Anxiety is a symptom

[guitarpants]

Bill, I'm serious by the way. You should write a book. You are able to empathize and relate to anxiety sufferers. Most psychologists, psychiatrists, and doctors can't even begin to do that. If you combined alone what you've posted on this forum, refined and compiled it, I'm sure you could get published somewhere.

[Ronny]

Hi BillAnother great post.I am going to print your posts,I think I will save on paying my Psychologist,who tells me the same things you write about.I wish I could meet you in person and tell you what a lovely,kind and thoughtfull man you are.You don,t know it ,but you are helping me greatly.....THANK YOU.xxx
Rhonda xx

[MOJO]

Hello Bill,
I just wanted to say that I agree wholehartedly with Rhonda. Your post, as always, was brilliant. You just "get" the whole anxiety thing so well! You helped me so much in the past when I was at my worst. I really miss your posts when you have a quiet spell!

I hope you are doing ok yourself and you have maybe found some help for your situation also hoping that your mum is still doing alright at the moment.
Your help to people on NMP is so much appreciated but always remember that we are here for you too should you need us.
Take care. Judy.x

[Veronica H]

Thanks Bill.

Veronicax

[NotResponding]

This is a great post very clear and easily read. Alot of people with anxiety (I assume) are stuck in this terrible kind of loop that gets stronger every time a loop is complete (if that makes sense)...And Ive considered that; facing past traumas will relieve the fear, but unfortunately a good councillor seems hard to come by.
Excellent post, very helpful

[Bill]

NinjaXero,

I did read your earlier post but I wasn't sure what to say. I just feel I'm a sufferer like everyone else on here but I guess that on the whole I've learnt how to deal with anxiety. In a way it's like my loyal companion...always there but I just have to tell it to shut up sometimes!

I think books should be left to professionals. I've never studied the subject, just always lived with it and I know I don't know everything but my hope is that if I can share something that helps someone else to find their smiles again then I'm happy too!

I know what you mean about professionals though. In my experience, I've often found they know what to say but because they've never experienced anxiety they can't empathise or understand as a fellow sufferer would. It's the same for most conditions...you have to experience them to truly understand how it makes others feel and I always think that to treat an anxiety sufferer, they must have faith in what you're saying because any doubt creates anxiety so the therapy will never work.

Judy,

It was My pleasure to do what I could to help you and although I'm quiet at times, it doesn't normally mean I've gone anywhere so you or anyone else for that matter only need shout and I'll reply with my thoughts.

Ronny,

I'm just glad to be of help. You and anyone else are always most welcome to print off any of my posts. You may find some of the old threads I've posted might help you too. Like I say though, I'm not a professional so I may not always be right but there might be something in there you can relate with!

I've never paid for any help but I must admit we are lucky here to have the NHS which enabled me to visit counsellors, psychologists etc for the help I needed. I did find though that the only person who I felt Really helped me was a psychologist I visited when I went through my worst phase. He explained to me the reasons why my anxiety became so bad but also pointed out the options I had to ease my stresses. However, things did become much worse after that before they gradually got better and if I'm honest I'd have to say things only did get better because I decided if I didn't help myself I was just going to sink. Maybe the benefit of that though is when you pull yourself out of a deep hole you're then able to share your experiences with others in the hope you can help them too.

NotResponding,

I've always found counsellors frustrating too despite people often saying to me I should become one!..No way! I could never remain objective and I hurt to easily because I feel others pain too much. The thing I've found about counsellors is that they never give you answers because I think their job is to help you find the answers yourself by getting you to open up and make you think for yourself. I think I can understand the approach and the reasons why though. One thing to remember about counselling therapy is that it can take a Long time before you notice any changes in yourself. It's often so gradual that others around you will notice the improvements before yourself and then suddenly you'll look back and think "Oh yeah...I have changed haven't I" and it'll come as a surprise.

I think in our minds we have lots of closed doors we just don't want to open because what's inside hurts too much to think about. Counsellors get you to open these doors one by one which is why sufferers often feel worse when counselling begins. Just like open wounds, they have to be aired to allow healing but they often sting alot at first so you have to give the treatment time before you see the benefits.

