Hi I am semi new to the group and have been working through the course. I am now challenging my negative thoughts. Currently I am having panic attacks in bed when I wake up and say I wonder what will happen if I turn to my left. Then I turn to my left and have an attack. Or in another situation I say I am going to have an attack, and I do. In case you wondering the turning to my left has some significance in that I had chronic Labyrinthitis in my left ear which caused me to have severe vertigo and a sick felling when I turned to my left in bed. However I do not experience vertigo any more as I have adjusted to the hearing loss and lack of balance. I now live through the attacks but with some ramifications during the day. I have worked through the negative thoughts worksheet and have answered the last question what the worst thing that could happen. I keep wondering what will happen if the attacks start to get worse “in my mind I will end up in hospital again and I don’t want that”. The medication I was given in the hospital gave IBS for 15 years once I stopped the medication the IBS was virtually gone. This is why I am afraid of it getting worse I had IBS 5 to 6 times a week and it would keep me in the house for 6 hours. Then I became anxious about when I went out because I never knew when I was going to have IBS, now I know that the IBS was in a large part due to anxiety. I have not worked for long time and I am currently studying to finish my CA designation. But I currently live with my father and have attached security to where I live and how I am able to live because my father pays the lion’s share of expenses. So my worst possible outcome is father passing away no more home “security” and attacks getting worse (because as you know people with panic attacks don’t like change) and me ending up in hospital. I have looked at the worst case scenario and have concluded a couple of things one I am putting time pressure to get better before my father passes away. Two I have added implied premises to the 10 questions, which means what would have to happen to end up in the hospital and with IBS again. I came to the conclusion that there are at least 7 things that would have to happen to end up in that situation all of them imagining the worst or Catastrophizing, also the premises have to happen in sequentially in an all or nothing manner Black and White thinking in my case I imagine the worst happening through them all. So when I attach a probability to all 7 premises happening sequentially imaging the worst it is almost impossible for it to happen. This gives me a more balanced thought but I still seem to ruminate about it.

I guess I made it unclear as to my problem. Although I challenge my thoughts I have I hard time in believing the alternative thought that i have generated.

Drew

About your IBS did it get worse when you became more anxious and if it did does that not tell you something about its severity? Even though I said I am a lot better than before is still get days IBS. But an interesting thing happened to me one day I had the erg to go then I became distracted and all of a sudden I did not have the erg. I believe in a sense it’s not unlike like the sensation we get during anxiety. We pay attention to them, we gives our whole attention, and then works them up. The same may be said for IBS, (IBS is definitely a diagnosable problem) but I think it is made worse by anxiety. As for your agoraphobia I had it before went into the hospital, then when I went in it got worse. It is all a perception of security you think if I don’t do something that causes sensations then I will not do it, and the cycle begins. I went through several months of terrible sensations in the hospital but eventually I bore the discomfort in order to gain control over it. I am not suggesting that you take this route. However after you starts to cognitively changing your opinion about your sensations you will eventual have to face your fears of the sensation. The most important thing you can learn is that sensations are distressing but not dangerous. We tend to attach danger to them by self-diagnoses, by assessing their significance and there severity and to their likelihood to recur, and or, to some event that makes no sense. When two things happen at the same time we as humans try to make a connection between the two events. This connection is where we developed cognitive maladaptive thoughts, in other words the events that happened are coincidental but we attach meaning to them.  This is where your food intolerance problem may come from, in my case since I was having IBS almost every day I would attach my eating of an unfamiliar food with IBS. Now that my anxiety level has been drastically reduced I find that the foods that I thought bothered me do not bother me anymore (with a few exceptions such as being diagnoses with an allergy to milk). I am not saying that there are no food intolerances but you have to be careful about attaching danger to a food when I may be (and I say may be) anxiety about the food that is causing the problem. Are there foods that you eat and have no anxiety towards them and as a consequence have an IBS free day, and conversely when you eat a food that you think you have an intolerance to do you have anxious thoughts about eating and therefore have an IBS day. These things can be worked on latter when you have worked on you more pressing problem of agoraphobia, you may find that by reducing your anxiety level in general you start to have less IBS days.

Dizzy

Drew

I noticed that when you responded to my post you still said that “I think I defiantly need to get my general anxiety levels/constant depersonalization down to an acceptable level before I even try to get out more though”. In my post I said if there is one thing that you must learn is the sensation are distressing but not dangerous. The sensation of depersonalization is definitely in the sensation inventory list of your daily diary (they call it a felling of unreality). So this means that a lot of people deal with this sensation as I have. I thought that I could not concentrate or work on anything with this sensation “this is the emotional response to the symptom” not the cognitive response. Tell me something if you were standing on a balcony and experiencing depersonalization, and you saw a bunch of people coming up toward you with guns in their hands would you concentrate on your depersonalization or would you get the heck out of there not noticing any symptoms. I am not berating you I still experience the same symptom and have hard days trying not to concentrate on it, but I know the symptom is distressing but not dangerous. Your negative thoughts keep coming out as symptoms of anxiety attack or just anxiety. To say I must reduce my depersonalization in order to reduce anxiety and be able to go tackle going out,  is a self limiting negative thought about a symptom anxiety. What you are saying is I cannot go out because the symptom of anxiety must be reduced in order for me to experience the symptoms of an anxiety attack that probably causes the same symptom. I am in no way saying its easy and that you should go running outside right know but as I have said you symptoms are distressing but not dangerous, it’s in lesson 1 nobody ever died of an anxiety attack and nobody ever died of depersonalization. So if you have been checked out by a doctor or psychiatrist and they confirm there is nothing physically wrong with you and the symptoms you are experiencing are not dangerous (and I see from your posting that you have been prescribed buspirone) so you have probably been checked out by a doctor. I think you may want to tackle the negative thought associated with depersonalization to everyone who experiences it they has a different emotion response, so no one can know how you exactly how you feel only you know that. About the only thing persistent anxiety symptoms can teach you are that there is a thought associated with it that is maladaptive. It’s the same as saying I have a cramp in my leg to one person it may mean nothing at all to another it may be a symptom if anxiety and very distressing. I am in no way trying to offend you i am just giving you something to think about from my own experiences.

