EvolutionHealth.care

Home
Members List
Member View
Posts created by loves trees

Advanced Search Form

Members List
Moderation Team
Member View
Posts created by loves trees

13 years ago 0 +0 / -0 356

Helpful Questions For Challenging Your Anxious Thoughts

Davit,

So sorry to hear you have lost a friend.

13 years ago 0 +0 / -0 356

Mindfulness

Yes. thank you.

the support here is making a huge difference for me.

13 years ago 0 +0 / -0 356

Game playing and social anxieties

Hi there,

in another thread (mindfulness) i raised the topic of game playing and Davit asked others to share about how you deal with game playing.

I thought i would start a new thread and elaborate on the game playing idea - it was immensily helpful to me when i read it and it relates to what i deal with on a regular basis as part of my exposure work with feeling anxious after conversations with (what i now label) negative people.

I read about game playing in a book called 'mastering human relations". Here is a quote "In order to get necessary life sustaining strokes to feel OK, people sometimes get involved in "game playing". The game playing referred to here is not fun. The intent is serious and the palying field is found on the level of the unconscious." (Falikowski, 2002).

An example of what he is talking about here is "why don't you - yes but" where someone says "yes but" whenever suggestions are made about solving their problems. Other games are called "see what you made me do" or "if it weren't for you" where instead of being honest about their own feelings, one person blames the other person for not doing something.

I have someone in my life right now trying to get me back in the game. There is no real affection, no real honesty, very little by way of attentive listening with this person, and yet she wants to know if i want to be back in her life. Being around people who can only play games with me causes me anxiety. The games are about blaming others or making others feel bad in order to feel good. We see this start on the playground when kids are really young - putting someone down to feel good.

Now here is my problem: sometimes i do feel (negative core belief) that everyone is just playing games. I don't know how to address my all or nothing thinking around that. there are some people in my life who play the game a lot of the time, and my all or nothing thinking wants me to write them off in order to ensure i'll be "safe" from them.

What have other people here done with game players? People who are negative some or a lot of the time? I know we can't change others but I guess I'm wondering if others who are further along than I am can share how they manage their exposure to the game playing people in their life.

13 years ago 0 +0 / -0 356

planning for exposure work

Hi Ashley,

Yes! I want to apologize, it was sloppy writing on my part to simply say "negative people". I completely agree. People should not be labelled. In fact, one of the friendships I had / have makes me sad because she is a good person stuck in a negative situation, and I can literally "see" the friendship we could have if she was able to find some support and help for the stress she has been dealt in life. She literally has not found time to do anything enjoyable with me for a year now, and its this feeling of "in another life, we could have been great friends" that i have.

To answer your questions:

- I can usually tell that I am using my anxiety as a compass when I feel urgency to respond to something or someone. So now when I feel that sense of urgency, i use that as a flag to say "wait. go do something else for a while".

- my authentic compass i think is very thoughtful and considerate of others and knows how to take care of myself.

- This last question is a good one. wow. i just realized how honest i wish icould be and how i hold myself back because i don't want to alienate people. I would be honest about what i wanted and needed without preventing from others from same. Hearing people express what they really want and need in life is music to me. Being able to say what i want and need and not being met with judgment, hostility, anger, resentment, neglect. that makes me feel authentic.

13 years ago 0 +0 / -0 356

Hi everyone!

Hi Eleen

Welcome to this space. I am a new member also. You are definitely not alone in your concerns - if you have never met anyone before who has experienced what you have with anxiety, you will meet people here who have.

I can tell you that the info here has helped me to better understand my anxiety. As Davit said you do not need to live with this the rest of your life.

I have a nervous bladder also. Our bodies give us signals to pay attention to our needs. I am in the process of trying to pay attention to the way my body tells me i am tired, hungry, overstimulated, and feeling anxious. It is a process.

Post often - as Ashley said! There are helpful people here.

13 years ago 0 +0 / -0 356

Negative Core Beliefs - Part II

I searched old posts tonight regarding 'emotions' because i am struggling with negative core beliefs. This thread has so much useful information I am replying to it here with hopes it gets picked up again by others who joined recently like me.

I do not know which negative core beliefs came up tonight but some did unfortunately and i got sucked in.

I'm not sure which are negative thoughts and which are negative core beliefs. I started feeling angry towards someone who said something insensitve to me in response to something I said I had problems with. and maybe the core belief was "i'll never be able to be my authentic self around this person". or maybe that is just another negative thought. i had dozens of negative thoughts tonigth. they avalanche once my emotions start to feel they will overwhelm me. its just neg. thought after neg. though once that overwhelming feeling takes hold.

before this program, each negative thought would make me feel really bad, angry, sad or enraged even. tonight i endured the thoughts a bit more, it was miserable having to have those thoughts, and not be able to stop the avalance of negative thoughts but i managed to stay with myself more than before and not react emotionally and aggressively to each thought like i have in the past. does this make sense to anyone? like i'll start feeling panicked, and then i'll have a negative thought "she doesn't really like me" and then i'll get really upset because she doesn't like me. then i'll have another negative thought and react emotionally to that, and another and another and so on. and react with anger or sadness to each one. which is draining and the whole reason i am here is to stop these episodes.

i have lots of work to do still.