One little thing is often we have behaviours that we don't think anything about but there's often an underlying reason behind them that we're unaware of. For instance, you may straighten your curtains every day so that they're perfectly in line. You think nothing of it because it's become a habit. However, a counsellor might pick up on it and raise the question "Why?". You then think about it and say that if they were out of line, it would be a bad refection on yourself and neighbours might think you're a bad mother because if you can't keep control of your curtains, you might not be in control of yourself and your family........and then it comes down to that word "control". Trying to control of you, your life and everything around you but trying to control things beyond your control then creates anxiety so that you then find that straightening curtains is just the tip of the iceberg because you then discover other habits which are similar symptoms of perfectionism and attempts of control to keep you and those around you safe.

We always feel the need to stay safe which means walking a rigid path to stay in control because we fear that if we veer of our path we'll lose control of ourselves. We have a need to feel secure which means everything must be in its place which is part of our perfectionism trait. The problem with keeping such a rigid path is that it creates tension and stress because of our fear of moving off it or by making mistakes so we try to avoid things that we feel threaten our safety such as avoiding going out and being exact.

Perfectionism creates alot of tension so that when we feel something isn't exactly right, we start to worry about it due to our lack of confidence and this then leads to anxiety which then surfaces in the form of OCD. Life though simply can't be controlled so that even when we try to be exact or avoid going out, anxiety remains with us indoors. We invite fear to reside with us and then we feel trapped causing more stress and anxiety.

To learn to live with anxiety, we have to allow ourselves to release our grip on trying to control everything. Allow yourself to not be exact when it doesn't really matter. Allow yourself to walk off your safe path by allowing yourself to experience the things that frighten you and not try to avoid them. Be more carefree and learn to accept life for what it is. Bad things happen but so do good things. It's just life. We can do our best to keep safe but there's no need to be perfect in everything we do.

When people say to learn to relax, I feel it also means learning a relaxed approach to life in everything we do and everything we encounter hence acceptance and not trying to control everything.

Anyway, just a few more thoughts.

I forgot to say Thank You Veronica! x

[Lauren Chambers]

Hey, this is such a great post, I enjoyed reading it! Thanks for taking the time to write it. I have this quote that I really like "LIKE PAIN, FEAR CAN BE CONTROLLED"
I also love this poster below:

Lauren x

[hezyah88]

excellent post xx

[Bill]

"LIKE PAIN, FEAR CAN BE CONTROLLED"


Lauren,

Something to consider regarding your quote...it's that word "control" again. There is a right way and a wrong way to tackle fear. If we try to control our fear by trying to resist and push the anxious feelings away, we create tension in our body making the symtoms worse. As you rightly say in your poster, the right way is to keep calm and carry on by focusing on what you're doing rather than the anxious symptoms you're feeling. Your fear is then controlled because you don't allow yourself to dwell on it.

Not long ago I was out going around the shops and without warning I suddenly came over feeling anxious. Immediately my mind was trained on my feelings as an instinctive reaction wondering where they came from. My mind then triggered into thinking how long I needed to stay out and how I would cope, and this worry then made the symptoms feel worse.

I knew though that to stop the feelings was to nip them them in the bud so I did 3 things. Firstly, I focused on my muscles, especially the tummy muscles because when we feel anxious, we tense up and often this results in us holding our tummy muscles in and tight. I made sure I relaxed the muscles by simply releasing them. The second part was then to make sure I relaxed my chest so I could breathe properly to prevent shallow breathing as this induces panic. The third thing I did was to engage in conversation with the shop owner simply by thinking of anything to ask or comment on. This then works as a distraction to stop you thinking about your anxious feelings whilst allowing your body time to relax. After I had done these things, the feelings had passed and for the rest of the time I was out I was fine.

Something else I was thinking about tonight related to 2 of our traits....Sensitivity and Lack of Confidence - How they relate to each other and how they cause anxiety.

We're naturally sensitive people but are we born with a lack of confidence or is it how others treat us who knock our confidence? I think that because we're sensitive in nature, anything bad that is said to us will affect us more than those who are thick skinned. Also I feel that when we're young, if others such as our parents try to be helpful by doing things for us or try to be over-protective, we never get the opportunity to build confidence in our own abilities.

