Vicious circle

"Anxiety is a survival mechanism that prepares us to act when we detect a threat in our environment that we will need to manage.

When we doubt our ability to handle things we tend to be on the look-out for potential threats and anxiety experiences become more intense, more prolonged and more frequent than usual.

When those experiences are coupled with attempts to cope by avoidance and/or suppression, we become stuck in a cycle of anxiety that decreases positive experiences of the world and makes every aspect of daily life a struggle.

Intense anxiety is designed to overtake all of our thought processes so all of our resources can be directed towards surviving the threat. Once it has been fully triggered, it is very difficult to turn our thoughts to other things or access a wider perspective by ourselves".

From Engage Aotearoa http://www.engagenz.co.nz/ 

So that explains why I cannot, can't possibly ever think about other things in the midst of an attack! Aha. That's why it's such a vicious circle.

Groundhog day - same old s**t - but I must stop fighting/resisting

Another day same symptoms - back pain, chest tightness, all kinds of aches and pains, throat clearing, reflux, nausea, brain fog, heavy head, feeling faint/unsteady, shallow breathing - breath holding, too scared to go anywhere...can't leave the house - trouble moving from one room to the next. Constant fretting that I'm dying and doctors have missed something. Constant fretting that I'll get all the illnesses going around at the moment despite taking olive leaf extract.

But my psychologist tells me I need to stop fighting the symptoms and just observe with interest after all: anxiety follows the universal principle – The more you resist, the more it persists - and what you accept you go beyond.

I'm going to go to the library now to pick up the books I have on hold and I'll try this observation business out - back soon

Well that wasn't so bad....I was hoping to be able to rush into the library and rush out again via the self-checkout. One of the books wouldn't scan so I had to wait in the queue (not good with queues), whilst waiting I realised that the barcode for checkout was on the front of this particular book and not the back as they usually are. Scanned again - stopped to look at Margaret Mahy books on the way out (NZ's childrens' literary great died yesterday). And picked up an SPCA cupcake day brochure (I've been doing some cake decorating).

Then I thought I'd brave getting a flat white (coffee). Ordered and then saw the row of orders :(  Ah well....I'll look at the condiments and min gingerbread men for sale. Ah NO!!!! A stupid woman who was last took the coffee of the woman waiting before me....now things have to be done again and I need to wait longer for mine........but I coped fine. Wow!!! The only time I felt 'funny' was walking back to the car.....my legs felt funny - oh...just observe them - how interesting my legs feel a bit funny, like jelly, like lead...how interesting!!

Hmmmm...that seemed to work :)

Thought I might even go and sit in the car at the beach and drink my coffee - but no...don't want to stretch myself too much for one day.



 

Now I'm thinking - Heart Damage?! Or Fibromyalgia

Arrghhhhhh - now I'm having a tight chest, weakness, fatigue - all the rest of it. So I'm immediately thinking - womens' heart attack symptoms and/or my heart has been weakened and is damaged because of all the anxiety and panic. I can't win - these thought/obsessions with my body and its functioning.

But the pain in all my joints and my back has increased today - so perhaps the chest symptoms are relative to that - thoracic tension??! Sigh...I don't know. Every time I get up to something I feel exhausted and weak. I've been cleaning the house and fixing my lunch in fits and starts. Then I have to stop and rest for five minutes.

The pain - pain in the upper centre of my back, right hip - aching elbows, wrists, knees, ankles - biceps, triceps, quads, trapezius. Wow - that about corresponds to the trigger/tender points of fibromyalgia:

Or is fibromyalgia just another manifestation of depression?
Awww I need deep tissue massage and chiropractic - someone to 'crack' my back.

Some days I just can't bear this anymore - yet I go on.....

Why do I do this?

Oh why do I do this to myself. Took my medication today with a cold drink - every time I do that I get severe heartburn...its almost as if the Fluoxetine capsule gets stuck half way down and letches its contents directly onto my oesophagus - burning it. Every time I swallow........OUCH!

And why to I confide some things to my Mum when I know she'll come back with something as her attempt to control me? Phone rings....should I answer it? Oh no...damn...its her. Today she wanted to talk with me about God....that I shouldn't have to struggle like this and I've said myself I have trouble letting go - but God is there for me...all I have to do is let go to Him, give up my problems to Him. She's been getting messages from God.....in the form of a tune stuck in her head...she found it was Brooke Fraser's 'Lead me to the cross' and felt the lyrics were meant for me...and am I still talking to God??!!!!!

