Im glad you like the book. It really has helped me a GREAT deal... What is this "light" that you can buy? You're the 2nd person I've seen talk about it on here...
First, let me say how Im not a woman who loves the holidays. My parents divorced when I was 17 & I think I became a bit jaded about the holidays after that... And so, of course, I fall in love with a woman who LOVES XMas & Thanksgiving lol. So I put on my best happy face and enjoy it. I like to see how happy she is and that makes it ok
Second, this will be my 2nd XMas w/o my dad. He passed away a li'l over 18 months ago. I was his only child & I miss him every second of every day. Last year was ok, but I have a feeling that this one might be a li'l harder since Im actually trying to deal with the leftover grief of his death. I don't think I allowed myself enough time to grieve & that it may have somehow contributed to all my anxiety isssues as well. My family will be a tremendous help tho
I can relate to the people pleasing. I was always the moderator of any tense situation. So I was always trying to keep the peace. If 2 of my friends were having a misunderstanding, I'd be the 1st one trying to get them in a room together to hash it out & find a middle ground... That became emotionally draining and mentally exhausting. So I just stopped doing it. I started focusing on me & my immediate space. Because I thought, "how in the hell am I gonna try to help someone be ok if I'M not?" I had to fix the cracks in my own foundation so that way if things didn't work out the way I wanted them to, I'd still be ok at the end of the day... And it was hard work because in the beginning, I felt selfish because all I was worried about was how I was feeling. But I kept telling myself that it was ok to focus on me. And it got better. I do still worry about people that I care about, but I don't let it consume me & feel like I need to fix them. Jus remember that you can't please all the people all the time. Please yourself and the rest won't seem so intense
I get thru the beginnings of anxiety attacks by remembering that I've felt this way before and I survived. There was no death, no heart attack, no frequent trips to the bathroom (which only happened once the attacks were full blown)... Jus annoyance & feeling uncomfortable. It DOES pass & it does get better. Am I completely cured? No. But I have learned to acknowledge what is going on in my body & mind and just breathe thru it. I can, 9 times out of 10, keep the attacks from getting out of control. It is a nuisance for maybe about an hour, if that long. No meds either. I have positive mantras that I repeat, breathing techniques that I do, meditations (that I found on YouTube! lol), and sometimes progressive muscle relaxation. I have a book that I read (The Anxiety & Phobia Workbook, which has been a GODSEND!). And I frequent this website. These forums help tremendously because it helps to know that there are other people dealing with the exact same things. You are not alone. And it does get better
Davit: THANKS! I do feel better 95% of the time. I do still have some weird random moments, but between the book & this website, I've been feeling MUCH MUCH better.
ChristineL: Turning the negative into a positive will help. Like Davit said, make it a game or find some way to distract your brain from the panic of driving. Add up the #s on license plates, count the red cars, read the street exits aloud, ANYTHING.
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