I have determined that one of my major problems is with relationships. I mean romantic relationships and friendships. My problem after reading relationships from the toll box is that I have sequestered myself away from most relationships. My biggest problem with romantic relationships is that I have been sick for a long time and unable to work. So I envision when talking to a girl that the question of “what do you do for a living” will come up. Then I met an acutance in a support group I go to who also has the same mental problem as me and has not worked for a while. His experience is, he joined a dating site and gets in touch with the women from the site and then goes on dates with them. So I asked him what do you do about “what do you do for a living question”? He says he does not discuss it or he talks about what he used to do.  I thought great it is just my perception that I am afraid of a question that is not important. However, upon further discussion with him he told me that he only goes out with these women for three to four times and then goes onto another. Then I elaborated that I do not want a three date friend that I need to develop friends or girl friends that will be with me in the long haul. He is also trying to get back to working full time as am I. So then, we started discussing what kind of girl friend would be best for use. He said what I have thought all along, that he is looking for a girl after he goes back to work that does not have the same problems we have. I see the benefits in being in a relationship with a supposed normal person (I know there is no such thing) but some one that is more stable then I am. Here is my experience so far in my life, when I was in high school I had friends who I lost when I went to university. Then in university, I had friends who I lost when I went to work. Then when I got sick I lost all my work friends, and I know in the relationship it says it is a two way street. I also have tried to maintain contact with them, I did try several times to phones them and there were always busy or whatever so just gave up. I seem to have the impression that so-called normal people do not want to associate with a person with a mental illness especially one that is not working. This is not an unprecedented opinion as I was on the board of a mental health agency where we discussed that stigma and discrimination is one of the biggest problems people with a mental illness face. I have been trying to establish friendships with people even before I read the toolbox on relationships. I asked a girl out and made it explicit that I just wanted to go out and have some fun and that I did not want a girl friend. She said no, so naturally I read her mind and determined her answer was because I had an anxiety problem; (this certainly is where one of my problems lie in interpreting other people’s response to my question). I was wondering what women feel about this problem do they think the same way I do. Which is that normal people do not want to be friends with a mentally ill person, also that I think it is a man’s experience to be friends wherever he finds himself at the time. The reason I think like this is evidence driven my two closes friends in high school do not associate with any one from high school or me. It seems to me that when a woman makes a friend that they are friends for life, (of course, this could be my false perception). I do not mean to offend anyone and I am not asking for personal experiences. One last note is that I notice that the same people have been posting a lot to each other the reason I have been contributing to posts is that I have been spending a lot of time thinking about my false core beliefs and false thoughts. I fact as Davit suggested to me one of my biggest problems may not be situational but that I need to expose myself to the thoughts I have so this post is exposing myself to, I hope false beliefs, or depending on your answer I will have to come up with an alternative view.

Dizzy

Ashley, Health Educator

Thanks for your post. I to see that the triggers for my attack are words or events, that when I say or do them, I worry that an attack is going to happen. I have proven every one of them wrong (my triggers do not always cause an attack). My only conclusion is that it is how I perceive my worrying or triggers. Worrying is what gives the words power and how I perceive the trigger words or thoughts. Is this Meta cognitive thinking where they try to discover what you think about what you thinking? In other words, you can worry but it is your perception about how you see the worrying that counts. I took your thread last night and concluded that this is most of my problem with attacks. The problem I see hear for me is, it is like Google illness you look up justifications for what you think you have, or like first year med  student  who comes down with every illness that they read about. I wonder about this in cognitive behaviour therapy or psychology where I look for the answers to my panic attack and everything I read about cognitive therapy I think is the solution to my problem. Not everything in your toll box rings true for me, but is the reason that identify with so much of what you say and post is that we all have the same underlying problem anxiety and panic attacks, and that people with the same mental problem are very much alike underneath, although our individual experiences are unique. In other words, what you posted rang true for me because it explained how a mere worry (trigger words) could have strength to cause an attack. So I did some exposure to it last night and this morning when I said the trigger worry words I said “crap I should not have said them “, which then caused me to try to find something positive to say to counteract the worry. I believe that both these reaction gave further power to the worry trigger words. I think the answer for me to taking away the power of worrying is, ambivalence. I have read some other people techniques about attack and they say the way to get out of one is to not worry about having another or in another case they said to get rid of attack is to want to have one. In both these cases the thing there trying to accomplish is not to worry about having another attack or not to treat as you said worrying as a danger and to just let it pass. Can you tell that I think excessively much about things?

Dizzy

Sunny

Hi, Sunny, thanks for your suggestion I have heard of a life coach before but I am unaware of exactly what they would do. Could you clarify as to what a life coach is I.E. a psycholigist, a social worker, or is it none of these, and perhaps where I could find one? The problem I have is that when I went to the cognitive therapist he said to me that he has never had someone fill the work book in its entirety before, and that he never new anyone come in for therapy that new so much about anxiety and panic attacks.  Please understand that I am I no way bragging in fact I am pointing out how I can look to other people like my therapist. In yet at the same time I may have the knowledge but lack the wisdom to apply it to myself. He was under the impression that I was smart enough to solve all my own problems. In my support group I go to there is a man that said I helped him more than I helped any social worker he has ever had. He is a schizophrenic and was asking is there a difference between the mind and brain, I knew exactly why he was asking this, he thought that he was going to think himself out of schizophrenia, I said to him there is nothing you can do about the schizophrenia. The only thing he can do is reduce its impact on his life and reduce his anxiety towards it.  One day I realized what I told him to accept what he has and work on what he can change, is something that I never did before for me, knowledge verses wisdom. As you can see with all my investigation into various disciplines, I was trying to think myself out of panic attacks and anxiety. The one thing my social worker said is that I am exploring too much such as mindfulness, philosophy, cognitive behavior therapy, neuroplasticiy, brain neurotransmitters involved in panic attacks and so on. I would still appreciate some guidance about a life coach but I believe I have to concentrate on cognitive therapy right now and ignore all my other investigations.

Dizzy 

Hello Anna

You would not believe the number of odd symptoms people get. I am in a support group and there are some people dealing with this for over 20 years. They report that they have experienced a new symptom that they never experienced before. You would think that after 20 you would have experienced them all. However, that not the case and in my case I had similar symptom to you regarding pain and muscles tightening up (however not to immobilization). At the time about 20 years ago for me I did not know what’s was happening and this is what makes the symptom worse is that you work up in your mind that something must be s wrong with you. You will see this in the first couple of session that this is a common thought when you do not understand what is happening to you. If you have been fully checked out by a doctor and there is nothing physically wrong that they can find, than this you must accept. If they have determined what you experienced, is anxiety or panic attack then accepts the doctor’s diagnoses. In addition, start on working on yourself through the program. If there is one thing that I can say is that the symptom are distressing but not dangerous, in other words you are not going to die.

Dizzy