I'm going to try the mirror idea given by Davit in this thread. Anyone else doing this or wanting to try it? i am sure i am going to feel self conscious the first time i do it tomorrow.

13 years ago 0 +0 / -0 356

NEW - Ask the Expert September

Davit,

Can you elaborate more on what you say in these 2 posts and your perspective on exposure work in general. I realize exposure work is part of the program and I fully realize these are your personal thoughts on the topic. But I have struggled to wrap my head around exposure work - to understand what it is goiing to do for me. I don't fear snakes or tall buildings. I fear my feelings ( i think). Especially negative ones. I assume that what i share in common with someone who fears shopping malls for example or crowds is that being in that space brings on such uncomfortable feelings the person panics. Being around someone who is judging me, upsetting me in any way, can bring on panic.

Now part of my work that I did before joining here is to stop believing i deserved for people to do that to me as a rule (I have become more assertive vs. being passive). but when people are simply stating what they think ,or doing something they need to do, i interpret that as them abandonning or neglecting me or my needs. I admit that i interpret people's actions and motives negatively , which is where weeks 1-3 of the program are a godsend for me. Seeing that these negative thoughts are not based in reality helps me challenge a lot of them.Prior to this progrma, without understsanding it, I played "is this person lying or not" all the time. So I would try to determine if they 'truly' wanted to help me or "truly" liked me with almost each action or thing that they said. I can't keep doing that. I see that now.

Taking that stance of having to evaluate someone's every move around me has created anxiety. It served me well in that it got me away from a few people who were neglecting me early on in my life (childhood). It was a survival tactic at one point. But it doesn't work with people who are not out to 'get me'. So now i'm applying this anxiety based approach with everyone in my life when it really was only meant to get me out of a crummy situation that one time (childhood). I think this is how i have come to understand my anxiety.

Do I just keep challenging my negative thoughts over and over until the habit to have negative thoughts is weakened or is there other work? if so, is it exposure work?

So its been hard to understand how I would arrange exposure work for myself. I think my core issues are fear of rejection, fear of abandonment. I don't fear that a tall building will gobble me up but i think that i fear that relationships with other people will. I think. I am still unclear about my core issues. So far all i've figured out is that i have negative thoughts, dozens of them, and that I will do whatever will help me stop having so many negative thoughts in a day or at least reacting to them.

It helped to read what you posted here. as you can see I am still wondering about exposure work for my anxiety.

13 years ago 0 +0 / -0 356

What would be my exposure?

Hi Kendra,

Great to hear you had a great first day!

13 years ago 0 +0 / -0 356

Negative Core Beliefs - Part II

I will read and re-read this one too. Thanks.

Its funny you said you like my posts. I think i have always been an analytical person, needing to know why for things other people accepted without stopping and questioning. this has good and bad - it has made me curious about the world and is part of my love of learning. it also has created a habit of analyzing people's behaviours when sometimse i need to say "so what" :)

i have gotten in 'trouble' for asking why, or for being too analytical throughout my life. i am able to make the room go silent sometimes in the mdidle of a converstaion because i say something too blutly or honestly or i speak something i believe that isn't status quo. so its funny you commented positively on my posts because often i've been told to stop analyzing so much. iguess by people who don't want me to do it around them.

it seems to be about timing with people as well as whether they are an apple or orange. I have this example that happened recently. A while ago I was talking to a friend and said that sometimes my family would start a board game after supper but i wasn't asked to play. my friend said "sounds like they are #$@#'s" and i was like, yeah, you hit the nail on the head there. it wasn't my fault they were so ignorant or insensitive. The way she said it made me feel validated, like "those jerks" sort of thing.

So then, a couple weeks ago I had a friend who was describing a relative who wasn't being very considerate of her at all, and I said the same thing my friend had said to me to make me feel better about it. "this person kinda sounds like an $@#$%" and she didn't react and hasn't called me since. now i don't know if that comment bothered her or not, but when it was said to me, i was ready to hear it and it was music to my ears that someone validated my feelings. She had been complaining about the person for several minutes so I thought i was pointing out it was that person, not her. apparently i did not succeed.

But i guess the friend i said it to didn't want to hear it because she definitely didn't seem to feel validated which was what i was tryingto say - that she deserved to be treated better by her family member.

I worry about being too blunt here, or getting misunderstood, or just too off topic sometimes. I want people to tell me if I have hurt their feelings or asked something of them they don't want to do. I want to be myself but not at the expense of anyone else. Sometimes in my posts I don't know if I use the right words to be supportive of others.

13 years ago 0 +0 / -0 356

NEW - Ask the Expert September

I will think on these. i am in the middle of an attack. yes i have attracted people who are comfortable blaming me so that both of us sing the same tune: its all my fault in my eyes and theirs. this has left me without any real supports now to deal with the anxiety that seems to be getting worse some days.

today's top discussions:

This Month’s Leaders:

Most Supportive

Most Active

Most Loved