Here is some hope

[itsjustkevin]

What I am about to post I did not write. Lawrence Gregory is the gentleman who provided these words of wisdom in 3 different posts.. It is lengthy but definitely worth the read. Sit down and just read through this please.

“OMG… What If Something Is Terribly Wrong With Me?”

The first thing I have to say is this:- If you have had medical checkups and all is well, then that is truly wonderful. You can finally put that fear to bed and put your trust in the results you’ve received. They do not lie.

However, if you are that person who is worried there might be something awfully wrong with them, then getting yourself checked out would be the wisest thing you could do. There is nothing more stressful and fear inducing than living in the unknown when your fear is worrying about having some dreadful, life threatening disease.

Once you receive your results and they’ve hopefully come back “problem-free”, then it’s time to let go of your fear that something is dreadfully wrong. Otherwise you’ll keep going round and round in circles worrying about absolutely nothing and that would be a real shame.

I also want to point out that I’m not a doctor or a medical professional. My advice is NOT to be used as a replacement or substitute. With that being said, do get yourself checked out as soon as possible to rule out any other possibilities and to put your mind at ease.

Once you have a clean bill of health, then I recommend devoting your time and energy to following the advice written here.

Why do I feel like something is horribly wrong?

From my experience, the reason why we feel like something is really wrong with us, why we fear having some underlying illness is because anxiety makes us feel dreadful. Let’s face it – we wouldn’t wish anxiety and/or panic on anyone. It is one of the most hellish experiences a human being can ever go through.

The next question which usually follows the previous one is – why do I feel dreadful? This question is fairly easy to answer. We feel dreadful because during high anxiety, our body is continually being pumped full of “protection mode” chemicals. When we react fearfully to this release of hormones/chemicals, more adrenaline is released into our bloodstream making us feel even worse than before. It’s like adding another layer of fear. This is the vicious cycle.

In other words, our body is in survival mode producing all of these uncomfortable physical reactions which are making us feel rather unwell. Usually, something acts as a trigger which causes us to go into fight/flight mode. It could be anything, there needn’t be a particular trigger.

Then, if we obsess, over-analyse and fear this perfectly normal (but happening at an inappropriate time), bodily reaction to a perceived threat or stressor, our nervous system goes into high alert, the alarm bells ring because it now believes we are in danger due to the way we are reacting/behaving.

This creates more symptoms of anxiety which proves to us that there “just has to be something wrong with me.” Nothing is wrong with you. You have anxiety. When we believe in these catastrophic thoughts, we fuel the fire of anxiety. The thoughts are nothing more than a lie and the bodily sensations we experience as a reaction to these thoughts are false alarms.

Experiencing anxiety isn’t the problem because it’s a natural emotional response to something we perceive to be threatening. Whilst I can sympathise with you and say that it can make our lives a living hell when it turns into a disorder, the real problem is the belief/assumption that we are in bad trouble. Can you see what message this is sending to our brain?

But nothing is triggering my anxiety

Another big reason why some of us assume the worst is because we cannot identify a tangible cause to be in this anxious state. This was definitely true in my experience. I feared that I had some form of psychotic illness because there really wasn’t anything in my external world posing as something anxiety provoking or threatening.

This really disturbed me and as you can imagine, the belief and conviction in this false assumption sent my anxiety into “extremely high” mode. When you’re in this severe state, your body is literally priming itself to survive. Like I’ve mentioned so many times in previous posts, the brain/body doesn’t have any reasoning capabilities so it cannot differentiate between imagination and reality. Between a real threat and one that isn’t real.

It doesn’t care what it is. If we are signalling danger through our fearful reaction/behaviours, the alarm bells of our bodies protection mechanism ring out. At this point, our heart is racing incredibly quickly, our muscles tense up, our eyes go blurry, dizziness has struck and our assumption that we are dying or going insane seems true.

Of course it isn’t true. We are not dying or going mad. All we are experiencing is the body’s preparation for survival. We need to feel alarmed and uncomfortable so we can act ever so quickly when there is an actual danger. This is the whole point and reason as to why we feel so ill.

