Hi Sea

I reflecting back at what you post and you seen to be saying that you are in a lot if distress right now. We have or I have hit bottom, was very distressed, and ended up in the hospital. The one good thing that came out of that experience was that I got a social worker. She has been with me for many years. Trying to help me in whatever way she could. I am not sure where you live and I do not want to know, but I will give you a few resources that could help you along with this program. One is to phone CAMH and tell them you story, or you could phone 211 if you live in Ontario and tell them. Both these places should give some extra guidance if you feel you need it. If you are not in Canada then perhaps you could use Google and find similar resource where you are. I feel for you I know what it is like to see no way out but I got over that feeling and realized that there were people out there to help me and the most important thing I discovered there was things I could do to help myself. The realization that there was things that I could do to help myself was pivotal I my journey. It stopped me from felling like a victim and gave me a sense of control over my thoughts, impulses, and behaviours. All of which you will find in this course.

Dizzy

Hi Ashley

I have question about worry. I am in a group that says that we should try to avoid anger as much as possible because as you have indicated in your sessions they say that anger and other emotions can bring on the same symptoms of fear. To be quite honest with you the symptoms bother me the most. If a was to have a panic attack and experienced extreme fear with no repercussion for the rest of my day I would not care at all about the attack.

A short story I offered my brother something that would help him a great deal on Tuesday, and he has not got back to me with answer and today’s Sunday. It keeps pooping into my mind in different variations on the same theme. I have instantly analyzed the thought and determined that what is bothering me is his lack of response when I went out of my way to help him. I determined that this is anger in me that he does not respect me. In the group I am in, we have a saying, that people do things that annoy us, not to annoy us. Instantly I am with a secure thought, do I think he is purposely trying to ignore to me to bother me, obviously the answer is no. I could go through an entire thought record of the 10 question and come up with an alternative view however; I do not think it would be substantially different from the one that I just gave.

Another thing I noticed is (I have all my panic attacks in the morning) is that I would get up and I would start ruminating about a song. I believe that this is a defensive device to avoid how I am feeling at the time. Also when I am working and I am in a worked up state, I start playing music in my head while I am working at the same time, couple this with the confusion and sense of unreality I have all the time I think this is another avoidance response. Something David said that rings true for me now is there is a fine line between avoidance and distraction. Therefore, I have been practicing yoga every morning to stop the constant music in my head, and I have made great strides towards this goal. I think that to me it is in a sense of cognitive exposure to the way, I am feeling and that I have to accept the way I am currently feeling and not try to change it except for relaxation, positive thinking, and no avoidance.

On the other hand, my CBT told me that I pay too much attention to my unreality state. This is where it affects me the most I find it hard to concentrate and when I am doing something new, it takes more brainpower to complete the task. According to my CBT, I should ignore it, according to me and maybe you if I pay attention and not avoid it I will become bored with the sensation. Perhaps if I did not analyze it at all and thought that, it was neither bad nor good then I have reduced it to a triviality, and I would get rid of it quicker than trying to expose myself to it. I think my exposure work is on the sensation because the attacks I get when I rate them on a fear scale is very low, but it is the sensations of unreality all day that bother me.

One final thing is that I get very anxious about making mistakes. I do not accept them in myself and I do not accept mistakes in others. I have realized that that making a mistake causes me distress, but stems from trying to be a perfectionist. I realized that the reason I worry about making a mistake is I hold other people up to I high standard, and that intern when I do this it sets up for sensitivity to my own mistake. I have been trying to reduce this worry by not expecting perfection in others or me.

Am I headed in the right direction or is this just rhetorical question that if I think I am headed in the right direction then I am and if I think that I am not then I have to do what I think will get me back on track.

Dizzy

Hi Davit

I can hear what you are saying and it makes sense to me. However, I believe that you cannot manipulate emotions from on feeling to another in fact the two things we cannot do is not have an emotion and not have the sensation that go with it. The things we can do are to change our thoughts, impulses, and behaviours. What CBT teaches us are thoughts, impulses, and behaviours can be changed. The unreality sensation comes from the everyday panic attacks that I have in the morning I was not trying to say that my anger at my brother causes unreality. Although I believe that anger is one of the emotions that can cause the same sensations as anxiety. For me I am not suppressing the anger in the thought experiment I did I said "is he doing this too purposely (ignore me) annoy me”, after I felt the anger and analyzed it. The reason is use this saying is that help me believe that my anger is unfounded and that it may be a core belief or instant reaction of how I think other people should react. It also gives my mind an opportunity to think up of other reason why he has not replied to my offer. By defusing the anger, I can instantly think of secure thoughts. The thought could be, it a hard decision for him to make, maybe he has not had time to discuss it with his wife, maybe he I afraid of my proposal, and maybe his hole phone system is not working or computer and is unable to talk to me. I know the last one seems ridicules but it shows me how ridicules my anger is. The last thing I know about anger is that it usually there because you did not get what you wanted, which is my expectation of how long it should take him to make a decision. Know I have realized that I did not get what I felt was a suitable time for him to reply. However, I now I realize I am improvising my belief system on his.  as the panic center says we may be experiencing the same problems but no one can know how I feel and no one can know how you feel even is we have the same false belief and emotion and sensation we are going to have a different experience.