Yes that's right.....this struggle will all end for me if I just let Jesus into my heart...simple as that! Argggghhhhh. Some people take benzos others take God...whatever works...

I happened to mention that I might need to change my medication because clearly the Fluoxetine isn't doing diddly-squat anymore. And Mum knows my fears over changing medications. God will be there for me while I try something else. Sigh.

Still with the awful giddiness - are they sure I don't have a diseased heart? I'm scared to move in case I do more damage.



Why can't I let go? Relax?

I think part of the reason why I can't let go and relax is that I am too frightened to let go of my need to be in control. Its as if I were to let go then I would be letting death in - I have to have a hold or grip on myself to make sure I don't have a 'symptom' of impending death - that way I can get the help I will need - should I need it. In essence, am I trying to control death?!! Something that can't be controlled.

And sometimes when I do begin to let go and relax, I become fearful of the sensations of my body relaxing and I am jolted back to tension.

I need to be able to let go and use the energy that I'm using to hold on to recover.

But it is damn well easier said than done. Sometimes I try to tell myself to just give up - let go - so what - let death come if its going to - I've been struggling like this for almost a year and it hasn't killed me yet. Death might be a blessed relief. Or it might not - the suffering might continue - we really don't know, won't know - until we get there.

Other times I tell myself that relaxation has got to be better than this tension. But what if I do let go and death comes? What if I let down my guard and death sneaks in - catching me unawares?

Sigh - backwards and forwards the thoughts go - keeping me in constant turmoil, constant spiral - constant fight. EXHAUSTION.

Phobos, Phrike and Demios - Gods of Fear, Horror, Terror and the like

Fear - Diemos, Phobos, and Phrike - Matt Lindley

I picked up a brochure from The Phobic Trust whilst sitting in the waiting room at my Psychologist's this morning. One the front page read:

"The Greek God 'Phobos' was called upon in ancient times to strike fear into the heart of ones enemies. Fear, or phobia, was believed to be one of the worst punishments to be inflicted with."

I'd agree with that!

Then I Googled Phobos to find that Phobos is often depicted as "staring backwards with eyes that glowed with fire. His mouth was full of teeth in a white row, fearful and daunting…"

Phobos often is depicted as having a lion’s or lion-like head. Interesting, given that I am a Leo. Are more Leos than other star signs typically afflicted with this horror/terror/fear that is chronic severe anxiety?

Phobos has a twin brother: Demios - the personification of terror. And then there is Phrike - the Greek Goddess of shivering and tremor. But I don't know where she fits into the Greek God genealogy!

Anyway - an interesting aside I thought. And the image above by Matt Lindley I feel captures some of the dizzying turmoil felt when in the grasp of anxiety - terrors and phobia.

Severe terrifying disabling anxiety - fear that I'm dying

I'm having an extremely terrifying frightening time. All day and all night terror and panic. Lots of books and web pages say that panic symptoms peak within 10 minutes then ease off. No they bloody well don't - either they don't or I don't have an anxiety disorder. It,s because my husband is away...I haven't been able to sleep...even after having taken a sedative. Sheer panic sheer hell....upset stomach, can't eat, nausea, retching and vomiting. Severely tense and wound up.

Just found these interesting snippets at: http://tinybuddha.com/   and I keep reading and reading things like this to try and keep the unrelenting fear/terror at bay. But I guess I'm not listening to its message!

The anxiety message simple; it’s just three words: STOP! YOU’RE HURTING!

When an experience like anxiety is pleading for you to stop and notice that you’re hurting, and you know this, your next step is to find that hurt. Its severity is proportionate to the scope of what you have to address—so if you feel like you’re going to die, look for something big!

Its methods of stopping you are varied. It will use whatever works so that you’ll finally pay attention - it will customise for you.

The loudest stop message can appear as a panic attack and causes a sensation that you feel like you’re going to die. Dying is the ultimate definition of stopping within our physical experience, and that’s why we can feel that way.

The good news is that it’s an illusion. Anxiety will not hurt you in that way; but until you catch on, start listening, and heal the source of the messages, it will keep trying to spin you around so that you’re facing it long enough to hear what it’s trying to say.

