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Thread: Me...in the hope it helps others

  1. #11
    Join Date
    Mar 2017
    Posts
    696

    Re: Me...in the hope it helps others

    I mentioned that you should start a blog Bill. I might not have been the only one. This site is the only one that I could find that understands anxiety and how it effects our lives. I am from United States, the time difference would have deterred me from joining, however my anxiety kept me up so many nights and I have met so many understanding and caring people here that I was able to battle the time difference.

    Please reach out to all sufferers of this terrible parasite as you call it. Your wealth of knowledge need to be share across the "pond" as well.

    Hugs!

    Snow

  2. #12
    Join Date
    Nov 2015
    Posts
    375

    Re: Me...in the hope it helps others

    I know exactly how you feel. It's not a cry for help exactly, because you don't believe (at that moment of the illness) that anything can make you feel better, so believing that no help is available, you don't see any other way out. Which is really just a measure of how ill you've become. It's a tricky disorder!

    I completely agree about the attitudinal change being the key. It's about moving forward for me, sticking to treasured goals and trying to be the kind of person the world needs more of. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy basically - don't know if you've come across it, but I've found it's the best thing I've done (apart from meds).

  3. #13
    Join Date
    Sep 2007
    Posts
    2,744

    Re: Me...in the hope it helps others

    Snowghost, yes, I remember now that it was you who mentioned about the blog. I remember seeing someone else here had started one and I'd got the memory muddled!

    Beatroon, I must admit I read all these different names for anxiety disorders and all these therapies that people mention on here but I confess I often haven't got a clue what they are but if people describe there issues and what they're doing to help themselves I find I can normally make sense of it all. Personally, I knew what my issues were so I devised my own plan to help myself as I knew what I had to do to cope with and overcome my anxieties. I decided I had to do this because sadly the therapists I saw were of no help at all but that was quite a long time ago and I feel I was just unlucky.

    What's the saying? You have to know your enemy if you're to defeat it? I think I've lived my enemy for so long now, I know all it's tricks so now I tell it to shut up when it tries to annoy me. I would never say that to anyone on here of course.
    __________________
    To be free of anxiety is FREE because the cure is in YOU, tis TRUE!

  4. #14
    Join Date
    Sep 2011
    Posts
    1,083

    Re: Me...in the hope it helps others

    Thanks for sharing your life story with us(well the anxiet/OCD side of it)

    So many people suffer in different ways with it, but it mostly comes down to thoughts ��
    And how they manage to get though to our mind and make us feel so ill.

    If you could share exactly how you manage to do this, I'm sure there would be hundreds of listeners! Well readers.
    I for one really suffer from thoughts that floor me sometimes with anxiety, no matter what I do. Keep busy, housework,gardening etc when I've stopped THEY raise there head again.
    I try and say to myself. " No your not doing it to me again" but minutes later a frightening thought will pop up from nowhere! And the loop starts

    Watching with interest

  5. #15
    Join Date
    Sep 2007
    Posts
    2,744

    Re: Me...in the hope it helps others

    it mostly comes down to thoughts ��
    And how they manage to get though to our mind and make us feel so ill.


    Probably a good starting point. Thoughts will always appear in our minds but of course not all make us feel so ill. If someone handed you a cute cuddly toy and when you squeezed it said very softly "Boo", you might say "Ahh that's so cute" but if the same cuddly toy transformed itself into a gremlin and screamed at you, you'd probably jump out of your skin. However, there is one thing they both have in common - they're both just cuddly toys which are both entirely harmless but because the gremlin appears frightening it will make you feel so ill.

    It's the same with thoughts. We experience millions of thoughts through our lives and the vast majority we totally ignore. However, the thoughts that frighten us stick and that's Because they frighten us, and that's why we feel so ill when they surface. However, just like the cute toy and the gremlin which were both harmless cuddly toys, thoughts of any kind are all just harmless thoughts. The frightening thoughts only have power over us because to us they're frightening and that's the key.

    Let's suppose you have a dog phobia. You just can't look at a dog without experiencing fear but the fear is so intense that you can't stop thinking about dogs and every time the thought surfaces, it sends you into a panic. A dog takes a physical form so to conquer the frightening thoughts would mean conquering the dog phobia by gradually building confidence by getting so close to a dog that you are able to touch it without feeling fear.

    However, a lot of frightening thoughts are based on irrational worries which hold no physical form but in a sense, the same applies because you have to teach yourself to allow yourself to think the frightening thoughts without reacting to them just as you would in the end by touching a dog.

    So, just for example, you're sitting quietly and you suddenly get a thought about going out the next day. You then start thinking what if you start feeling anxious, what if you panic, what if everyone notices etc. Just thinking all these worries makes your anxiety rocket so that when the next day comes you're already feeling so anxious that when you step out the door you start to panic. Fear creates fear.

    So, going back to when you were sitting quietly, I feel there are more than one technique you could use 1) stop yourself thinking about it by training your mind to think about something positive such as thinking about the things you're looking forward to doing when you're out 2) get up and do something to distract your mind to stop it dwelling on the anxious thoughts. In that way you nip it in the bud. 3) learn a relaxation technique such as deep breathing to help you stay calm. And 4) which I feel is the key, is to be aware of how your body is reacting to the thought...

    When we experience a frightening thought, the natural reaction is to tense up without realising it. You'll hold your stomach in, your muscles will become rigid and your breathing will become shallow and quicken. All these things can be stopped if instead of focusing on the thought, you focus on relaxing your body. For instance, there's the deep breathing...slow deep breaths to prevent panic, then there's releasing your stomach so it goes limp. It will be obvious to you when you think about your stomach that you're holding it in. You may also be clenching your teeth - Unclench them. Focus on each part of your body - your right arm, left arm etc. Make each part go limp to remove all tension. All of this is a relaxation exercise easily learnt.

    However, the really important thing is to learn to treat every thought exactly the same by teaching the mind not to be afraid of them. You have to learn how to allow the thoughts to flow through you without reacting to them. For instance, if I gave you a picture of a cream cake, how will you react? If I gave you a picture of one of your frightening thoughts, how would you react? N doubt the latter would create fear but, again they both have one thing in common. They're both just pictures and they should be treated in exactly the same way. To overcome a fear means being able to pick up that picture and say to it "I don't care how you look, you're just a picture trying to scare me...but I'm not going to be afraid of you".

    If a ghost said "Boo", you could either scream and run...or you could stand there and say to it "So?...is that all you've got?" What do you think the ghost would do then?...Nothing. It's only power was in it's ability to frighten you. Now you've shown you're not afraid of it, it can't do anything more so it melts away and never comes back because it knows there's no point as it can't scare you.

    Anxiety feeds on fear. Take away the fear and anxiety starves. I know that sounds easy but I know how frightening thoughts can be...and that's why it takes time to build confidence by re-wiring how you think and how you react to these thoughts...but they are just thoughts, and we can teach our minds to think of positive thoughts rather than dwelling on the negative thoughts that make us feel so ill.

    Hope that helps a bit but please post more if you have further questions and I'll do my best to help.
    __________________
    To be free of anxiety is FREE because the cure is in YOU, tis TRUE!

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