Free at last

[MyNameIsTerry]

I agree Davit, I think the behavioural element is easier to engage with, albeit its going to be about forms of exposure & confidence building with such as Behavioural Activation (doing more stuff to us laymen!), as we tend to learn a lot through doing. The cognitive side is harder to make work just like how acceptance is very hard to actually perform as it doesn't seem to work for a while.

Stacking seems a good one. The only thing I think that would need care would be the tendency of those of us with OCD to createa ritual out of a healthy behaviour, so perhaps altering the theme would suffice.

If thats the bubble shooter I'm thinking of, yeah it tends to throw alternate colours out so it can take more than a few tries to get rid of the last one.

I noticed you talked about your home life on another thread. You seem very isolated in your region so how did that help or hinder you? Was it a real problem and anxiety ate away at social skills or was a a boon because you were very self sufficient and had to carry on regardless?

[Davit]

Doesn't take long for a game to make me look stupid especially when i'm tired but it does put in time when I'm too sore to do anything else. I keep losing three colours when I only want to lose one. Only time I have time is when I'm tired. Spring is here and my house is full of flats of started plants and will be for six weeks. Some will go to the green houses sooner. Does anyone use gardening for relaxation?

---------- Post added 01-04-15 at 00:17 ---------- Previous post was 31-03-15 at 23:56 ----------

OCD yes, That is why you use more than one theme and change them around. It has no fixed way only one rule, the thoughts have to be neutral. Is OCD common, I only know one person. I know a few Bipolar and two schizophrenic. CBT doesn't do much for them.
Medication does though.
I have been gardening for over fifty years and always found it relaxing. I also found the quality so much better than the store. I'm not obsessive about it though I do have a set way of doing thing, but only because it works. There are rules though that make flower beds look that way though.
I found the cognitive side of CBT hard because Core beliefs think they are protecting us and don't want to change. It is their job. But once done they take the new way on as permanent and don't want to change again. Acceptance is about as hard as actually believing. It is fine to read it and practice it but you really have to believe it for it too work.

Isolation can be a two edged sword. I like it but have been alone in work and play for most of my life. Common law three times for a total of twenty years. Some people can not handle being alone. I'm not alone, I have cats, I had farm animals and before that I had a dog team. I do enjoy the quiet and for me it helps. I did not start out this way, it was forced on me and I adjusted and then didn't want to change back, I still don't. Hospitals are very social with no privacy. I got used to it. Even started to like it. I think given time people can adjust.

[MyNameIsTerry]

Yeah, I think so too. You retrain to the situation, you can't fight it forever so things become a different normal to you.

I think there are some gardeners on here. I know Carnation loves gardening for her anxiety. Its something that a local mental health charity, that I am a member of, recommend and often have information on government schemes revolving around it. You usually find that any charity that has residential buildings e.g. the respite ones, need volunteers to help them look after the grounds or with any projects e.g. sensory gardens for inpatients. My dad was a landscape gardner for a long time (30+ years). I have a very fond memory of working weekends with him when I was a young lad...and when annyone ever asks I always say that it was the only job that I felt I truly enjoyed.

There don't seem to be many people on here with OCD. However, there is some debate over whether HA is part of the OCD spectrum, so if they ever decide on that maybe there will be a lot on here as its mostly HA. Its very common though and there are several large forums in the UK for it. Its very diverse with its themes and its one you have to read about to understand so you don't think you are losing your mind!! CBT is supposed to be good for it but in my case the GAD was halting progress so it wasn't very effective although I had more success with it after finishing because I had started Mindfulness a few months prior which helped more than anything.

Core beliefs are a definate one to look at, they are the foundations afterall. Its like the house of sand, you don't keep rebuilding without addressing the foundations.

I recall you saying there weren't many Canadians on here on your other thread. I've seen a few, the most prominent one for me is SADNoMore (Marie) who is on a fair bit. Otherwise its more Uk & US and the odd person from all over the world. I think its great its global though, there are no barriers in mental health afterall so its good to talk to people from different cultures and see what they have to face. Like yourself, and Marie, there are the issues that remoteness brings, the weather issues & daylight up there, etc. It all gives everyone appreciation for others and then we get to see how other doctors respond.

