Changing the way you think about it

[JFlower]

I've been ok today but over the past hour I've started having an anxiety attack. Think it's because I am obsessing over starting medication tomorrow but whatever it is it has me sobbing.

How do you start changing the way you think about anxiety? How do you stop hating it/wishing you'd never experienced this?

I've tried therapy, I've tried (and accepted) that this is part of me but I cannot change the hating it thing. I need to start changing how I think about both the anxiety but I have no idea where to start

[JFlower]

Feeling totally antsy, need to stop thinking about it but can't. I HATE this, how can I not? It's controlling my life and making it so hard to deal with. I NEED to enjoy things again, my daughter deserves that

[Hazel B]

Have you tried distraction? e.g. crafts/listening to music/going for a walk/gardening/ironing etc? Some people on the site find it helps.
Remember, the anxiety will not kill you, it's your mind playing tricks. It's an awful battle, have you got any meds or know how to do the deep breathing from your tummy?
Sending support and understanding.

[jill]

Hi JFlower

I am soo sorry to hear you struggles at the mo, my heart goes out to you

IT IS DANE hard to understand anxiety.

Since finding this great site, many moons ago, I am panic, high anxiety free. I don't get NO anxiety at all, but manege the anxiety I get. Even for me, this far ahead, when the anxiety hits, I know full well, that my mind IS NOT in the right place, I know now, IF or when it happens I NEED to go into, the knowledge this great site has helped me gain. I owe this site a lot.

I have not long come out of, one of my lowest time,s, in a long time. It baffled me for awhile, even got a little scared, but never the less, still came through the other side and feeling fine now.

I do feel, for ME, what I find is triggering the anxiety, is a bad mix, Mmm well that's what I call it.

\when I was acute with panic, high levels of anxiety, I felt stuck on the roundabout of it all, fear of symptoms fear of panic, fear of fear, tired of being tired and fearful this would never go away, not understanding anything about panic, anxiety how my mind works not even understand or knowing myself. NOW however, I feel its a bad mix of thought pattens that trigger the anxiety and the FACTS I have given myself over time says to me, IT DOES PASS, helps it go away. Explaining where mine came from and comes from now, is a long story, will not go into that, Mmm, somtimes it not even clear, BUT, I don't care, I know dane well how bad it CAN get and I an happy with my recovery.

I WISH I could give you the answers you so dearly need, to say " just do this, just do that" and you will be all better, I will not lie to you hun, as I think you already know, its not that simple, its a mine field. We all may have similar or same symptoms, but what brings us to anxiety and whats keeping it there can be different for us all.

There is a saying, baby steps, this goes with thought pattens too, little changes in the way we think over time, goes along way.

***How do you start changing the way you think about anxiety? How do you stop hating it/wishing you'd never experienced this?***

This is dame hard hun, BUT IT CAN BE DONE, with baby steps AND YOU CAN DO IT, believe you can and your mind WILL find ways to do it.

Eccepting what we have is part of recovery, but also its how we eccept it too, we can hate it, THATS OK, but if we beat ourselves up about hating it, this IS NOT going to help, it will feed your anxiety, SO, Hunny, ITS OK to hate it, blimey, YOU ARE NEVER going to like having anxiety, NO ONE would, ALLOW yourself the hate, even get angry at anxiety. I found it helped if I called my anxiety Mrs anxiety, used statments to myself on many, many occations eg "she's a pain in the ass" ohh and some others I can't mention on hear the filter would not let me say swear words LOL

Also what I found helped me move forward a little was to ALLOW Mrs anxiety to be there, give her GOOD reason for being there, one you could use is the fact you are stuck on a roundabout with her and AT THE MOMENT you are finding it hard to get off, BUT, with alot of hard work, time and the right support, when you have gained more knowledge, YOU WILL help her pack her bags and leave, even if it means throwing her out bits at a time LOL

I do use alot of reasuring stantment,s, eg, Mrs anxiety can come with me, BUT, YOU ARE NOT going to spiol my day, your going to get board and dissapear.

The mind IS a powerfull, I used to say to myself, it got me into this mess and it CAN also get me out of it too.


