Ashley and Stephen, thanks for caring!
I will indeed try to work on the homework part of the program even though I find it hard when the panic or anxiety "attacks" for me are more or less present the whole day. Just need a reminder to fall back in there, the reminder can even be that I get a feeling wellbeing and that things are fine. But then my nervous system is quick to tell me their not. Remember your worries, anxieties and concerns, and I'm quickly pulled back down into it.
OK, i'll try to give you some examples even though it's hard. Hard to put into words. And hard to throw it out to the world, but I guess it's good training before seeing a therapist.
- My biological father has schizophrenia. He and my mum seperated when was just an infant and his illness dawned on my mother and it made the relationship impossible. I don't have more exact and specific reasons for the separation than that, but it's not superimportant Anyways my father thereafter lived in another city, As far back as I have memories I visited him and my grandparents in the summers. Most of the time he was medicating and was therefor quite well. But looking back at it the relationship beteween him and me has always been quite dysfunctional because of his, depending on the strong medication i take it, inability to show a lot of real/strong emotions. he was always behind a blunt, desentisized filter. We never really spoke too much about the illness of my father with my family (mum and stepfather) i found out quite late that he had this thing called schizophrenia even though I always knew something was not right. Questions like what does you father work with (he doesn't, he's on retired because of some illness) always caused worries and feeling shame and uncertainty.
Later in life when I was an adult we kept in contact but frequent phonecalls were just empty and filled with anxiety for me. Not much being said and no real substance. The contact was withheld more for his sake than mine. Sometimes when he was slipping into illness, maybe from skipping medication, I always felt bad and wanted to end our calls. But I always felt bad then too because there was some sort of silent agreement that if he called he abrubted the call too.
Anyways when I was around 26 he started getting worse and therefore acting strangely, irrationally and sometimes really rudely and there could be 15 phonecalls nighttime when I was getting up to work the next day. Or 15 really messed up voice messages. I ended up being quite abrubt and telling him I wanted no contact when he was behaving like this. Of course I his inability to realize his own illness whilst being in it. But it hurt me to be constantly reminded.
Well, when I some time after this I moved I intentionally did not give him my new number and adress. It was too much of a distress for me, this contact with him, now at age 30 I haven't talked to him since then. Even though I realize I did the right thing to cut contact at that point I now have a lot of guilt and shame for doing this. even though according to me, we never had a proper father/son-relationship I now feel bad since it's probably some blood duty of mine to keep in touch. I might be the only thing in his life that gives comfort, who knows. But I can't do it when the stress and anxiety of it outweighs what I get out of it. This is is a constant but strong guilt and shame of mine.
Another one that came recently is of another nature. Like I said I'm 30 now. At 15 I was at party. One of the first with alcohol involved. There were fumbling first kisses, everything was fun and new. Since this was 15 years ago my memories are naturally very fragmentary. I remember going into a room at this party and there was a guy in there on a bed with a girl i had quickly and innocently kissed earlier on the same evening. Anyways these guys are involved in each other, kissing and touching. I somehow also get involved with her and I remember touching her breasts (one of few still pictures that my mind kept) I think I remember the girl being quite drunk. It stays at that and I leave the room shortly. I guess with a feeling that there was something about the situation that was not altogether solid and good since she was so drunk.
This has just been a memory among others about those early, fumbly boy/girl experiences, no specific anxiety attached to it. In the last 2 years maybe I think I have been getting this more sort of panicky feelings and symptoms more regularly in connection to situations where I might have hurt somebody. This incident from when I was 15 was the latest to bubble up (i guess because the others were temporarily out of the way and my body wouldn't allow me not ahaving any worry at all), seemingly from out of nowhere and just starting to hurt me and keep being thrown at me in a flash/lightning way where every still image in my head is loaded with so much ache, worries and guilt. What if she was so drunk she didn't know what's going on back then? What if I shouldn't have done that? Why did I do that if I could see she was drunk? Basically a head on collision with all my morals and ethics that I had with me already before that and that I have kept building my values on since then. I'm very much driven by justice, equality and gender perspective and I've always had very caring, equal sexual relations throughout life. So now I suddenly get these vague memories flashing in me where I as a very young man maybe acted in a way I would not have acted today. But why does it hurt so much? I left the room. I probably learned alot. I can't even remember the reasons and factors surrounding all this today. I can't change it today. But everything even slightly worrying to me that I can't change becomes an elephant in my head. My own logical arguments don't bite on when anxiety-flashes hit the chest or the stomach. It's how I imagine post-traumatic images hitting people who have been in a war or seen terrible things. But this is obviously not dangerous or destructive other than to my own self-image. And even though I know it's not healthy with too perfect expectations on myself I still don't want my psyche to gradually break me down and me turn into some potential sex criminal.
Once again, long story. But just a couple of examples of what goes on up here :) Hope I can at least almost explain with these two examples.
M-P
