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Newbie, any advice appreciated!


13 years ago 0 2 logo logo logo logo logo logo logo logo logo logo 0
Drew -- Maybe somehow this flu bug will turn out to be a blessing in disguise, a well-timed shift (and distraction) from mental to physical woes.  As your body works to eradicate the bug, think of it burning away your anxiety, and that you'll soon rise from your sick bed in a state of glorious physical and mental well-being.  Be good to yourself.  Sleep like you've never slept before.
 
As a sidebar, I downloaded the other day the e-book version of William Styron's "Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness" documenting his battle with depression.  It's a short read and VERY cathartic.  It helped me to put my own issues in a very different (and clarifying) perspective.
 
Best to you, Drew.
Will
13 years ago 0 1665 logo logo logo logo logo logo logo logo logo logo 0
Hi Drew: 
sorry you have the flu.  no fun. Take care of yourself, lots of liquids and all that.
 
As for the going out with anxiety I can vouch for what Davit wrote.  I have not been 100% well these last few months but tried hard to continue my walks with my dog.  Some days I could only go around the back yard - no kidding, I would get the chest pains and the high BP.  The next day I would feel scared to try again, anxiety was present but I would go anyway, one day just down to the corner of the street and back.  I did this practically all spring and summer.  There were days when I couldn't do it at all when I was just too weak and there were days when I had to slow right down and practically crawl back.  Now that the weather is cooler (staying out in the heat, humidity too long made my pressure go high) I am up to a half hour walk.  I used to walk about an hour.  When the anxiety escalated during the walk I used mindfulness, acknowledged the symptoms and then positive self talk to reassure myself that it was okay.  I used distraction such as looking down at the road, or looked at the trees, counted the Canada Geese in the field, on the water, something like that.  Sometimes just arriving at the corner of my street and close to home was such a relief.  Then I'd tell myself how well I had done, that I made it and that tomorrow will be even better as I am getting better every day. (positive thoughts). Yes, sometimes I doubted it, but I didn't want to give up so kept saying it.  I'm still not 100% well, but I don't want to become agoraphobic or lose total muscle tone in my legs, so if going to the corner of the street is all I can do that day, so be it.  that's ok too.  I've learned to not be too hard on myself and reward myself for what I do try and accomplish. 
Hope this makes sense to you and is helpful in some way.
 
Your friend, Sunny
13 years ago 0 13 logo logo logo logo logo logo logo logo logo logo 0
Well yestrday i had my first CBT session with a specialist CBT worker. She seems very nice and supportive and although we didnt cover much CBT per se, we had a good chat to see what my goals were, and she thinks i would need 12 - 20 sessions.
My homework was to play on my drums and try to divert my mind for 5 minutes, and then try to do this more often, and also some deep breathing exercises. But of course i woke up this morning full of flu and feel absolutely terrible, my anxietys through the roof and i have no energy whatsoever. All the fun, so trying the diversion is proving somewhat very difficult. Just have to see how i go when this flu goes....just my luck lol.
 
Hope everyones well, Drew
13 years ago 0 6252 logo logo logo logo logo logo logo logo logo logo 0
Drew if you have adequate coping skills in place you can leave your safe area no matter how bad you are feeling anxiety or depersonalization. You may not get far the first time but you will get out. On the other hand if you have no coping skills in place all the exposure in the world will do you no good. Pick a situation that will give you a panic level of 5 out of 10 and see how long you can cope with it before you have to go back to your safe area.  An example go to a coffee shop and pay for your coffee so you can leave any time. Now using distractions see how long you can handle the anxiety, after all you can leave any time, Or you can just go to the rest room a while and try again. What do you get out of this? You get to build a positive attitude toward handling your anxiety. You get to prove to yourself that there is no logical reason to feel anxiety.
Does it work right away. Hell no. You have to do it over and over, staying longer each time.
Notice I said a positive attitude towards handling you anxiety. This might sound confusing but you are not building a tolerance for a coffee shop but a tolerance for anxiety. See if you can convince yourself there is no reason for the anxiety, the anxiety fades and this allows you to face any anxious situation not just a coffee shop. Now I just picked a coffee shop out of the blue you have to decide what to use to give you this Half way to panic situation. So how are you at telling yourself there is nothing to fear. Probably not very good right now. But every time you step out it gets easier. I would think right now your biggest fear is fear, not the situation but the fear that you can't handle the situation. So you need to be able to cope with the fear before you can cope with the situation. A rather fine line but a line just the same. 
Does this make sense. The same as think and know. Don't think something, know it. believe it not want to believe it. A fine line again but in this case one works and one doesn't.

