Hi Guys,
I thought about this day a lot over the years and I can finally tell you Ive recovered from anxiety.
Im writing on here because I know alot of people wont have followed me to my new blog and thats ok!
I want you to know that being anxiety free is possible, and Id know because that is me today.
Over the years I read some truly harrowing stories online of people who had suffered with anxiety for 20+ years, and worried Id be one of them. Today I can safely say that is not the case.
How did I get here?
Knowledge is Power
I read a few fantastic books: Anxious by Joseph LeDoux, 'Rewire Your Anxious Brain: How to Use the Neuroscience of Fear to End Anxiety, Panic, and Worry' by Catherine Pittman and 'The Power of Now' by Eckhart Tolle and 'At Last a Life' by Paul David (A sufferer of anxiety of 10 years)
Im not endorsing anyone, Im just telling you that they were useful and I'll attempt to explain why.
Anxiety is caused by stress. You are not going mental or do you have any physical illness that is threatening your life. Chances are you've been down these routes and professionals have told you the same thing. Joseph LeDoux and Catherine Pittman describe the processes in the brain that underpin, cause and add to anxiety. In laymans terms you either worry (which causes a thoughts-feeling-behaviour cycle usually "Oh no the boss wants to speak to me" - feels dread and anxiety - panic attack) or you are exposed to some anxiety provoking situation that has been etched into your mind by emotional memory and therefore everytime you encounter it you panic so you start to avoid it.
To beat this: stop worrying. Yes that is just it. Worry never changes anything, it just makes you worse. You may have positive beliefs that underpin worry "It helps me plan, it helps me cope" Do you have some? Write them down - they are keeping you unhappy.
A few months ago my dog was attacked by another dog. The other dog had latched onto my dogs face, and although im a massive animal lover there was no way to free my dog without physically kicking the other off. Eventually I had to put my hand inside the other dogs mouth so it would bite me rather than my dog. This was reckless but I felt like my dogs life was in danger so..what the hell. It broke my finger, but my dog escaped relatively injury free. I coped fine without having to plan for this.
You do not need to worry about anything, because you have the skills and the inbuilt amygdala reflexes to cope with whatever comes your way.
If you step out into the road and a car comes along, your body automatically jumps back. You do not need to think, and if you did the chances are you would have been hit by a car by the time you'd thought about what you had to do.
Trust your body, it is the product of thousands of years of survival. It doesnt need any interference from your mind in a scary situation, the mind just makes it worse.
Accept you'll feel anxious for a little while Your 'illness' is the fact you are trying to supress an emotion that cannot ever be removed from your experience. Do you spend hours trying to get rid of happiness? Is that even possible? No.
"But anxiety is awful" I hear you say. Yes it is, but it will pass. The fact you are labelling it and paying attention to it is what is making it worse. You've been so over stressed worrying about your panic attacks, or worrying about worrying that it will take time to subside. You've formed a habit like smoking, that will niggle at you for a time. You DO NOT have to do anything to make it go away, just go about your life and it will die down.
When I read this in Paul David's book I was dismayed. All of the google searches, books, forums Id been on and the answer was do nothing?
It really is.
Id literally carved a life out of finding an answer to anxiety, and the answer was leave it alone.
Quit the forums, stop diagnosing yourself with other mental or physical illnesses and stop avoiding your life.
The 6 hour rule This is a rule Id discovered when reading Joseph LeDouxs work and will provide you with some scientific reassurance that anxiety will die down if you expose yourself to anxiety provoking situations. After conditiong, rats would exhibit a fear response at the sound of a tone (they'd be electricuted every time theyd heard the sound previously) The rats were then in the situation as you or previously me. The tone played - they became scared e.g You go into a supermarket - you become frightened. To counteract this the rats were played a tone without an electric shock, and learnt that nothing bad would happen. This is extinction/exposure.
HOWEVER
Sometimes a little while later when the rats were played the tone, they could again become scared. This is because the brain needs the rat to survive and will 'protect' it by creating fear in a situation it has previously been injured/frightened, even though it had also learnt there was nothing to be frightened of. The same can apply to human beings. It would rather be safe than sorry.
