How I overcame 4 year anxiety within 3 weeks
My Story (short summary)
2013 was about the time when I had my first panic attack and my anxiety started.
I decided to start exercising and it helped for some time, but about two years later in 2015 it took me over and held me like never before.
I was anxious all the time, I was on the brink of panic attacks like 50% of the time and the worse part is that I was 100% sure that I’m going insane.
Another weird thing that came with my anxiety was that my mind was showing me pictures of me hurting other people (physically) but I never had no intention on acting on those thoughts or even wanting to act on them. They just came to me and stayed there.
Having the feeling that you’re losing control and unwillingly having thoughts about hurting other people led me to only one conclusion – I’m probably turning into a murderer. (Now as I type it it seems funny to me, but it was really scary back then)
Life wasn’t looking bright for me.
Therapy didn’t really help, and when I started using meds, they only left me a bit number, but all those things didn’t completely go away. I started to slip into a severe depression and stayed there for about a year.
That is when I decided to look for a solution myself.
Strategy that helped me to overcome anxiety within 3 weeks.
I got myself into Stoicism and that led me to CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy)
The exercise that I’m about to describe are not mine, but I’ve picked it up in books and articles. It helped me a lot, I actually felt a lot better after the first few days when I did it.
The biggest problem when you’re experiencing anxiety is that we do emotional reasoning – if I feel anxious or bad then there surely must be something wrong with me.
For example in my case: I feel that I’m losing control, therefore I must be losing control over my mind.
This wasn’t true, but at the time I felt that it is and that was causing the anxiety.
To deal with this problem I did the following exercise.
I tested weather I was really losing control or no. I made a list of all things that I can do to test weather I’m losing my mind or no.
Here is my list of tests that I did.
- Count the alphabet (this showed that my memory still works perfectly)
- Try moving my arms, legs, head, fingers and other body parts that move ( this showed me that I’m still in control of my body)
- Then I would try to read a few sentences ( this showed me that I can still read and make sense of words)
- After that I would chat up a colleague or call a friend if no one was around just to chat. (this showed me that I’m still in control of my verbal powers and I could understand what they are saying)
- Do an intermediate SUDOKU ( this showed me that my cognitive powers still work)
All these tests showed me that I’m still in control of everything. I would sometimes do more, sometimes less, depending on how anxious I was.
The problem is that when we’re having an anxiety episode we think: “If I won’t control it something terrible will happen.”
But that is usually not the case.
Anxiety has never made anyone insane, there are no recorded cases of anxiety leading to a heart attack, stopping someone from breathing (usually the opposite happens) or someone passing out. You might feel dizzy or pain in some of your body regions, but that is usually due to adrenaline being pumped in your blood, hyperventilating.
Hope this helps.
If you don’t think you can’t apply it in your situation let me know, maybe I can help to find a solution.
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Originally Posted by up a ladder