dizzy

Jason

I have read session 3 a couple of times I have identified and labelled the negative thought that I am having most catastrophizing and black and white thinking. I also know that these negative thought are a result of an overactive imagination always imagining the worst. I have determined what would have to happen for the worst possible outcome to happen. And putting the events that would have to happen together as they would have to be for the worst thing to happen I have concluded that it would be extremely unlikely that all these events could happen. So the alternative thought is it’s very remotely possible but highly unlikely. Please tell me what specifically more I should get from session 3. Is the fact that I can’t stop thinking about the unlikely outcome the source of your suggestion about rereading it?  I have proved that the worst event is unlikely to happen do I have to consider how bad it would be to get to the other side? Even though it is unlikely to happen I have planned for the possibility if it did I have made I decision and have minimized the effect it could have on me if it did happen. Therefore I have a sense of control over the future event and a sense of control leaves me with a sense of security and not a victim. Is this over analyzing things too much any further response would be appreciated.

Dizzy

Sunny

I was wondering if continuing to say the positive or alternative thought worked for you. Or possible by continuing to change the negative thought I may see a thought that appeals to me then more than my first challenge. What I guess I am asking is the first alternative thought produced by my challenge the one and only and best alternative thought or could another challenge with more introspection give me a better outcome. Perhaps I can’t believe my alternative thought because I have not got to the root of it. I also agree with you I don’t know your age but I have had negative thoughts and anxiety since I can remember and a life time of maladaptive thinking is a hard thing to change.

Dizzy

Davit

I have had several physical things wrong with me I in fact lost all my hearing in both ears and then regained most of the right ear hearing back. I think this was the genesis of my total inability to cope with anxiety. As you can imagine when I lost my hearing in my left ear and had vertigo for year the doctors mad I diagnoses of elimination. By that they checked for brain tumours and everything else. I have read about what they diagnosed me with and it a common condition to temporally get vertigo and very seldom do people lose their hearing. But as unlikely as it was it happened to me twice losing all hearing for a temporary time. They cannot say why it happened nor can they say that it will never happen again. So I can’t determine the likelihood of it happening the odds are very small for it to happen to both ears but I managed to beat the odds. But believe it or not I have a different attitude towards the possibility I, if it happens again and I lose all my hearing my life is not over it is just changed. Thanks for the advice about finances I have indeed prepared for the worst but I am now hopping for something better than just living of a disability pension.

Dizzy

Red

I wonder if an anxiety condition about a physical aliment such as IBS or ulcerative colitis just gets better or if the reduction in your anxiety made it better. I guess the old saying sound mind sound body applies here. Ever since I stopped taking the medication from the doctor and decided that I am no longer going to take these pills and be a victim I have been feeling better about myself. I think a sense of self control and self help about my problems instead of covering them with pills gives me an entirely different attitude toward life. Although I am I no way cured I am doing the best thing I can do for myself which is to change my attitude. I only wish I did not wait so long to do it because I have had a long time to develop a negative thinking pattern.

Dizzy

Davit

You are a truly a caring man as I can see from your post you narrow in I my problem and then you give different advice to Drew to help him with his specific situation. I think that one of the things that happened to me from all my anxiety is stop caring for anything or anybody else. I believe that this is a sort of defence mechanism in that if you don’t care about much (except for yourself) you can’t have anxiety over someone else’s situation that is close to you. I have read that what you think is your greatest strength is your weakness and what you think is tour greatness weakness is your strength. How does this apply to me, while I took all the anxiety symptoms and suppressed them down with tension in my body I thought that this is how a man should be to show no fear (until it eventually caught up with me by expressing itself as more and more tension in my body to the point where I exploded). What I thought was my greatest weakness anxiety turned out to be my greatness strength I eventually showed me that I had led a life of denial and lost the ability to care for things. And until recently I never talked about my fears with anyone before, so my fears caused me to open up to people and sympathize over others who share this affliction or any other affliction. I think one of your greatest strengths is to put yourself in another man’s shoes and walk a mile.

Dizzy

Red

I noticed in your reply you mentioned exercise hyper tension. I have recently discovered that when I exercise I get pressure in my head and then later tension, just as if I was having a panic attack (but I am not). So I went the GP and told him about my experiences and he did blood test and took my blood pressure and everything was fine. So I asked him if taking my blood pressure when I am at rest is the best way to determine if there is a problem from my exercise experience (I specifically asked would it not be better to measure my blood pressure after or during a workout).  And he said that if your blood pressure is fine at rest then it should be fine during exercise. To further this opinion the panic centre session 1 mentions that you can get the exact same symptoms as anxiety from exercise, anger etc. So I am wondering how did you determine that you had hyper tension from exercise and did you experience the same thing I did (sensation like an attack). I know we both are not doctors but I keep wondering if my doctor took me seriously and did the appropriate test or am I just like everyone else with panic attacks and anxiety and experience sensation just like an attack from different thing (things other than a panic attack). I am very interested I what you have to say on this subject.

Dizzy