“Hey! I’m talking to you! Is she still ignoring me? UGH! OK body, it’s your turn. Make her feel like her heart will explode, make her feel like she's shutting down. HA! You stopped working overtime didn’t you? Gotcha! Now look…we need to talk…What? Now you’re hiding in a movie? Oh no you don't! PANIC ATTACK!”

It’s being maintained by you , for you, until it gets enough of your attention for healing to take place. Whatever you keep doing or ignoring (maybe the things that led to its nascence) will continue to recreate it until you go about things differently. This is an important realisation because it can help you shift from feeling victimised to feeling empowered. It can only continue as long as you delay tending to what’s beneath the message. Anxiety cannot cause you to feel discomfort forever. It will motivate you to heal, and then leave once you do.

Anxiety messages can come from anything negative you’ve chosen to carry forward. It can be a traumatic or painful event left unresolved (usually through having had an attitude of sucking-it-up, being tough, trying to forget etc.).

Spending time with anxiety to discover the source of the message and what you have to heal can be achieved in many ways. You have to find what works best for you, but here’s a great series of approaches that seem to help everybody:

Welcome it.
Make friends and peace with anxiety immediately. Talk to yourself and the anxiety reassuringly: It’s OK. I’m listening. I want to hear what you have to say. I know you’re just trying to get my attention and that the more directly and peacefully I listen, the sooner you’ll stop repeating yourself.

Fighting with anxiety or resisting it will cause it to persist.

Realise that you are your own solution. You have what you need to look clearly; to hear and to heal. Anxiety is a message born within you, speaking to you through you, and therefore it’s within you to heal.

By learning about anxiety, spending time with it and finally holding in your hand, you can enjoy the next step: You can relax your grip, and let it fall away. It will have served its purpose. You will have loved that part of yourself and it won’t need to get your attention with such a difficult message again.


I think I've found my hurt and the source of my fears.....right..I'm off to find out how to deal with it......

Terrified

Under 'normal' circumstances, my husband's going away for work would not be a problem. Given recent 'abnormal' circumstances.....I am in a complete state about it. DH has to go to Sydney for a conference that he himself feels is a waste of time etc etc. I have been having enough trouble getting through each day - now I have to get through four and a half days and 4 nights without him. I've just gotten over the flu only to have another sore throat and the feeling that I'm about to get something else - I just cannot bear the thought of more illness....my body won't cope...it will kill me to have anything else.

I am so terrified that I am going to drop dead and leave our son on his own. Of course he won't be on his own because he has a friend living two doors down on one side of the street and two on the other side of the street.....plus one time I was having a huge panic attack he said he was going next door to get help! :/   So he'll be fine - it's me we need to worry about.

The deep down problem that I haven't told anyone is - I don't want my son being left with my husband. DH fluffs around like and old mother hen, can't cope with minor annoyances and completely loses it with DH most nights if not EVERY evening and everyday in the weekend. I really want to film him on my mobile phone just to show him how he looks and sounds. It can be quite frightening...and it certainly doesn't help with our son because he either says "Daddy you scared me" or just laughs at his Dad and winds him up even more.

This has been a problem ever since DS was born. DH just doesn't seem to do well. Sure he's great with playing with DS - but such a short fuse. I've tried and tried to discuss the inappropriateness of his reactions. I've written in a diary, but long since threw that away....I wanted to keep a record just in case we end up having a custody battle one day.

The odd thing is; home life is probably going to be a whole lot less stressful this week without him. I get tense as soon as he arrives home after work - I feel my arms clench up. I can't stand the sight or sound (noisy eater and mouth breather) of him. He snores loudly all night and his breath stinks. I told him time and time again about his breath. He's tried flossing and tongue brushing - it still smells like rotting vegetation. Our sex life is non-existent since the miscarriage - but then it's never been flash from the start (13 years ago). Now I've got an excuse. I know it takes two - but well I've just never really been physically attracted to him. Sometimes I wonder how and why I've hung around so long. I sound so mean - he's stood by me and supported me and everyone thinks he's the sweetest, kindest most caring and loyal guy. Its me that's the problem; I'm a bitch.

Maybe I should take this week to consider our future. I suspect that despite my panic about being left in charge that I might feel relief. It'll be a good time for me and DS to be together.