Anxious thoughts are simply a distraction from how we feel - physically and emotionally. The intrusive, repetitive, scary thoughts are one of the ways of keeping "unwanted" emotions suppressed. So, when you stop paying attention to these thoughts your attention moves to your body (physical symptoms) and the underlying emotions (feelings).
To recover from anxiety, we need to learn how to face, observe, inspect those physical symptoms and emotions closely. But without making them a big deal. You don't have to like them, you just have to be able to allow them without resistance. Let it all happen.
You can reach a point where you can say. "OK. I feel ________. So what? It doesn't stop me from continuing with my day".
Go about your day and bring the feelings with you. The more you can allow them, and the less you care about them, the easier a time you will have.
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CarlJames
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It was a gradual understanding that grew deeper and deeper as I progressed towards recovery.
I got insights along the way. But much of the wisdom came after I recovered and I could reflect on my life suffering from anxiety, and what changed as I recovered. I also benefited from coaching and supporting other anxiety sufferers, understanding how and why they suffered, and learning what worked for them and helped them recover.
The point of "accepting" our anxiety has been mentioned numerous times on this site. What about when you are having a panic attack, can't breathe, stomach sick, hands shaking, heart racing. How do you just go on with your day? IMPOSSIBLE for me. Because when I get like that, I freeze. I can't do anything else but stay stuck. And if I attempt to do the things that are CAUSING the anxiety, it just doesn't work. My mind goes blank. Can't focus on anything else but what I'm feeling. Breathing techniques don't work for me, nor does meditation.
If it helps, most likely our anxiety will be far less on the day of the move because you actually have work to do to help use up the adrenaline that's been pumping non stop! I didn't know there was a name for it, but it sounds like you have anticipatory anxiety going on (I have it frequently!). I use the example of flying. Im not too keen on it, so if I had a flight booked two weeks from now, I would find myself panicking about the flight now, and would say to myself that I wish I could just go today and it would be over. Because I know I will allow myself to get so worked up over it in the next two weeks, that I don't want to feel that way! Same with Dr appts. If I have one coming up, I will start worrying about what they'll find long before I even go to the appt. But on the day of the flight, appt or whatever else I've been dreading, the anxiety that day is never as bad as it had been up to that point. Perhaps you might tell yourself you'll allow yourself to be worried about the move night before and not before! But I completely agree with the others in that accepting/allowing is what we must do. Im just now learning about it so can't say it's going to be perfect, but listening to videos so far has helped already! Try DARE, how to end anxiety by Barry McDonagh. He has great videos and an app that have helped. He bases his program on Dr Claire Weekes, who has come highly recommended by others on this site as well. Can't hurt to have a look and they do have videos on what to do in the midst of a panic attack (they do on their app as well)!
The key is to turn your attention to how you feel. But in a different way than you probably have been doing. I'm assuming like most people in a panic attack you tense and fight hard to stay in control. You are using every ounce of effort to prevent yourself from "going over the edge".
The thing is, anxiety and panic is actually a bluff. A very scary and very convincing bluff, but a bluff nonetheless. There is no edge to go over, you aren't going to have a heart attack, go crazy, or die. All the intense feelings are just due to a very high level of adrenaline in your bloodstream. And by reacting to these sensations of panic with more anxiety and fear, it triggers your body to release even more adrenaline - keeping the panic going.
Eventually of course, your body runs out of adrenaline - it simply can't keep pumping it into your bloodstream indefinitely - at least not at the rate required to keep you in the panic state, so (usually after a minute or two) your panic levels then start to drop and your reaction drops (you stop adding second fear) and the panic fades away. Until the next time.
What you can do is to learn how to actually stop the reaction of adding second fear to the panic sensations WHILE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE PANIC ATTACK. This isn't easy, and you won't do it well the first few times you try it, but if you stick at it, you will grasp how to do it.
First you need to accept on faith that the panic isn't dangerous - that you aren't in danger. It's unpleasant, scary, intense, but not dangerous. You need to accept that letting the panic happen without resistance is safe. Then you can do your best to focus on the feelings and sensations without reacting to them - i.e. you observe them with curiosity but detachment. In other words you really feel them, without pushing them away. "Isn't that interesting, there is a buzzing feeling traveling in my arms and legs. Now it's turned into a hot sensation. Now I can feel it in my neck into my head. It feels like my stomach is flipping over. My heart is racing and pounding in my chest. I feel a bit dizzy. It's interesting, I can actually watch my hands shake.