This happened to me. I went through CBT, was 'cured' could travel everywhere and then when I encountered my ex partner again, the anxiety returned. I lost faith in exposure.
LeDoux pulled something out of his sleeve, by accident. Sometimes the scared rats, would be put through exposure twice. This means they'd hear the tone and not be electricuted, then hear the tone and not be electricuted again. If this was done within a 6 hour period, the anxiety about the tone never returned.
Apply this to your own gradual exposure. Go to the supermarket - your anxiety will go up, then go down when you stay in the situation. Return to the supermarket within 6 hours and do the same thing again. fear - gone
You are not a rat - and this is a bonus.
LeDouxs research is amazing but he fails to realise that we are not rats. Even if we are conditioned to fear something, we go through exposure that shows us nothing will happen and THEN still feel fear sometimes, we still have conscious choice.
We can choose to stay in the situation and put our faith in the fact that yes it is scary, but I also have an experience where nothing happened too.
Intrusive thoughts:
These were single handedly the worst symtom I experienced. At the height of my anxiety Id think awful things like "What if I accidentally hurt someone when I panic?" They were very distressing. Dr Seif has some fantastic resources on them. Understand that you are not your thoughts. Everyone has weird thoughts, but people with anxiety just dont pay attention to them and thats exactly the approach you should take. The 'Power of Now' showed me that I am not my mind. It is the product of the experiences, people and life I have had and I can observe it without taking it personally.
Understand you're not mental, strange or a bad person and you can safely ignore these thoughts.
Find the cause
The biggest thing that helped me to recover - realising I was the victim of domestic violence. When I wrote this blog (2011 onwards) I was living with my partner and never disclosed that he was abusing me physically and mentally. Its difficult to open your eyes to how awful someone is treating you; Id exaggerate how fantastic he was, any little thing he did would be the best thing in the world because I knew how badly things could be. Recently I realised that he had actually caused my anxiety problem in the beginning. This was the beginning of the end of my worry cycle. No more google searches, forums, book reading searching for this miraculous 'anxiety secret' - I had it, and it was him. Realising he had caused me stress and emotional turmoil took the mystery and unknown out of it. It also took the shame away.
Maybe you have not been abused, maybe you took too much on at work, or had family problems, a divorce, bad effects from drug taking. Whatever it is, there will be something.
STRESS
We've all heard eat right, excercise yaggedy yah - but actually do those things. If you're contending with low blood sugar you're bringing on an anxiety attack without even stepping out of the door. If you have a stressful job - start 5 a side football, running or something as small as walking the dog in the evening.
Its all well and good taking on your life again, but don't be your own down fall after all of this effort.
Start some relaxation. I don't care if you think you don't have time, or its 'weird'. You'd rather meditate to Youtube and have your life back than sit in and miss out on your life. The Honest Guys on Youtube are great.
If someone is causing you stress, cut them out of your life. Look at the impact it has had on you, you do not need this. If you can't cut them out, limit your time with them. If theyre a work colleague, try and change seats, see if you can change shifts or if they're bullying you now is the time to do something about it.
Do more of the things you enjoy - at first its hard facing your fears but if theres something good at the end of it you're more likely to go, and its fun. You're creating your new life, the way you want it to be. Nothing is off limits now.
To summarise:
The strangest and most profound thing I have taken from this journey, is that I never had a problem at all. The problem was that I thought I had a problem. In reality I was trying to catch smoke.
Love, light and strength to all of you. This blog gets so many visitors and I really hope you all read this and apply it to your life. You do not have anxiety, you just think you do and you are capable of everything you want to achieve.
When you leave this post, I want you to leave your anxiety obsession here too. Don't waste anymore of your precious life on this subject,
life begins now.
I thought about this day a lot over the years and I can finally tell you Ive recovered from anxiety.
Im writing on here because I know alot of people wont have followed me to my new blog and thats ok!
I want you to know that being anxiety free is possible, and Id know because that is me today.
