Sleeping with the enemy: recovery through acceptance.

[Jeff1943]

You are no different to anybody else, neither those here who are no strangers to anxiety nor those who have never experienced it.

If anybody is subjected to enough stress they will reach a point of anxiety overload and our nervous system starts to complain. The bad feelings you experience are symptoms of that complaint, your nerves have had enough.

So do not believe there is something 'weak' about you or that you are a 'failure'. Anybody else would respond the same way in the same circumstances.

You are suffering from nervous exhaustion, sleep all you want for a while but sleep the sleep of the just: you have nothing to reproach yourself for. Before long it will be time to rise from that bed and look to your recovery.

There is no need for you to fear panic attacks and feelings of anxiety: they are not nice but they can do you no permanent harm. And they are temporary. They are merely brief blips in your nervous system which has become over sensitive because of your recent stresses.

The way to handle these bad feelings is to simply accept them for the time being. Do not attempt to hide from them, let them come, face them head on, agree to co-exist with them for the moment. That way you disarm them: by accepting them you prevent them from instilling more fear within you. Anxiety feeds on fear, by denying it that which it thrives on anxiety weakens and dies.

You cannot both accept anxiety and fear it, so choose acceptance and you will recover but you must give it time. As long as it takes. You will find you can continue to function even with attacks of anxiety: if you feel weak imagine some unseen force driving you forward. Feel yourself floating through your daily tasks as if on automatic pilot. Use your imagination and that unseen force will see you through the days ahead.

Anxiety and the fear of anxiety to come are the enemy, your recovery depends on co-existing and accepting those feelings for the time being. You must sleep with the enemy in order to undermine and overcome it.

So here is your non-med prescription for recovery, it is a piece of paper containing six words: Face, Accept, Float, Let time pass.

Your life is going to get better: you will emerge a better person from this ordeal. Not the old you that you yearn to return to but a new you that gives you back your quiet mind and the knowledge of how to protect yourself should anything like it ever happen again.

[Tranquilwaters]

Inspirational post as ways, Jeff. Thank you so much!

[hypercat54]

Great post Jeff. x

[LovePurple2]

Great post Jeff & very true what you said! Thank you so much for the post & uplifting!❤️

[Billsfriend]

I definitely recognized Dr. Weekes in your post. Now I see how you got to be a Guru! Thanks for the great reminder!

[8L0ND1E]

Jeff, what if we can’t just “float” through our daily tasks? My job takes concentration and skill in which I’m still struggling to learn. Work stress is making me physically sick, but I have to work to provide for my children. I need therapy, I need medication, but both are out of reach right now.

[Jeff1943]

DK321, I'm sorry you are in a job that is causing you so much stress. As you know the cause of your anxiety then you must neutralise that cause. And that means changing your job or transferring to another role. Easy for me to say I know but I see no alternative.

Your children are lucky to have a parent who cares for them so much that they are willing to go through such discomfort every working day to support them. This shows your love for them. But if you continue in your present job, specially without therapy or medication, you could be heading for an anxiety car crash. You may be willing to grin and bare it but your nervous system will not put up with it indefinitely.

For your own peace of mind and for your children's I would say you must seek alternative employment that does not cause you such distress.

No, this isn't the only job available to you, you can do better than work under intolerable stress.

Why not start looking now? Staying where you are is not a long term solution either for yourself or your children. I wish you early success in transferring to a job that you actually like going into each morning.

[8L0ND1E in reply to Jeff1943]

Thank you Jeff. A couple of people have suggested this to me recently- finding a new job. I’m looking into it. I have to find the right one that will allow me to be there for my kids too.

[Jeff1943 in reply to 8L0ND1E]

Sometimes the right solutions are the obvious ones. It takes extra effort and mental energy to find a new job, things we instinctively don't want to burden ourselves with specially the way we feel right now. But escaping from that toxic work environment will pay you big dividends in terms of peace of mind.

[Dolphin14]

There must be a big learning curve with this.

I would say looking at the steps I tend to bounce around. That's why I'm still working it in therapy. I have a handle on it and then I fall backwards a bit. I have ptsd. I've been in therapy for 5 years. If my trauma fears get triggered I fall back.

Are you totally free of the type of anxiety that " takes you out"

[Jeff1943 in reply to Dolphin14]

My anxiety is inherited so it can return from time to time but I am 95% free of it using the acceptance method devised by Doctor Claire Weekes many years ago on which my post is based.

[Dolphin14 in reply to Jeff1943]

That's awesome Jeff. I'm very happy for you

[Jeff1943 in reply to Dolphin14]

As you may have heard me mention before, the acceptance method for recovery from anxiety is simply described by Claire Weekes in her first book 'Self help for your nerves' u.k. title also called 'Hope and help for your nerves' u.s. title, available from Amazon or Ebay new or used.

[Dolphin14 in reply to Jeff1943]

I do a therapy called IFS which is based on learning and accepting our parts. So it has a similar base. Accept, don't fight it.

Thank you for sharing your knowledge.

[Jeff1943 in reply to Dolphin14]

Many modern therapies are based on the original work on Acceptance that Claire Weekes first published in 1962. She was first to suggest acceptance as therapy. When she said acceptance she didn't mean accepting anxiety permanently, God forbid, but as a short term strategy to allow over sensitised nervous systems to recover. She also said 'Don't fight anxiety, fighting only produces more tension and stress, the last thing people with anxiety disorder need."

I know there are some very good self-help books and authors, many building on Weekes' acceptance method. But I have never read books by any of these later authors, I suppose I am a fundamentalist and stick with Weekes' original doctrine.

[Dolphin14 in reply to Jeff1943]

It's done you well. I think that's great. You have the ability to bring what you've learned to others.

IFS therapy is about every part of us. The role each part plays and tracing it back to when it first showed up. My anxiety showed up as a young girl. It's job was to warn me of danger. Now I'm appreciating what it did but letting it know I'm an adult now and I don't need it to prepare me. I can handle things now. I ask anxiety or an other emotion to step back and let me take over.

So in doing that I accept it's a part of who I am but I don't need it around all the time. I can talk and settle it down.

Sounds bizarre I know, but it does work.

I was listening to a meditation this am about accepting and flowing down stream. Reminded me of what you say about Weekes teachings.

[Blake96]

Wow that was amazing! Trying to accept my depersonalization/derealization along with the anxiety/panic. It’s tough but a work in progress. Very easy to slip into a depressing state each day but I’m really working to get mentally strong. What a challenge it has been, thanks for the post (: