feel better despite how badly you may feel. The one thing I would say is that when you start to belittle anxiety by telling yourself consistently 'it's only anxiety' and ' I won't be beaten by this' it honestly does help reduce it down from being the huge spectre that looms over us.
I am thinking of you and wish you well.xxxxx:hugs:
i agree with bill that its a mixture of both but it can be a bit confusing if we over think about how we feel we should be recovering! i try to accept all thoughts/symptoms - i don't really agree with thought stopping as when you try to force a thought out of your mind it just rebounds stronger so prefer to take the fear out of them by thinking of them as much as i like! however - i do change very obviously negative thoughts and challenge them but i have initially accepted them if that makes sense! at last a life is a GREAT book - i think claire weekes is great but this is the book that turned my life around because it is bang up to date and written by a sufferer x
Distraction might be helpful during a panicky moment when acceptance will not be possible - but let's not kid ourselves here, it will only ever manage to bridge a situation, but never be a solution in itself.
I think what 'acceptance' actually means is the acceptance of the deeply unpleasant emotions during high anxiety or a panic attack. To accept those feelings would mean that we would allow ourselves to actually feel them, instead of fighting them or trying to run away from them or numbing them down. This might not be possible immediately, but for most people has to be worked on over time.
There is such a thing as 'emotophobia', which is the fear of negative feelings (anger, frustration, sadness, etc.).
There is also something that is called 'emotional perfectionism', which means we expect ourselves to feel good and happy and jolly 24/7, which, needless to say, is virtually impossible and completely unrealistic.
Emotophobia and emotional perfectionism have a lot to answer for in terms of anxiety and panic, as both divide emotions in acceptable ones and unacceptable ones. And the more we fight the unacceptable feelings or try to escape them, the more overpowering they will become. All feelings have their right to exist - and if you take that right away, they will demand it back with a vengeance!
It's easier said than done to try and make friends with those unpleasant feelings, I know, but it is possible. It does help a lot changing one's attitude towards including the other side of the emotional spectrum, and CBT in particular can be extremely helpful in this.
It takes some courage and some work, but a few seconds after you manage to go with the emotional unpleasantness and surrender, the feeling itself will dissolve and subside and loose its terror.
The worst is what they call the 'fear of the fear', and as absurd and paradoxical as this sounds, the power of fear can only be tackled by stepping towards it and embracing it, no matter how terrifying this first appears to be. Ultimately, this is the goal, and there is no other way of overcoming it.
Distraction might be helpful during a panicky moment when acceptance will not be possible - but let's not kid ourselves here, it will only ever manage to bridge a situation, but never be a solution in itself.
I think what 'acceptance' actually means is the acceptance of the deeply unpleasant emotions during high anxiety or a panic attack. To accept those feelings would mean that we would allow ourselves to actually feel them, instead of fighting them or trying to run away from them or numbing them down. This might not be possible immediately, but for most people has to be worked on over time.
I agree that distraction isn't a solution, we can't distract ourselves forever, but I do think it is crucial to coping with times we are highly anxious, and lets not forget that often panic or anxiety is not just a 'moment'....those feelings can last all day long. My recent panic was lasting from the moment I woke to the time I put my head down to try to sleep. Distraction, or the attempting of, kept me sane!
I totally agree that acceptance really helps during attacks as it is the fighting of them and the fear of them that heightens all those miserably awful feelings, in my own experience anyway. I agree also that it is very hard to do, and takes time to master accepting something so scary.
Meg:hugs:
focussing on what is really going on around you, rather than what is going on in your head.
Have you any thoughts on this?
In answer to your question, I think of an athlete preparing to run a 100m race. Before he steps up to the blocks he'll feel nervous and if he stands there thinking about how he's feeling, his nerves will become worse and his fear will increase. By the time he is in his blocks, his nerves could be so great that he fails to perform because his fear and tension has held him back.
