recovering on your own?

[tricia56]

just wanted to ask this question has anyone on here at all over come their anxiety with out meds or cbt and done it on their own

[nomorepanic]

Yes I have

I had CBT but that was about 12 years ago so the rest of the time I do it alone.

[blue moon]

Same here,I had some sessions early on but now î have the tools to go it alone,IS am lucky as my husband is a doctor..

Petra

[Fishmanpa]

There are a few members posting recently that did the CBT course offered here with great results. Check out Tanner's posts for one. I know he did the online CBT here.

Positive thoughts

[harasgenster]

Yep, I overcame a bunch of stuff without medication or therapy. After 14 years of suffering I only needed 1 year of therapy to be completely recovered, because I'd got quite far on my own by that point.

The only problem with this that I would say is that if your thoughts/obsessions are quite warped then you might not exactly choose the best or quickest route out.

I know it's a different disorder, but when I self-recovered from non-purging bulimia it took me years because of the way I did it. Technically (and I can see how this is a better idea now), you're supposed to cut starvation rather than focus on cutting binges, as that can help to reduce the compulsion to overeat, but I just started myself on a very low amount of food and built up (not the best idea), so it took me years, and even once the bulimia was gone it took me years more to begin being able to eat 'banned' foods, and more years again to be able to eat without thinking about it! Certainly if I had had a therapist it would have been quicker.

Like I said, different disorder, but I think there could be similar problems with anxiety, such as that you may choose 'easy' ways out. The reason I chose the starvation route was because I was more comfortable with it. It's quite a dangerous way to go about things, but this didn't matter to me. Similarly, it's possible you could start reinforcing anxiety thoughts by avoiding certain things etc (because at least then you don't feel the anxiety...)

So while I think it's completely possible to do this alone, I would consider going on a waiting list anyway so you have someone to guide you further down the line, and do a little reading on the usual thoughts that come up with anxiety (CBT books are good at this, although CBT isn't actually the therapy that helped me the most) so that you can monitor yourself and make sure you're not choosing strategies that might reinforce certain aspects of the illness.

Good luck!