What am I talking about, coping skills? These are things you use to block negative thoughts and include such things as looking out a window or counting or challenging the reality of a thought. Distractions or breathing exercises, any thing that allows you to cope with an unpleasant situation. Including fantasy or going some where else in your mind for a minute or two. You need these before exposure can do its job of reinforcing positive thought.

Trying and not succeeding is not failure it is only a start. Not trying because you will fail is the only failure. 

Here for you
Davit.
13 years ago 0 118 logo logo logo logo logo logo logo logo logo logo 0
 

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

13 years ago 0 13 logo logo logo logo logo logo logo logo logo logo 0
Hey i find now that even though my general anxiety is sky high my stomach troubles arent too bad, but i have cut out everything i may be intolerant too, i had a food intolerance test done last year (dunno how accurate it is) and i stuck with it a while and my IBS was alot better, but then i went on an all out binge on anything session. But i have recently started it again, not eating anything that i have a intolerance too...i deffo know i am lactose intolerant because (excuse the french) i fart like a donkey afterwards. Plus atm im not eating much anyway so my IBS isnt playing up so its hard to judge, but my stomach deffo feels better cutting out wheat and milk, gluten, rice etc so im just gonna try eating little and often of the things i know im allowed and keeping a food diary i started a few days ago.
 
I think i definatly need to get my general anxiety levels/constant depersonalisation down to an acceptable level before i even try to get out more though, i just dont know where to begin lol, today i do seem a bit more happy than usual although my depersonalisation is still strong, i just got new glasses aswell after i had an eyetest and realised my eyesight was really bad and not knowing because i had nothing to compare it to, so the new glasses are making things slightly clearer and more colourful...less blurry, but their making me rather dizzy lol.
 
I am trying to tackle my negative thought patterns though and trying to relax more and not let my anxiety make me depressed.
 
Drew
13 years ago 0 118 logo logo logo logo logo logo logo logo logo logo 0
  

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

13 years ago 0 6252 logo logo logo logo logo logo logo logo logo logo 0
Drew

How long CBT takes depends on how capable you are of believing it works. If you don't or can't believe it works it won't. The meds will get rid of all the extraneous thought so you will be able to absorb the CBT. They will also put the negative thought to sleep so you can believe. And if you are thinking you will have to take them for ever, you are wrong. Only if you want to hide in them. There are people that stay on them for ever and don't do the CBT. You have to do the CBT meds won't cure you, they just help. They also are not like street drugs. You won't have ups and downs and you won't have to increase them to keep the effect. They never quit working either. They just mellow you out so you can think reasonably straight. As you progress you taper them off till they are gone. None of us like Meds but we realize that sometimes they are a necessary step on the road to recovery.

CBT will give you relief in as little as the first session but it takes time to reinforce it so you don't have the negative thoughts sabotage you.

God luck with it.
Here for you
Davit.
13 years ago 0 1665 logo logo logo logo logo logo logo logo logo logo 0
Hi Will:  Good insight, good advice.  I agree, when we are anxious we tend to be hypervigilant of all symptoms sometimes catastrophizing them into something they are not.  And the mind chatter is soooo tiring that we can't relax and the cycle goes on without interruption, like a good night's sleep.
 
Hi Drew:  Glad to hear from you today.  CBT really will help you learn about this disorder.  With learning comes understanding.  Then you can practice the coping techniques and use them when needed.  With with understanding and coping comes healing.  You will have new hope, real hope.  Cheering for you,
Sunny
13 years ago 0 13 logo logo logo logo logo logo logo logo logo logo 0
Thanks so much will_e, i would love to chat over email or skype, i dont even know how to use the buddy messenger on this site. I know your right, its my mind thats causing all these horrible sensations and hopefully i will get my mind under control.
 
Drew

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