Fear breeds fear so when he starts focusing on how anxious he's feeling, his mind will become consumed with self-doubt. He will convince himself he'll panic, freeze and fail in the race. He will look at the crowd and his fear and doubts will convince him he'll embarrass himself in front of everyone watching.
Therefore, I feel it's very important to attempt to avoid thinking about how you're feeling because it always has a snowball effect causing panic.
However, in the athletes case, once he starts dwelling on his anxious feelings, his fear then makes him aware of "everything going on around him" and because he's feeling so afraid, his self-doubt makes him fear he'll make a fool of himself.
Therefore, I don't think it's always a good idea to make your mind aware of everything going on around you because I feel that in a crowded situation it could make our panic worse.
Going back to the athlete, if he mustn't dwell on how he's feeling but also mustn't focus on everything around him because of the crowd watching, what should he do if he wants the best chance of winning his race?
This is where I feel it comes down to 2 factors - self-belief and tunnel vision - and playing sport myself, I find these very important factors to have if I'm to perform well.
Therefore, when the athlete is preparing himself for his race, he has to train his mind to ignore his nerves And to ignore the crowd. If you watch them on TV, you can see their faces trained on the track. They often don't smile at the cameras or acknowledge the crowd until the race is run because they know they need to focus on their performance. Therefore, the athlete will be looking at his lane and the finishing line Only. He won't even look at the other athletes or their lanes, nor at the officials, the crowd or the cameras. He won't even listen to the cheers or screams. He will just focus on his performance, what he needs to do to win and wait for the sound of the gun to run. This is what they call "tunnel vision" and just as an athlete can train themselves to use it, so can we in every day life. For instance, when we walk into a crowded shop, we can train our minds to focus on what we need to get and how to get it to help prevent ourselves thinking about our feelings or the crowd around us.
My feeling though is that together with tunnel vision, you also need self-belief. You have to try and convince yourself you Can do this and Nothing will prevent you obtaining your goal because if we convince ourselves we're going to fail, fear will gain control so then it's very likely you would fail because of the panic that results.
Something I feel that is often overlooked - what is the difference between success and failure? - self-confidence.
Think of an F1 racing driver. The have to have supreme confidence in their abilities to race at high speeds. They can't allow themselves to dwell on fear.
I can remember in the winter olympics listening to a true story about a world champion skier. He was one of these supremely confident sportsman. He believed in his own abilities and that nothing could stop him until one day he had a really bad accident. The accident affected him so badly, he never raced again because all he could think about was his fear of having another accident because he had lost all his self-confidence.
In effect, that's what often happens to us in our daily lives. We can go into work every day without seemingly a care in the world until one day we suffer a panic attack which then destroys our self-confidence so to get well again we need to re-build the confidence we've lost and to help us do that I feel tunnel vision can help to train the mind away from thoughts and others around us.
One last point- when we suffer a panic there is Always a cause. It can be as a result of a bad day or a gradual build up of pressures. The important thing though is that we treat it as just a bad day and try to keep moving forward....but that's another story!
(By the way, a little tip when shopping - I find making a list of things you need helpful because it gives the mind something to focus on in a crowded high street or shop.)
Hope that's of some help.:hugs:
hi european - oh my god - i did not know that expecting to feel happy all the time was kind of a fear - this is exactly what i am like - i know inside it is not possible but is something i put pressure on myself to achieve so thank you for your post - it was like a light bulb moment for me!
I wouldn't be surprised if alot of sufferers are perfectionists. Perfectionism creates alot of stress and will affect us in every sense and in every way. It will also create fear because we'll always be afraid of not being perfect. It can mean we set ourselves unrealistic high standards so can also lead to a depressed feeling when we are always left feeling we should do better.
Perfectionism can also lead to OCD because the stress we create for ourselves in attempting perfection not only creates fear but also then creates alot of intrusive thoughts which can then lead to compulsive rituals.
We can be very intense and because we often lack confidence, we worry alot so when we seek perfection we continually doubt ourselves because of the worry and fear of falling short and feeling a failure.