Because we have gotten into the habit of obsessing and worrying about something that is not even real (bearing in mind we’ve had tests and everything is fine), our body and brain is stuck in this high alert mode producing all of these uncomfortable symptoms and scary thoughts which are feeding each other, thus keeping us in this vicious cycle.

How do we break out of this cycle?

We break out of this cycle by fully trusting in the fact that we are not physically or mentally in trouble. From this point of getting the reassurance that nothing is seriously wrong with us, that what we are experiencing is just down to high anxiety and panic, then there are four major jigsaw pieces to the ‘unlearning/healing/recovering from high anxiety’ puzzle.

If there are four things that feed anxiety and panic more than anything else, it has to be doing the opposite to the things I am now about to cover. At least from my own experience.

Once you master these 4 things, you are on your way to unlearning/healing/recovering from high anxiety. Don’t forget, recovery takes time and it is not easy. Patience, perseverance and dedication to the 4 jigsaw pieces that fit the puzzle of recovery is KEY.

Jigsaw piece #1 – Educating ourselves on anxiety and panic

The most important thing we can do in terms of moving on from our anxiety and unlearning all of the unhelpful beliefs and behaviours is to educate ourselves on what anxiety is, what happens to our mind and body whilst experiencing the fight/flight response and why we feel the way we do.

Educating ourselves on anxiety and panic is so important because it helps us to alleviate a lot of our fears. There was nothing worse for me than wondering what on earth was happening and why I was so petrified of everything.

This is why I sunk deeper and deeper into the state of a crippling anxiety disorder. Until I had the knowledge which literally changed my life, I was innocently adding more fuel to the fire of fear on a daily basis.

I’m not saying that gaining knowledge is suddenly going to blow our anxiety out of the water, but what I will say is education plays a big part in helping us to recover. When you don’t quite understand that anxiety/panic is actually a response trying to keep us safe, we assume that anxiety is a monster. When we understand that panic attacks are actually not life-threatening or harmful in anyway, we don’t have to be so scared of them.

“Understanding and knowing what ANXIETY actually is – A fear response, warning, urgent message – like a HUGE ALARM Screaming through your body or a smoke detector sprinkling adrenaline to get you prepared for the ‘WHAT MIGHT HAPPEN.’ – Simply Anxious

Jigsaw piece #2 – Giving up the fight

Instead of trying to rid ourselves of how we feel, which doesn’t work because reverse psychology dictates that it doesn’t, giving up the fight by running towards our feelings instead of away from them does. The harder we fight, the more entrenched in anxiety we become. This is where so many people struggle for so long.

If you spend all of your time trying to not feel anxiety, then that same energy we use in battling with it keeps the anxiety in place. This is the backwards law at play here.

The more we use force to eliminate something, the harder the force bites back by creating more resistance and thus further anxiety and suffering. The solution here is to allow ourselves to experience what anxiety throws at us without trying to feel differently, without wanting the anxiety to be gone and without arguing with our thoughts.

This isn’t going to be easy because we have probably spent a lot of our time trying to win the war with anxiety by internally shooting at it. Habits take some time to be replaced by other habits. But war never creates a state of true peace in real life and it certainly never creates a state of peace within our internal war. The good news is, we can learn to change our relationship with anxiety and no longer fight it.

Jigsaw piece #3 – Ending the fear of fear (the fear of anxiety itself) by refraining from adding second fear.

Fearing our anxiety and/or panic attacks is our natural and instinctive reaction. This is because we are hardwired by evolution to fight off with anything that feels uncomfortable. Not only this, when we are not educated on anxiety and panic, fearing the fear seems like the only response available as I’m sure you would agree from your own experience.

When I started to understand what was going on and why I felt the way I did, I wouldn’t be so afraid of the anxiety and panic because knowledge is power and can alleviate our fears.

The reason why we fear the fear is because we either fear something bad happening as a result of how anxiety feels or because we fear that it could be harmful to our existence. The solution to this other than educating ourselves on what anxiety and panic, is to run towards the fear instead of against it.