Over the years I read some truly harrowing stories online of people who had suffered with anxiety for 20+ years, and worried Id be one of them. Today I can safely say that is not the case.
How did I get here?
Knowledge is Power
I read a few fantastic books: Anxious by Joseph LeDoux, 'Rewire Your Anxious Brain: How to Use the Neuroscience of Fear to End Anxiety, Panic, and Worry' by Catherine Pittman and 'The Power of Now' by Eckhart Tolle and 'At Last a Life' by Paul David (A sufferer of anxiety of 10 years)
Im not endorsing anyone, Im just telling you that they were useful and I'll attempt to explain why.
Anxiety is caused by stress. You are not going mental or do you have any physical illness that is threatening your life. Chances are you've been down these routes and professionals have told you the same thing. Joseph LeDoux and Catherine Pittman describe the processes in the brain that underpin, cause and add to anxiety. In laymans terms you either worry (which causes a thoughts-feeling-behaviour cycle usually "Oh no the boss wants to speak to me" - feels dread and anxiety - panic attack) or you are exposed to some anxiety provoking situation that has been etched into your mind by emotional memory and therefore everytime you encounter it you panic so you start to avoid it.
To beat this: stop worrying. Yes that is just it. Worry never changes anything, it just makes you worse. You may have positive beliefs that underpin worry "It helps me plan, it helps me cope" Do you have some? Write them down - they are keeping you unhappy.
A few months ago my dog was attacked by another dog. The other dog had latched onto my dogs face, and although im a massive animal lover there was no way to free my dog without physically kicking the other off. Eventually I had to put my hand inside the other dogs mouth so it would bite me rather than my dog. This was reckless but I felt like my dogs life was in danger so..what the hell. It broke my finger, but my dog escaped relatively injury free. I coped fine without having to plan for this.
You do not need to worry about anything, because you have the skills and the inbuilt amygdala reflexes to cope with whatever comes your way.
If you step out into the road and a car comes along, your body automatically jumps back. You do not need to think, and if you did the chances are you would have been hit by a car by the time you'd thought about what you had to do.
Trust your body, it is the product of thousands of years of survival. It doesnt need any interference from your mind in a scary situation, the mind just makes it worse.
Accept you'll feel anxious for a little while Your 'illness' is the fact you are trying to supress an emotion that cannot ever be removed from your experience. Do you spend hours trying to get rid of happiness? Is that even possible? No.
"But anxiety is awful" I hear you say. Yes it is, but it will pass. The fact you are labelling it and paying attention to it is what is making it worse. You've been so over stressed worrying about your panic attacks, or worrying about worrying that it will take time to subside. You've formed a habit like smoking, that will niggle at you for a time. You DO NOT have to do anything to make it go away, just go about your life and it will die down.
When I read this in Paul David's book I was dismayed. All of the google searches, books, forums Id been on and the answer was do nothing?
It really is.
Id literally carved a life out of finding an answer to anxiety, and the answer was leave it alone.
Quit the forums, stop diagnosing yourself with other mental or physical illnesses and stop avoiding your life.
The 6 hour rule This is a rule Id discovered when reading Joseph LeDouxs work and will provide you with some scientific reassurance that anxiety will die down if you expose yourself to anxiety provoking situations. After conditiong, rats would exhibit a fear response at the sound of a tone (they'd be electricuted every time theyd heard the sound previously) The rats were then in the situation as you or previously me. The tone played - they became scared e.g You go into a supermarket - you become frightened. To counteract this the rats were played a tone without an electric shock, and learnt that nothing bad would happen. This is extinction/exposure.
HOWEVER
Sometimes a little while later when the rats were played the tone, they could again become scared. This is because the brain needs the rat to survive and will 'protect' it by creating fear in a situation it has previously been injured/frightened, even though it had also learnt there was nothing to be frightened of. The same can apply to human beings. It would rather be safe than sorry.
This happened to me. I went through CBT, was 'cured' could travel everywhere and then when I encountered my ex partner again, the anxiety returned. I lost faith in exposure.