Dizzy

 Hi Teebs

A couple of thoughts about a safe person, if your most fearful situation is being far away from home then this to me is a common feeling. If you think back to session four, it said that 2000 years ago when man was on the earth pretty much as we are now, that being far away from home was a danger (a biological danger). The reason is you do not know where you are and if there are predatory animals around. Therefore, the thing to do was to travel in groups or (safety person) so that there are strengths in numbers. However, know we still have the same biological make up but we are not in the danger that a person was 2000 years ago. In session, four states that we have a false alarm panic attack when we are alone and there is no good reason for it. To look at his another way say you were afraid of dogs and a big one was coming at you and you start to get anxiety. Then when the dog reaches you, he starts licking you are your hand and wagging his tale. Then instantly you are not anxious because you know what triggered your anxiety is a false alarm I.E. the dog was no danger. In this case, you have something to immediately identify as the alarm and then indentify it as a false alarm. However, what is it that being far away from home that gives you the false alarm reaction. One thing I know is that the false alarm cannot be reduce to a verifiable event such as in the dog situation where you are able to instantly get rid of your anxiety. Perhaps having the safety person there when you are in a stressful situation is your way of identifying that the dog is safe because he did not attack you. Therefore, as you said your safety person gives you the ability, to not feel alone that if something happens to you will be taken care of. These two statements are possibly, where your false alarms come from.  

* I don't feel alone

* I feel like if something bad happens they will help me take care of it

* I don't have to hide my anxiety from them

In me, I always listen to myself after being exposed to a situation to see what I say about it. This is where I find the answers to the question of where do my false alarms come? In me, it was avoidance of any sensation of fear and now I am practicing mindfulness to expose myself rather than avoid the sensation. I think the third thought of yours is a healthy thought if you were like me and taught never to show fear and that showing it is a weakness. However, you also have to watch what you say to the other person as there may lay more clues to your false alarm. For example, I could say that I am experiencing dizziness right now and it is because I am thinking “whatever”, this is an objective observation. If you say to the person that I feel dizzy right now and I think I am going to faint (false thought) I have never felt this bad before (likely a false thought) then you see the emotion subjective way you are communicating you emotions. Please do not infer from this that subjective communication is bad because I have used it and after subjectively complaining, I realized the emotion word (false thoughts) that I was having. Also once in a while you just want someone to hear how much your suffering a cathartic outburst just get it off your chest so that you can reframe your mind to be aware of the false alarm. Remember that that person is unlikely to understand how much your suffering or even why as I have the same affliction but can never truly know your pain.

Dizzy

Hi Davit

I completely agree with you about thought and emotions. The point I was trying to make is that if a situation causes panic you cannot change your emotion of panic to happiness just by will. It requires a thought change just as you said they are interlinked. To change an emotion to an event you have to change your thought about it.

Dizzy

Hi Ashley

I cannot agree with you more Ashley about using the relax technique while have an attack is very dangerous. The CBT I went to told me to start practicing the breathing technique and to use it to stop any attack. My CBT said that I should become so proficient with it I should be able stop it in a couple of breaths. At the time, I had reservations about this technique because it would just give me a sense of failure if I could not do what he expected. I have to admit that when I first started to use it I was able to stop them in a short time. I used my heart pounding as an indication of success. Then this is where it started to go wrong for me. I started having attacks without my heart pounding so now how was I going to know if I achieved success. This is where I hit a downward spiral because according to CBT I should not be having them any more. Therefore, it set me up for failure in breathing and failure and stopping the attacks, and that when my session ended with the CBT. Even before your post, I realized that this technique was not going to work so I stopped trying to use it. I have had more success now then when I was using the breathing technique. Thank you for confirming my suspicions about the use of relaxation techniques for attacks. I want your opinion on two other things the CBT told me they are to have a relaxed body during an attack because we tend to tense up during one I see this as a positive it that I am not trying to stop it but I am rewiring my brain through behaviour of not becoming tense. Put another way at the very least I am not adding to the attack by tensing up. The other question which drives me nuts all day is he said again a relaxed body is not anxious and to use this when working. The problem I am having with this is that I am constantly assessing any sensation while working, and checking if I have a relaxed body. Is this a good goal to have relaxed body because I think the sensations could be unrelated to a relaxed body, just a normal part of life, the stress of the job? Could constantly assessing if I have a relaxed body and finding that my body is not relaxed and then trying to achieve relaxation be causing anxiety because I am connecting that not having a relaxed body produces sensations. I think that I am going to get sensations, which are a normal part of life I.E. stress, and when I work it just happens that my worst anxiety symptom occurs, which for me is dizziness or pressure in my head. I think that we as a group are likely to get more sensation from stress then the normal public because our bodies have become hyperactive or do or mind and body heal itself when we take out the panic attacks and anxiety.  Even a so-called normal person who has a little stressed gets tight shoulder or an ache in the back only they are less reactive then we are, or the panic center people are set to react differently to normal amount of stress because we see it as a bad thing rather than a neutral thing. I know a lot of questions and so little answers.

Dizzy

Hi Red

I am not agoraphobic but I have places where I get panic attack. However, I think anxiety can severely affect your life towards social situations. To give you my example in grade 8 I was the big man on campus I knew everyone and had a lot of friend. Then grade nine I started to have anxiety and panic attacks in high school I had a few good friends. Then university I spent a year not talking to anyone, eventually ended up with two good friends. Now have no friends like the ones I had before. What caused this gradual reduction was anxiety. When you feel anxious all the time, you are less likely to be outgoing and friendly. Sometimes all it had to do with is I felt crappy all day and did not want to make an effort. I did not know I had panic attacks and anxiety back then but I sure knew when I was not feeling well. When I think back, my friends kept me going even through the rough time. When I was laid off, I lost all work a friend or acquaintances and eventually ended up in the hospital. Now I know what wrong and that it is anxiety and I can work on it. I believe that being alone feeds into anxiety and anxiety feeds into being alone. I am guessing, although you say been acrophobic for a long time, that there was I time when you were not anaphoric what were like back then. Possibly this will tell how much you have changed from being agoraphobic. One thing that I know for sure social isolation can lead a normal person into a mental illness.

Dizzy