[Davit]

It is an interesting thing about my core beliefs as they changed with repeated wanting them to that there was no line where they did. After years of chronic anxiety I woke up one morning to the realization I had been doing things and thinking different. Of course I had to pick at it and right away said "don't go there". The natural reaction is "is it really gone". If I look for it now it is just a fact, A hazy remembrance from a while ago. I'm pretty safe now but feel a while ago I could have given it attention and brought it back again. After all it is hidden away in memory and always will be. This storing is complicated. It is stored as pieces not the actual episode as is. These pieces are used in other episodes and put together by codes. so as long as The triggers don't request that code I won't put the pieces together to cause a panic attack. Over time with lack of use the code fades but never totally goes. Deja Vu is accidentally accessing a code in a random search and Gad may be also. I think everyone knows GAD is Generalized Anxiety Disorder. I personally don't believe it comes out of the blue, I believe it is a random subconscious search of the codes looking for answer to a subconscious question (trigger) So I guess it would be out of the blue in a sense. The treatment would seem to be then a repeated statement conscious or sub conscious that this trigger is the wrong answer, find another and let your mind find another code to put the pieces together in a more positive answer. This is all buried some where on the net and in a book on how the mind works and how memory is involved in it.
Memory is not one but four major ones interconnected and controlled by others, Hippocampus being the major one and the storage of fear memories.
The mind works on appropriate and doesn't separate right and wrong, either can be considered appropriate. Repetition makes thoughts appropriate and turns them into core beliefs. I think with Health anxiety a person tends to make these appropriates into core beliefs without the adequate questioning control needed when building appropriate thought. Possibly why part of CBT says to question all your thoughts in relation to negative and positive. Cognitive is harder to do because it varies with the situation, behavioural has pretty set choices when coping. So if coping makes it go then why go further. Cognitive requires looking at the reason and this is stressful. But it is necessary to change it. You can't fix something unless you know why it is broke. So I tell people if they need a little medical help to do the cognitive, by all means do it, you won't need it after. Just don't get used to the meds and not do the cognitive. That is far too easy to do.

[MrAndy]

my therapist told me you cant change your core beliefs but can change the thoughts around the outside of them.I think I agree with him and found CBT very helpful at the time

[Davit]

What he meant I believe is you can not erase them from memory but you can change your thoughts toward them building others to use in place so you will in a sense have two, but they will have different access codes, a fork in the neuron trail if that helps to visualize it. With time and use the new one gets stronger and the old one fades unless you keep looking for it, and this looking for it because it wants you too to can be a problem to establishing a new one. Once established the neuron trail it uses becomes very strong. I have big mental sign in front of the old core beliefs that blocks access to them. It says bull shit and pops up every time I think about them. It works because I truly believe they are bullshit. Some of them the sign says not relevant because although disturbing they are true. A core belief does not have to be false to cause anxiety. We all have skeletons in our closets. In case you think your mind will become over loaded with information, it can't because it doesn't store it as completes but as codes that draw pieces from memory to put them together and make completes. Both core beliefs will have some of the same pieces in there make up. With positive thought the tendency is to use the pieces only to make up the thoughts that are the new core belief leaving the not wanted one in the negative thoughts file to grow weaker. All survival thoughts are negative so there is a large memory storage for them where they are accessible to the hippocampus which is where fear is stored. CBT works best if you know why it works but still works even if you don't.

[MyNameIsTerry]

Its interesting Davit and since you've been researching this something I find confusing is how what we no longer use, we destroy. I'm unclear on this and the only thing I can think of is that it applies to lesser thoughts/learning where chains are broken because we have the old saying afterall "you never forget how to ride a bike" and its true. If there was true deletion of learnt behaviour, how would that explain why I can get on a bike after not riding one for 10 years and still be able to do it.

Don't forget the right Amygdala as well, the fear centre.

CBT promotes change in core beliefs. Core beliefs are what we associate with early lessons in life. I'm unsure whether we can probe that deep but given our attitudes change throughout life, so do beliefs. There is even Schema Therapy which was created specifically for this. So, are core beiefs really core, or just the ones we learnt first that we hang onto? The longer you suffer with an anxiety disorder, the more your Schema (beliefs) change to match the new situation. An example is when you have a good day and question why when you should just be happy about it and this is because anxiety has become the new normal, the belief is that you should be anxious. So, is there is difference between these and the very early morals we learn? At the end of the day, anything can be broken if you know how and put people under severe levels of targeted stress...but thats more for the powers that be!

[Davit]

According to what I have read on this and there is no proof, pieces of information over very long time do get lost, but we both know this can only happen if the cells die and this seldom happens outside of dementia. One study says micoplasma can cross the blood brain barrier and could be the cause of the die off that causes Alzheimer's. Another study showed those taking low dose antibiotics long term for Chronic infection or Arthritis don't get Alzheimer's. The information is too new, it needs more proof. Chemically blocking access to certain memories makes more sense to me as in extreme PTSD. Dopamine would likely be the neurotransmitter to do this because it is the only one that can both open and close synapses.

[Davit]

Today I ache. I spent tree hours sitting on a hard wooden bench bent over weeding asparagus. Backs of my legs are sore. I don't have HA so don't think it is a blood clot or that my sore neck is a tumour. Not that I haven't in the past but ruling it out was enough. It must be horrible to have HA. I have so many things wrong that I could attribute to something else. So i've wondered if HA is worse if you are in perfect health. Does it lessen if you actually have a few real things wrong you can focus on.

[Davit]

Changed my Avatar to one that best describes how panic attacks were for me.