I think that over time we are gradually hit by bad events or comments which as we grow older begin to affect us more than when we were young because as we grow older, we are burdened with more responsibilty. We then have to stand on our own two feet but because of our sensitive nature and events we have endured, this new feeling of responsibility such as raising a family, moving out etc causes more pressure because we no longer have our parents to take the responsibilities for us. Therefore, this added pressure causes alot of stress which when combined with our sensitivity and endured events then causes us our lack of confidence because we don't believe in our own abilities. This then means we worry causing self-doubt and indecision because our safety blanket in the form of our parents is no longer there. Also though, because our self-esteem has been knocked so much due to our sensitivity we then feel worthless because of our inability to make decisions and do things for ourselves.

Another aspect is that I feel we're often born with insecurity so that if we're left alone alot, we can then feel no one loves us which in effect is another trauma because we can feel abandoned and unimportant even if it was not done deliberately because our parents had to work or our brothers and sisters decided to leave home to get on with their own lives. However, because we're sensitive, we will feel these events more than others.

Basically, we are born with certain traits which make us vulnerable and if we're not nurtured correctly in our early life, bad events can then affect us adversely so that combined with our traits we develop anxiety when we are loaded with responsibility which we struggle to cope with due to our lack of confidence.

I was thinking this evening about how you re-build the lost confidence?

If a person suffers a panic attack as a result of too much much stress, the attack can frighten them into feeling they have to stay safe at home. Again, you can see the connection with insecurity, sensitivity and of course lack of confidence.

This person could feel that to re-build their confidence, they have to force themselves to keep going out but when they attempt to, they immediately suffer another attack forcing them back indoors again. The attempt had the reverse effect by destroying their confidence further.

This leads back to the the beginning... "LIKE PAIN, FEAR CAN BE CONTROLLED". If you try to control your fear by resisting causing you to tense up, even before you step outside the door, you're already defeated because you can never re-build confidence if you don't approach fear in the right way first.

As you say, before you step outside the door you have to learn how to "keep calm" so you can "carry on" once you're outside.

I found the best approach is to go out on the spur of the moment without planning because when you know when and where you need to go too much in advance, the mind starts working overdrive worrying about all the "what ifs" causing you to be a nervous wreck before you step out the door and of course then its an ordeal to be endured because for the entire time you're out, you're focusing your attention on your worries, fears and the anxious symptoms they produce.

The key is to Not think about how you're feeling and focus instead on what you're doing.

However, I feel there is more to re-building confidence than just attempting to overcome fears.....

My own feeling is that we have to re-build confidence within us in a more general approach. For instance, if we set ourselves challenges "unconnected" to our fears or anxiety and then achieve those objectives, we then feel better about ourselves and our own abilities. If we repeat this approach in a variety of objectives, our self-esteem and confidence should improve because then we'll feel we can achieve anything we set our minds to which then leads to giving us strength to overcome our fears.

These objectives I think could be simple things such as constructive hobbies producing something with an end result we can see or even decorating, gardening or making things etc.

This is only me thinking outloud but I feel the more we achieve, the more our confidence should build but also these achievements will also help to focus the mind away from anxious feelings. Remember, the more you focus on feelings, the worse they'll feel. Any way you find to forget them, the more they'll decline making you feel more capable.

I just feel that building confidence isn't just about tackling fears. It's also finding ways to make us feel good about ourselves so that feel stronger and more capable which then enables us to cope with the responsibilities of life.

Just some thoughts...right or wrong.

[Pinkangels]

Bill, I do thoroughly enjoy reading your post

I definately agree with your "spur of the moment" decision to do things. I find I overly think things way to much. Its exactly as you said you start building up the doubt and "what ifs"

I have only done it a couple of times.
On one occasion driving down to an animal shelter, out of my town (which is my comfort zone) and having never dared go anywhere previously in case I get lost or run out of petrol (what ifs!) I just got in the car with the kids and done it, and although I have struggled with PA when driving, and did drive about 10 miles out of my way and didnt find the animal shelter! (no sat nav, and my sense of direction is shocking lol) I did it.

I am going to keep using this approach for sure.
Thanks again Bill, keep posting