It is possible to do this. But it isn't easy. Maybe you can do it at first when you have a less intense panic, or at the point where the panic is subsiding a bit. But even the attempt is a success, whether you are able in that instance to turn and face the panic or not. If you keep trying to do it, eventually you will succeed. And when you do, the panic will start to happen less intensely and less often. Keep doing it, and eventually you will recover from having panic attacks because the sensations simply don't scare you any more.
You must have already realized that fighting to shut the panic attacks down doesn't work, so you may as well do the opposite and try to welcome them and face them, accept them happening, without fighting them. that is the path to recovery.
Thanks for your response. But I DO feel like I am losing control. What happens if I do? Come across as some paranoid idiot? I'm going through an extremely hard time getting ready to move. These panic attacks have been going on for months and months. Next Saturday the movers are coming to pack up what I couldn't get to, and I am moving out on Sunday.😱🤯 I feel like I am going to go crazy and not be able to keep it together. What if I faint when they are here? What if I make a total fool of myself with all my worrying and anxiety? SO AFRAID of losing control in one way or the other, and that just sends my mind reeling. I DO WISH I could accept it like you and others on here have said. It just DOESN'T happen for me. I freeze, and I'm good for nothing.☹ I am NOT challenging what you and other great people have said on this subject. I am so glad that this tactic has worked for all of you.I'm just saying for me personally, those tactics don't help. I am SOOO AFRAID of losing total.control over my emotions and having a melt-down when this 2 day process is going on. I have always been in control.of my emotions in front of people. But this is just all.too much to take. I am afraid.😰
We tend to think that the storm that is going on inside us, is what it looks like on the outside. The fear of having a meltdown and looking like an idiot is based on how we feel ourselves, not on how we actually look to others. Very often people don't even realize we are having a panic attack unless we say something. We might look anxious to them, or a bit "off", but they usually have no idea of the storm we are experiencing.
My wife had no idea when it was happening to me. When I explained it, she said I was like a duck - I looked very calm on the surface but underneath I was paddling like crazy. I think you would be really surprised if you knew how calm you looked to other people when you are in the middle of a panic attack.
OK. Let's look at your feared worst case scenario - that you will faint when the movers/helpers are there. You know what would happen..? They would help you into a chair, give you a glass of water, make sure you are OK, offer to call for a doctor or ambulance if you needed it. You would recover. They would complete their job. And that would be the end of it.
The only thing that will be left is what you think about yourself for having fainted in front of others. To them, it was barely memorable. To you it feels like the end of the earth because of the shame and self-criticism you inflict on yourself. I know this because it is what I used to do to myself. Over and over. So which is closer to the truth? Their reaction or yours?
At the end of it, life will just continue on. No big deal. Maybe you can at least glimpse that it is only your reaction that makes it a big deal, nothing else.
I was so afraid of making a fool of myself in front of others. just the thought of it was devastating. My nightmare was to walk past one of those stacks of cans in a supermarket and have it crash and the cans roll all over the aisles with all the staff and shoppers looking at me. It never happened but I always feared it might.
I went through my whole life constantly worried about something like that happening and making a fool of myself, suddenly becoming the center of attention. I felt devastated when I unintentionally said something insulting or embarrassing in company, or when I broke something, or made a big mistake, or even when I blushed for no apparent reason. Just catching someone's eye unexpectedly could se t me off.
I thought I would NEVER overcome it. It was too severe. It had gone on for too long. I had tried everything and it didn't work for me. But I did overcome it. I have recovered. None of those types of things phase me any more. I don't have anxiety or panic attacks any more. I assure you, you can do it too.
I just staryed working on exactly what you are saying! It is starting to help a great deal. Thank you for your wise advice. It's nice to have validation that what I am doing really works. It just takes time. Sorry that Downandout 123 is so doubtful. But if I can do it, others can too.
Yes, great post Carl. Understanding and accepting that the role of anxiety is to protect us at any cost allows us to see the anxious thoughts and feelings for what they are which is well-intentioned lies. The key to recovery is to never believe your anxious thoughts and know that they are a signal that you are believing something that isn't true for you. It's the thoughts that fuel and perpetuate the anxiety.
For me, learning and practicing simple mindfulness allowed me to be able to start to detach from my thoughts and observe them and sit with my feelings and accept them. It takes time and commitment but works
I agree completely. One of the things I have found most interesting is that virtually every person I have come across who has made great improvements in their anxiety or recovered completely has used some version of acceptance, mindfulness, learning to pay no attention to the thoughts and connecting with their feelings.
It worked for me, so I know it works, but this is reinforced by so many people before and after me who have achieved exactly the same thing.
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