More Mindless Rambling!

[mico]

Ok, here is the latest entry in my confused ramblings.

Here's a quote from my last thread 'Time to Update my Inventory' (feel free to give me some good book recommendations there ).

<b id="quote">quote:</b id="quote"><table border="0" id="quote"><tr id="quote"><td class="quote" id="quote">It may sound strange, but at one time my anxiety appeared to be fairly simple, difficult, but simple.</td id="quote"></tr id="quote"></table id="quote">

As I was going about my daily activities today, something occured to me - Actually I think I already knew this all along, and it may even appear obvious once I've explained it, but anyway... It occured to me, When I first began to suffer from anxiety it was all about the comfort zone. From those first few attacks in certain situations my mind made it pretty clear that these situations would trigger off more attacks, so I avoided them. So from there, I went through all the usual comfort zone expanding, relaxing, etc, and eventually got rid of a lot of my anxiety and learnt how to deal with it. It was simple in the sense that all I had to do was go out and do the things I was scared to do. And they made me better.

Later on, my anxiety came back - It had never fully gone, but I didn't really realise that at the time, I just wanted to get on with my life - but it manifested itself in a different way. Ok, many of the old issues were still there, and still are, but I was well equipped to deal with them. Even though they still affect me, it's not these that give me the most trouble. It seems now, I can expand my comfort zone, it works to an extent, then one day I'll be having a nice relaxed day, and, boom! What was that? Where did that come from? How did that happen? During the early years, this would only happen when I expected it to. And this is exactly one of the issues that is confusing me right now, I seemingly have no control over it.

Ok, so maybe this isn't all as clear as I expected it would be when I started, but I've written it now so I'll carry on. [:P]

Does anyone have any similar experiences? Could this be considered a 'stage' in your progress (clutching at straws, I know)? But most of all, how do I combat it? It just seems that all my techniques for dealing with this, that I've been building up all these years are becoming inefective, not one of them are 100% certain to help, even when they have been in the past. Which I guess is what most of my recent posts have been getting at. Any ideas at all?


mico

p.s. Even though this all sounds really negative I admittedly do feel I have come a long way, I'm just not quite sure how to keep it going.

[sal]

Hi Mico

Can totally appreciate how you feel, in the early days we werent equipped with solutions or answers to how we felt but we expected the attacks and along they came. But as you start getting better, it does become harder to rationalise at times as when you least expect to feel crap along it comes.

But to me that shows how much improvement you have made. As in early days you were always on stand by waiting for attacks so when they came along it was no surprise to you. Now you are getting on with your life and not constantly aware of when or how the next attack will affect you. So when they come along it does knock us a bit as were werent sat there waiting for it to happen.

It shows that anxiety is no longer the centre of your thinking like it was when it first started. And i am sure when these attacks occur and you are not ready for them you deal with them a lot better than when it all started, because now you are equipped with the confidence knowing you can get through it and will come out the other side.

Hope that helps.



Love Sal xxxxx

[Meg]

Hi Mico ,

Let’s look at possible stages and progress of panic and anxiety

1. Primal fear – your entire being recoils and withdraws either from something real and tangible or as a result and from a fear of a/several ‘what if’

2. Avoidance – too afraid to move far – fear still of the ‘what if’ and also now the addition of the panic symptoms

3. Multiple fears build and it’s a 24/7 obsession

3. Still fearful but learning to take small steps to widen boundaries and repeat

4. Building confidence and doing well

5. Sudden blip and feels all is crashing down again and is a return to steps 1 or 2 .

6 .The push back – quickly get back to step 4 .

Here I think a ding ding needs to come on the scene. Whilst analysing to death one day why I had had a sudden out of the blue blip after weeks of being so good it occurred to me that all this had totally nothing to do with where I was or what I was doing – it was all about what I carried around with me 24/7 – our memory and predictive nature.

When out and about I already knew that some blips were a direct result of seeing somewhere that had been a bad experience previously and were caused by these sorts of triggers. I managed these trigger scenarios by being prepared and ready with rescue remedy, JFDI, distraction, positive thinking etc .

The much more difficult ones were those without a tangible trigger and that caught me unaware. I finally figured out that these were caused by memory or a previous prediction just slipping in a sliver of an image of me feeling afraid or scared or faint or dizzy and in derealization and disorientated . This would be enough for my subconscious to clasp onto that image for enough seconds to associate with it - even in applying it to a new scenario and imagining how it felt - even in a previous futuristic thinking session that felt very real and start to replicate it.

