Hello,
I have been struggling with anxiety
all my life. I am in my mid-thirties and the anxiety has negatively impacted
every part of my life. It contributed to my wife divorcing me. It contributed
to my being a nervous wreck around my children. It contributed to me being a
serial "job hopper"... the longest I have stayed in a job was 3.5
years. On average, I've switched jobs
about once a year. Now, I am seriously under-employed, in tons of debt, and I
am the cliché 30-something living in my parents' basement. I want to be closer
to my kids. I want a good job, my own
home, an active social life, and a partner. However, I've come to realize that
anxiety and occasional depression are stopping me or seriously slowing me down.
I have always known about it, but my coping skill has been avoidance. I wish to
take serious action now to rectify all this, due to a recent incident when things
got so bad that I had to be hospitalized for a week.
I do not have insurance or the money
to pay for the counseling I need.
However, I have had a lot of counseling in the past. So, I know what has helped in the past and I
know that CBT is my best option (I haven’t done CBT, but I have read about
it).
My first challenge in these first,
real steps to full recovery has been not knowing what to do? I have been juggling through these self-help
resources:
FroFrom Panic
to Power by Lucinda Bassett
n
This website
I understand the importance of
having many tools in my toolbox, but I am quite overwhelmed by the amount of
information out there. Recovery is
actually giving me anxiety. What is the
fastest, most effective, and cheapest route for me to take… honestly? I suspect the best route is to immerse myself
in this website, based on what I have researched. However, if there are better options out
there, I’d love to hear them. I just
want to get better!
~Steve