LeDoux pulled something out of his sleeve, by accident. Sometimes the scared rats, would be put through exposure twice. This means they'd hear the tone and not be electricuted, then hear the tone and not be electricuted again. If this was done within a 6 hour period, the anxiety about the tone never returned.
Apply this to your own gradual exposure. Go to the supermarket - your anxiety will go up, then go down when you stay in the situation. Return to the supermarket within 6 hours and do the same thing again. fear - gone
You are not a rat - and this is a bonus.
LeDouxs research is amazing but he fails to realise that we are not rats. Even if we are conditioned to fear something, we go through exposure that shows us nothing will happen and THEN still feel fear sometimes, we still have conscious choice.
We can choose to stay in the situation and put our faith in the fact that yes it is scary, but I also have an experience where nothing happened too.
Intrusive thoughts:
These were single handedly the worst symtom I experienced. At the height of my anxiety Id think awful things like "What if I accidentally hurt someone when I panic?" They were very distressing. Dr Seif has some fantastic resources on them. Understand that you are not your thoughts. Everyone has weird thoughts, but people with anxiety just dont pay attention to them and thats exactly the approach you should take. The 'Power of Now' showed me that I am not my mind. It is the product of the experiences, people and life I have had and I can observe it without taking it personally.
Understand you're not mental, strange or a bad person and you can safely ignore these thoughts.
Find the cause
The biggest thing that helped me to recover - realising I was the victim of domestic violence. When I wrote this blog (2011 onwards) I was living with my partner and never disclosed that he was abusing me physically and mentally. Its difficult to open your eyes to how awful someone is treating you; Id exaggerate how fantastic he was, any little thing he did would be the best thing in the world because I knew how badly things could be. Recently I realised that he had actually caused my anxiety problem in the beginning. This was the beginning of the end of my worry cycle. No more google searches, forums, book reading searching for this miraculous 'anxiety secret' - I had it, and it was him. Realising he had caused me stress and emotional turmoil took the mystery and unknown out of it. It also took the shame away.
Maybe you have not been abused, maybe you took too much on at work, or had family problems, a divorce, bad effects from drug taking. Whatever it is, there will be something.
STRESS
We've all heard eat right, excercise yaggedy yah - but actually do those things. If you're contending with low blood sugar you're bringing on an anxiety attack without even stepping out of the door. If you have a stressful job - start 5 a side football, running or something as small as walking the dog in the evening.
Its all well and good taking on your life again, but don't be your own down fall after all of this effort.
Start some relaxation. I don't care if you think you don't have time, or its 'weird'. You'd rather meditate to Youtube and have your life back than sit in and miss out on your life. The Honest Guys on Youtube are great.
If someone is causing you stress, cut them out of your life. Look at the impact it has had on you, you do not need this. If you can't cut them out, limit your time with them. If theyre a work colleague, try and change seats, see if you can change shifts or if they're bullying you now is the time to do something about it.
Do more of the things you enjoy - at first its hard facing your fears but if theres something good at the end of it you're more likely to go, and its fun. You're creating your new life, the way you want it to be. Nothing is off limits now.
To summarise:
- Anxiety is a normal emotion and it is OK that you feel it
- Leave it alone
- You are not in danger and it cannot make you go crazy
- Worrying is a pointless and destructive habit - stop it. Start with worry postponement if needed.
- Educate yourself on panic attacks - they are safe
- Stop using Google, anxiety forums or obsessing over anxiety
- Develop the attitude that you are going to get on with your life regardless of what you feel
- Read the 3 books mentioned above if needed
- Apply the 6 hour rule to anxiety provoking situations
- Manage stress: eat well, exercise & do fun things
- Get on with your life, you deserve it
- Believe that people recover from anxiety, I did.
The strangest and most profound thing I have taken from this journey, is that I never had a problem at all. The problem was that I thought I had a problem. In reality I was trying to catch smoke.
Love, light and strength to all of you. This blog gets so many visitors and I really hope you all read this and apply it to your life. You do not have anxiety, you just think you do and you are capable of everything you want to achieve.
When you leave this post, I want you to leave your anxiety obsession here too. Don't waste anymore of your precious life on this subject,
life begins now.
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