An example: I go to one unit which is on the 9th floor. I am not afraid of heights. When I was just back at work I went there and was struggling so went over to the window for extra air – A thought came to me about possibly jumping out as it wasn’t restricted lock – immediately I froze in fear, went instantly dizzy and sick, had a good panic and just had to leave. As the months and years passed I still dreaded going there and whilst I could go in- stay the day and get the job done it didn’t take much to allow dizziness to set in . Slowly it got easier and is now fine there. However , I went up a cultural building whilst away on holiday many many months later and was wondering happily around taking pictures and dizziness hit with no warning. It took me unawares and although it didn’t bother me and it passed very quickly it took me longer to figure out why …….. the noise of seagulls had reminded me of my unit and the rest of the fleeting memory pattern including the height thing was pure association and memory induced .

When we think briefly about any scenario real or imagined– immediately we attach an emotional glow to it – I was happy , I was upset , I felt fine , I was bored, I felt guilty, I was scared . I felt Ok. Memory remembers and dredges it up.

7. This then allowed me to move over and accept these blips and deal with them with thought/memory replacements without attaching a huge hiatus to them. It was almost tougher than the earlier steps though – and intermittently caused me great angst.

8. This was now about stopping associating every sign of stress to predict panic or even anxiety but learn to turn down the dial of reaction to one of - just stress or nervousness . No sign of panic – no cause for panic – ok to feel stressed.
And repeat ad nauseum ………….


Sorry if I’ve rambled on now !!

Does that address any of your queries ?




Meg
www.overcominganxiety.co.uk

You cannot conquer fear until you have learned what it is you're afraid of. The enemy is ignorance. Vivian Vance

[mico]

Hi Sal

A lot of truth in what you're saying there, thanks for the reply, and I hope you are doing well.

Meg, you always seem to have solutions for everybody, I don't know where you get them all from, do you own a big book of anxiety solutions or something? What you're saying does make a lot of sense, and I know these ideas have crossed my mind before, but much of the time these are just fleeting thoughts which I soon forget about, so it's good to be able to see them written down, it helps a lot. At the very least it's given me something to think about, it makes me more positive if I know I have something to work on. Thanks.

mico

[Meg]

Hi Mico,

I don't ever claim to have the solution to any issues but I was dancing personally with panic and anxiety for a long time and managed to overcome it with home made therapy.

Whilst writing the CD set in the last year I did stacks of reading and research and then did loads of rewrites as I didn't want to end up with a pretty set of waffle as I made the mistake of buying a set of that years ago and was highly disappointed.

I aim to provide suggestions, options and pointers that help people along in their journeys to recovery. Plus I have worked in healthcare for many years which helps enormously.

When you've thought about it further I'd be very interested in your views either on here or by email.

Take care







Meg
www.overcominganxiety.co.uk

You cannot conquer fear until you have learned what it is you're afraid of. The enemy is ignorance. Vivian Vance

[mico]

Hi Meg

I think the title of this thread says it all really. And even after thinking about it a little (actually I've been thinking far too much for years [:P]) I'm admittedly still a little confused. But I have been thinking and I've came to a few logical conclusions.

Firstly, you may have noticed from my posts (I may well be going off topic from this one just a little, but it does have some relevance) that I've been suffering from a large dose of no motivation. Which is getting me really frustrated lately. But this is also contributing to the topic of this post just, I think, by all the confusion that is going through my head with this lack of motivation. Sometimes it's hard to understand why I neglect to do things that will make me feel better. What I'm trying to say though, is that this one topic is not compeltely straight forward (although, when are things straight forward? ) and is clouded by other issues, such as this one, which is a biggie at the mo. But I've decided I need to set some goals and have something to look forward to, something to get out of bed for - which I arleady have, but I need to focus on doing these things more. Hard to describe, but I guess officially labelling them as 'goals' is one way of putting it. I still need to put it to the test yet, but I'm feeling a little more positive about it.

As for the 'memory' thing...

I think you're completely right. Ok, so not all my problems are down to that, as well as my lack of motivation, I still do have the old 'oh, I'm not going there, much to difficult/scary' thoughts and so on, but keeping on the subject of this topic, yes, it's a contributing factor. I think I said somewhere in here about having a relaxing day, then having attacks come out of nowhere. Sometimes (when I motivate myself ), I sit down, and I relax, whichever way I find best at the time. And during that time, it can sometimes be quite bizzare some of the old thoughts that pop up, stuff that you haven't remembered for years, and these can quite easily be the days that I experience added anxiety. Although, it has to be said, sometimes I over do the whole relaxing thing, once I get into it, which I do understand that the phrase 'you can get too much of a good thing' also applies to relaxation - which incidentally, if you know where there is any info, or research done in this area I would appreciate you letting me know. And yes, after thinking about it, I do believe that you are right that this can also take place in general everyday life, triggers from certain things/places, hearing certain noises, smelling various scents, along with other really subtle forms. And after all, I have 8 years worth of bad memories to trigger off my anxiety at any time. It all makes perfect sense really.

Not sure if any of this helps you, but that pretty much sums up my conlusions at the mo.

mico