I don't know about you, but when I was acute I wanted it GONE, and I wanted it gone NOW. I know you may find this hard to understand but there are times when it is NOT there, but what happens as soon as you think about it, ITS THERE and you never even noticed it wasn't , Mmm, does that make any sense ? ( I do find it hard to enplane things when I am writing it down )

You said yourself today you felt ok, even feeling just OK, IT GREAT, its a step forward, Mmm but what happens then when Mrs anxiety arrives we notice MORE the fact we feel like sh*t and the feeling of being ok, just goes out the window. SO, when the sh*t feeling come on, we have to tried dame hard to eccept, remind ourselfs its not this bad all the time and then, go on and distract ourselves from how we feel, ( distracton works ) BUT, please, DON'T go into distraction straight away...

Anxiety is the natral bodys warning system that there is something wrong, BUT, for people like us, its a fales alarm, if we just take no notice of it it will keep trying to warn us there is something wrong, SO, we eccept, give it GOOD reason for it being there, use reasuring statments, then and only then, go and distact yourself.

**obsessing over starting medication tomorrow but whatever it is it has me sobbing.**

Meds are a good way of taking the anxiety down, SO, it gives your mind a rest from all the anxiety and you can work even better on your thought pattens. I myself would have taken ANYTHING to make it all go away, it fact I DID, I was abroad, in spain and GOD only knows what they give me, BUT I TOOK IT, till I came back and my own gp, did'nt even know the meds I was on so she changed them, Ohhh even paniced over that

PLEASE allow yourself to cry hun, I call anxiety an emotional disorder, because thats what it does, messes about with are emotional, no matter what the emotion is, it sends them into overdrive.

I an sorry, I have gone on abit, LOL not sure if this has made any sense to you. I do know what your going through, BUT, note the word GOING THROUGH, YOU WILL come out the other side, with alot of hard work, time and the right support.

I hope this has been of some help,

TAKE CARE

LOVE JILL XXX

[paula lynne]

Wow Jill!....ditto! xxxxx

[JFlower]

Oh gosh, thank you for your responses

This site is amazing, I cannot believe that there are people who actually understand this!

I was going to take a diazepam but decided against it as I (obviously) worry about interactions since I'm starting the citalopram tomorrow. I called my parents, had a chamomile tea and put my daughter to bed. Still feeling it but not as strongly as I was which is a relief. I know I wont sleep tonight though.

I am going to start calling it Mrs Anxiety - I do remember a therapist telling me to speak to my anxiety and I was too scared too (big surprise).

Thank you all so much.

[jill]

Hi JFlower

Ohhh, I must agree, this site is truly A GREAT place to be

I just wanted to add another tip, it IS dame hard to change the way we think, but another way of thinking about it is this....

The comments you said in your reply....

**I know I wont sleep tonight though.**

**put my daughter to bed**

Both these reminded me of something....

The first comment, is to know and understand, that if we say we wont, we never will, BUT, if we say we CAN at some point we WILL. Hun, instead of thinking, I KNOW I wont sleep, PLEASE hun, try and change this statement, to a more reassuring one.

Talk to yourself and reassure yourself like you would do with your daughter, if your daughter found it hard sleeping you would not say to her the next night, " ohhhh there is NO WAY your going to sleep tonight," WOULD YOU? NO, you would reassure her, let her read a nice book before sleeping or read to her, you would DO something to take her mind of things, SO, talk to yourself like you where reassuring someone you love, BE KIND to yourself.

The thing is when acute with anxiety, we tend to beat ourselves up with thoughts all the time, changing little thought pattens helps us move on a little.

IT IS GREAT that your not feeling it as strongly, this means your anxiety levels are dropping.

I was told to umber my panic,anxiety

10 being full blown panic, my worse
O feeling normal
and anything in between levels of anxiety.

The lower the number the lower the anxiety, the higher the number the higher the anxiety.

By doing this it helped me understand that it DID go up and down and over time, I would give some symptoms a lesser number, this helped because it helped ME put a lesser importance on it.

The FACT is, the more importance you put on anxiety the stronger it gets, the less importance you put on it, over time, it goes.

Mmm, just a tip

Hope this helps

YOU TAKE CARE

LOVE JILLXX