Yes that is it all right. I think though because of the knowledge we have now we have the potential to be better than we were. We can never go back but we can stride forward with confidence. Normal people don't have this.
It says..to me, that even though you are 'better', perhaps "cured".... and you are the guru for anxiety/panic knowledge..you still get the same old dragons, like all of us here..... once in a while..its just that you know how to use the tools to deal with them....and you acknowledge that this too will pass...thank you for sharing these feelings...it brings a sense of reality to me....
I appreciate this.. because, as you know, for a bit I though being "better" or "cured" meant never having any anxiety or panic again..I now see how that is unrealistic, because even "normal' people share those emotions, they just know how not to blow it out of proportion, which I have finally learnt....its ok for me, if i'm stressed, or something unusual happens, to be a little anxious, as long as i recognize it for what it is and use my coping skills.
so, uncle Davit, my hats off to you tonight....thanks again
I have had my plans messed with and it has caused some anxiety that I let blossom into panic. I did this to myself. Sunny has to go home again and we spent far to much time in my garden. I had planned to spend the last few days doing pleasant things but pulled a muscle I guess tilling. Any way I got all excited thinking the staph infection came back. (same symptoms) Now I am upset because I can hardly walk and we did not get the things done we wanted to. They will have to wait till she comes back. Something to look forward to. It seems too that I still need time. I am not as stable as I would like to be. New things still get me anxious even though I am quite capable of handling them. I went to the hospital and had tests done. (they were due anyway) The results were excellent so it looks like I just overworked. Still I feel bad.
Just a little bump in the road to recovery, it will pass. I guess some of what I am feeling is normal, it is just that after so long with anxiety I just tend to go into panic mode. I will fix that. I have too much to gain to allow myself to go back there. I need to put a few more positive layers on the negative, they are still too accessible.
Loves Trees... so very GOOD to hear of your progress. What you shared about primary and secondary emotions just makes so much sense and is really helpful to keep in mind. Thinking about that has really helped me see how much of my anxiety is being afraid of being afraid. Wow. I'll need to work with it some more.... will try to get that book.... but I look forward to more such posts from you. Thanks so much for sharing this.
yes! I am working with a counselor to do just that. I am learning to get back into my body, i.e. feel what I feel and learn how to manage each feeling as it comes. Letting it just happen and go is one thing I do a lot more now. you are right about the percentages being helpful - sometimes it is only 10% or sometimes it is 80%.
Davit, good to hear from you too. tired from gardening is such a nice kind of tired compared to tired from stressful events...I put a few plants in the ground and am enjoying watching the spring flowers blossom in our neighbourhood.
Just a note to tell you how glad I am that you are progressing. Knowledge is power and understanding is the key to freedom. The program is a good basic but you do have to learn about you so you know what works. Keep reading and learning. And keep posting, your progress means a lot to me.
Busy gardening right now and very tired but not too tired to read every post.
Hi Loves trees: Thinking styles - are you a what if-er? a catastrophic thinker, a worrier, victimized? I think when you have a panic attack and trying to analyze what just happened, it is helpful to remember what physical symptoms you were feeling at the time - what percentage from 10 to 100%. Then what emotion were you feeling - percentage from 10-100%, lastly what thinking style were you using? I find reviewing an attack in this way helps me understand myself better and what areas I would like to work on. That's why it is so important to keep the notes handy. Also the percentages help you to see the strength of the attack. If you are working on getting better in your thought patterns, i.e. stop thinking catastrophic thoughts, you may see that the percentages are starting to go down in that specific area. Good way to keep track.
For example: maybe you had a panic attack in a store. Today maybe you felt the trembles, pounding heart around 70%. Maybe you felt the "fear" at 80% and then the thinking style was "what if". Knowing that you use what if style, which is a negative thinking style, switch it to positive self talk and that would lessen the emotion even more. As your positive thoughts get better, stronger, your symptoms may disappear faster too, so that their percentage would be lessened the more you practice this, the more aware you are of what you experiencing.
Just an idea on how to get to know yourself better.
I have come to understand for myself that inner peace, contentment and happiness are our natural states and that our task is to remove the blocks we carry regarding being content. This has been important for me to learn because when I tried to focus on "getting happy" it didn't really work. Learning how to deal with the fear, lonliness and other negative feelings is like removing plaque buildup. Things feel better when we remove what isn't supposed to be there just like with a dentist cleaning. :)
I am doing the (challenging) work of removing all blocks to my happiness. This involves CBT, DBT and family of origin issues getting healed. For me the CBT helped with understanding my thoughts, DBT is helping me understand my feelings (which are connected to thoughts) and support specific to dealing with the past.
I read a great book about primary and secondary emotions that said that primary emotions are what we feel, secondary emotions are emotions about our emotions. In other words, getting angry at someone and then feeling guilty that we feel anger towards them. It explained that primary emotions are natural, and if we are healthy, they are transient. Secondary emotions are not usually helpful and we can end up in a cycle of feeling bad about feeling bad. This resonated with me. My anxious thoughts were connected to secondary emotions. i.e. feeling bad about feeling bad and then feeling anxious about feeling bad. Now I monitor my thoughts and emotions much better than ever before to see where I am having those issues occur.
How are you these days? Your support and that of everyone here has made such a huge difference to my progress.
The deciduous are just starting to leaf out now and the land is turning green. Would life not be nice if it was like this. Just turning beautiful because it has to with out conscious thought.
Like I said in my last post all you need now is time. You are so much better than you were when I first met you. I'd like to say that I'm impressed but in truth I thought you really wanted to get better enough to put in the work. It is really hard to change a lifetime of thought but you are doing it. And here in lies the problem, it can be on going and take years to get it all, but it is worth it. Learning to love oneself can be hard but once done an inner light shines through brightening the whole world.
I like the parent analogy. It really is taking ourselves by the hand and leading us, some times where we do not want to go for our own good.
