Hello,
I read all of Session 1 and got the forms at the end; "Panic Attack Form" and "Anxious Thoughts Form"and I must be missing something. I understood everything that was said in the Session as I have had my issues for most of my life (I'm 53). I have been in therapy of one sort or another for half of my life and been on meds nearly 20 years. I have a better than average understanding of psychology because of all of this. Although I understand the words on the forms in question, I don't quite get how to fill them out. I know that sounds dumb (for lack of a better word), but I must be missing something.
Because of my years of experience with panic issues, I have developed Agoraphobia and a Social Phobia. I have must have several Phd's in avoidance behavior at this point. I very seldom do anything that brings on full panic attacks. I have been going through the reduction/elimination of my psych meds and am in the middle of that now. That in itself is causing issues of withdrawal that I would wish on anyone. What I have been noticing lately is what I am calling "thought provoked" anxiety "surges". It might be adrenaline "surges", but I am not sure. The feeling is like someone squirted "digestive juice" into my solar plexus/top of my stomach. I also get a feeling of heat going across my chest. In the past, I never had symptoms like this. I have been noticing a number of issues that I either hadn't had before or are becoming more noticeable like increased depression. I am relating that to the titration of my meds (doctor supervised). I am coming out of a state of existing and a constant flatness to feeling again. I am glad of that, but at the same time, it is not all that comfortable to go through...in fact in the beginning when we were titrating to quickly, I ended up in the ER with literally unbearable anxiety and nausea that would not let up except when I was sleeping.
I didn't actually plan on getting into all of that, but I wanted to give some aspect of my background and current experiences so that might help with an explanation of how to use these forms.
I can be sitting here doing nothing in particular on the computer and if I happen to see a message from someone or think of that person, I will get these "surges" bringing my anxiety up from 0 to 7 in a second. Then they will subside as quickly as they came albeit with some techniques that I use to remove anxiety. That works great AFTER it comes up and if the triggering thought goes away, but what I want to do is eliminate it from happening in the first place.
Now as far as these forms go, one would think that they are straight forward and basically self-explanatory. For what ever reason, I am either "over-thinking" them (something I do to just about everything), or I am missing something.
If i use the example I used of thinking of someone and having the surges of anxiety. I would look at the form and say, "ok, that was about a 60 on the scale". For the negative thought 1 in my fear level level, a 60; the situation, "sitting in my chair at the computer"; today's date and now; physical symptoms, adrenaline surges in solar plexus and heat across chest; anxious thoughts description, "thinking of Josh"; behaviors, ????. I won't do thought 2 because it would be a repeat of thought 1 in this case.
Now if that is what I am supposed to do, then I don't get the point of doing it at all. I know what the symptoms are and every little detail is that happens when I think of Josh...and sometimes other things...but right now, it is mostly him that causes these anxiety "surges"...at least when we are talking about "Anxious Thoughts".
Can someone help me to understand, one, if I have the idea of what the form is for and if I would be using it correctly and two, how is this supposed to do anything but use up TONS of paper because it happens everything I think of Josh or anything pertaining to him, where he lives, something that he does, etc.
I would very much like your help with this.
Thank you,
Steven
P.S. Why is the Right Mouse Button disabled while in this area so I cannot do a spell-check on a word that is highlighted, instead having to choose the spell-check feature at the top to check the document and why can't i add words to the dictionary (my dictionary) as I can with any other program or browser or mail client, etc.???
