Coping with Anxiety

[CapitalT]

My anxiety hits several times a day, mainly mornings, but now evenings and afternoons.

The reason(s) may be permanent or reduced, until I have some help and a second set of eyes I'll not know.

I've been ringing Samaritans a lot, but they can only talk and not advise.

Any other tips for coping ?

[Jeff1943]

DodgyD, there is absolutely no reason to let anxiety rule your life. We create our own anxiety, we inflict it on ourself through fear, and we can reduce it to more manageable proportions and even recover from it completely if we set our mind to it. All we have to do is to learn to stop feeding our anxiety with the fear that it thrives on.

Anxiety is not the all-powerful beast we think it is and we are not helpless to stop it. Anxiety is vety good at frightening us half to death but its power is limited. It does not have the power to kill you, to disable you or to make you lose your mind. And what we have created we can destroy.

At some stage in your life you experienced a period of stress, worry, over-work or disappointment that became so great it affected your whole nervous system. It became over-sensitised and in this state it can play tricks on you. It can give you aches, pains and other symptoms that mimic genuine physical illness but are in fact only glitches in our over wrought nervous system. It can put strange ideas into our heads that make us think that death is imminent or that some terror awaits us if we try to leave our home. These are just a few of the symptoms of anxiety disorder.

The trouble is that we react to these symptoms with fear that further sensitises our nervous system. Which produces more symptoms which produces more fear which produces more symptoms: we are caught in a vicious circle which just goes on and on. And that's all that anxiety is, one bad feeling after another powered by our habit of reacting to them with fear.

The way forward is to do the opposite to what we've been doing so far (and getting nowhere in the process). So instead of fighting the symptoms and stressing and obsessing about them, we should accept them for the time being, accept them utterly and get on with our daily life without attaching so much importance to them. Because you can't accept something and fear it at the same time. So as you get better at practicing Acceptance you begin to starve your nerves of the fear that keeps them sensitive. And as time passes they return to their normal peaceful state. And you cease to suffer from your 'nerves'.

You lost your fear of anxiety because you came to understand that its bark is worse than its bite and and at long ladt you stopped giving it petmission to frighten you half to death.

[CapitalT in reply to Jeff1943]

Hi Jeff,

It's not so much 'the symptoms' I'm fighting, I have some life worries I'm dealing with that are contributing to my symptoms of anxiety and depression.

I've overcome the anxiety of leaving home, shopping, etc, and at last getting my head around more of my worries, trying to make sense of them and moving forward.

It's been a hard few months, but can see progress.

People tell me I'm strong as I've dealt with a lot over the last few years, unfortunately I let important parts of my life slip, got into some trouble, etc. which I've come through too, I just need to find that inner strength again, which I'm sure IS coming.

Thank you for your comments

[Vicky810 in reply to Jeff1943]

Thank u ☺️☺️