It also means we become very rigid because we won't allow ourselves to make what we perceive as mistakes but life is never perfect and it can't be controlled.
I think in a way it's all part of acceptance. Accept that we can't and shouldn't try to be perfect. Accept that life can't be controlled and to learn a more relaxed approach to daily stresses which I know is very difficult when so much outside stress is already put upon us.
If you're a perfectionist, I think it will affect all your thought patterns and how you live every day without even being aware how much stress and anxiety it causes to ourselves so if you can lower your expectations of yourself and accept you can't control everything, it will help ease anxious feelings because you become less rigid and more relaxed.:hugs:
ladybird64
21-10-10, 14:30
What an excellent thread..so many useful contributions, most of them striking a chord with me.
Lovely to see you here again Bill..I have been thinking about you recently.
As always, words of wisdom that hit the nail right on the head.
I had managed to deal with the control issues (more or less!:winks:) and have had many months of feeling and doing great, better than in years.
I am going through the mill a bit at the moment as I stopped my Citalopram 10 days ago but am confident that this will pass, I have to be extremely careful not to slip back into the "control or fail" way of thinking.
It has reared it's ugly head a lot over the last week but I'm trying to go with the flow.:)
We can all feel better, we just need to convince ourselves that it is possible..by whatever means. :flowers:
Ladybird, I wish you all the luck in the world having stopped the meds and wish you all the best with that.
I know how tough that is to do.xxxxx:hugs:
hi european - oh my god - i did not know that expecting to feel happy all the time was kind of a fear - this is exactly what i am like - i know inside it is not possible but is something i put pressure on myself to achieve so thank you for your post - it was like a light bulb moment for me!
Thanks, joannap, that's really good to hear! Sometimes I think there are so many things in life that we totally take for granted, and regard as perfectly 'normal' and a requirement for our everyday lives, as everybody around us seems to be totally uncritical and buying into it as well.
And it's only at a closer look that it becomes apparent how negative and self-defeating a lot of those attitudes are. Once you've realised that perfectionism is largely something that is stress and anxiety inducing, and exceedingly toxic, a first step can be taken to move away from it and towards a kinder and more realistic way of dealing with oneself, which will eventually lead to more self-acceptance. All the best! :)
Thank you Ladybird, it's nice to be thought of.:):hugs:xxx
I know how very difficult it feels to come off meds as it takes time to adjust but it sounds like you're doing extremely well.:)
I firmly believe we can all learn to cope with anxiety and as you say, "by whatever means" helps us to enjoy life. Meds can help and different therapies help different people to move on but I also feel we need to be aware of our stresses because if they're not addressed, they can easily make our anxiety peak again.
Someone once said to me we all have our stress levels and some can cope with more stress than others so I feel we need to remember our own stress levels if we're to avoid burn out. I know it's not always possible to avoid though in which case we have to learn coping strategies for times of need but if we can look at ways to keep our daily stresses to a minimum I believe we have a much better chance of coping with daily chores.
Examples would be to delegate, not be afraid to say "no" or ask for help. Don't make everything your responsibilty. Create time outs to re-charge. Remember to allow yourself time for "you" to enjoy yourself so you can switch off for a while. Practice a relaxation routine and not allow every minute to be taken up with worries...and so on.
I just feel that sometimes we're not aware of the amount of stress we're under until one day we suffer a panic attack out of the blue which then makes us think we're ill when it's really just the mind telling you that you've exceeded your own individual stress level because of a gradual build up of pressures or a particularly bad event. Often we are misled by anxiety into thinking we need a "cure" because it makes us "feel ill" so we end up going around in circles when often if we identify the original stresses we can learn how to cope better and so minimise the risk of other panics surfacing. However, a panic in itself can trigger new fears so often it's a case of reaching the bottom before we can learn the causes and how to gradually climb back out....and then remember to attempt to keep our stress level within our limits, although I do realise it's easier said than done, especially in the current climate!:hugs:
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