Hello everyone,
I joined this site a few years ago. When I think about where I was when I joined this site, I am totally amazed at how far away all of that feels now. On medical shows, they are keen to show MRI scans of brain activity and show different parts of the brain of people who are depressed, anxious, happy, sad etc... I am pretty sure my brain looks different today than it did before I knew what CBT was. I feel like a more grounded, confident version of myself. It is exciting and I am happy.
I wanted to post a success story because they were so helpful for me to read when I was doing this program the first time. For those of you who are joining this site and starting the program, I wanted to post this to add to the numbers of people who have cured their panic and learned to manage their anxiety.
It can be done.
A lot of factors contributed to my getting to this point of not having panic anymore. CBT was one big factor but it wasn't the only factor. I had to learn a lot about emotional dysregulation and I would say most of what I now do I learned by myself, and the people I sought professional help from were not very helpful at all. I hope in the next decade or sooner, there are more helpful doctors and professionals to help with mental wellness but right now, it is very hit and miss with help.
I had to read a lot of information online and in books and not all of it was helpful. Some of it steered me in the wrong direction. I wished and still wish there was one book that had the correct answer for people with panic because it is really really hard to live a life where you want help so badly but are not able to find it anywhere so you keep trying by looking up different things to read and try. CBT all by itself was not enough to cure my panic although without challenging my thoughts and core beliefs I would not be cured of panic- so it is foundational to the other things I had to do.
I hope this post helps at least one person and that anyone who comes to this site feels encouraged to learn CBT and overcome their panic attacks.
I experienced exponential growth in my ability to manage anxiety. In other words, if one day I challenged 1 negative thought, the next day I could challenge 3, and the next day 6 and then 12 and so on. Every month it got easier to challenge the negativity. However, what this meant is that 4 months after successfully challenging many negative thoughts, if I got overwhelmed or close to panic in month 5, I would have to challenge feelings of defeat or disapointment because I had to wonder if I was sliding back, and how far would I slide, and thus started the negative thought process on its merry way. There were months where during the month, my progress felt imperceptible until I looked back and saw I had gotten through some things that were challenging. The "two steps forward, one step back" nature of my progress with panic was a struggle. Its probably like that for a lot of people working with mental well being such as addiction or other things where you feel yourself slide back and the sliding causes anxiety in itself. I am making a point of describing that aspect of it here because when you are in this program and some things are improving-maybe for the first time you can remember-a setback can bring on overwhelming feelings of fear or defeat and I can think back to those feelings as they are so crystallized in my mind.
If you feel alone, keep posting on this site. There were times when I felt like the facilitators here, and Davit and Sunny and Red where the only people on the planet who had an inkling of an idea of what I was going through.
I think differently now, about myself and about other people. I counter all my negative thoughts with more realistic ones. I counter every "what if". It took a few years to get here. Do not give up on yourself. That is my message.