Running away from the fear doesn’t resolve anything. In fact, it only adds more fuel to the fire of anxiety and/or panic. It sends a message to our Limbic system (emotional brain) that there’s danger present. This isn’t the message we want to be sending to our subconscious mind.

When I started to refrain from fearing the feeling of fear, which by the way, takes time because just like we’ve developed a habit to fight anxiety, we’ve also developed a habit of what Claire Weekes would call adding second fear. Which is just deciding to fear the initial wave of anxiety or panic we experience. A different message was being sent to my Limbic system (emotional brain). It was no longer a message of danger which activated more anxiety but one of “no danger.”

Jigsaw piece number #4 – Changing our focus – engaging our mind in the world around us

Whatever we focus on, we empower. The more we focus our time and energy trying to fight and obsess over our anxiety, the more entrenched we become in this vicious cycle. Self introspection is something that becomes the norm during high anxiety. Spending most, if not all of our time caught up in our internal world of thoughts and emotions can cause us to become shut off from the outside world. This is what happened to me from a very young age.

Years and years ago before what I know now about dealing with our thoughts and feelings, I was completely engrossed in it all. I would spend so much of my time trying to work out why I was having these strange thoughts and really uncomfortable sensations. Of course, this upset me and because of this reaction, fuelled the disorder.

Reasoning, arguing, trying to forget, suppressing, fighting, complaining and fearing were all the ways in which I would become even more caught up in the cycle of anxiety.

So much so that it was virtually impossible for me to focus on anything else but my anxiety. Not knowing any better at the time, I would try my absolute hardest to forget about the anxious state I was in by suppression and resistance. As you know from your own experience, this only leads to an intensification of anxiety.

To break this obsessive and constant self-check and self-introspective habit, it’s helpful to 1) Give up trying to make the anxiety go away, this helps us because giving up the effort to make something go away takes away the reason we have for constantly checking in to see where we’re at in terms of how we feel.

2) Make it a habit to focus our attention on the external world. To make this more interesting and enjoyable, focusing on the things which provide us with a high level of enrichment and engagement allows our attention to naturally shift away from our internal world. This helps the process of desensitisation.

For example, Art therapy has been known to calm the nervous system and provide a strong enough diversion for people with anxiety to channel all of that energy and to create a new habit where the attention is shifting away from constantly checking in. Checking in to see whether or not the anxiety is still there only serves to create more anxiety. Why? Because when we check in, we are paradoxically putting more emphasis on it.

If you liked this post and would like to see more of this content, please let me know.

Take care

Until next time

Depersonalisation – What Is It And How Do We Deal With it?

What is depersonalisation/derealisation?

Depersonalisation is not a mental disease. It doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with you. It’s simply a natural reaction to being in a state of worry for a sustained amount of time. When our nervous system is continually bombarded with the onslaught of stress chemicals such as adrenaline and cortisol, our protection mechanism kicks in to protect us from what we perceive to be a traumatic experience. Which would be experiencing the constant nightmare of anxiety and panic without really understanding it and knowing how to deal with it effectively.

It is believed that depersonalisation/derealisation is a part of the nervous systems protection mechanism and acts as a psychological anaesthetic. This is will explain why we feel so numb and removed from reality.

Looking back now, I experienced a lot of depersonalisation during my years of chronic anxiety so it would explain why our bodies own intelligence kicks in to protect us when we feel such intense anxiety and panic, especially for long periods of time.

Here is a paragraph I’ve taken from the book DARE: The New Way To End Anxiety and Stop Panic Attacks, Page 106 on Unreality/Depersonalisation.

“The sensation (depersonalisation) is caused by two things: delayed perception and mental preoccupation. While under constant stress or anxiety, the buildup of stress chemicals in your system causes a delayed response in sending information between neurotransmitter sites in your body. This slight delay between experience and thought can create a momentary sensation of unreality.”

Said another way, the overworked brain reaches the point where enough is enough and the sensitised nervous system reaches a point of major fatigue. Which creates that spaced out and ‘removed from the world’ sensation.

The more we internalise, worry and obsess over our internal world of depersonalisation and any other symptom we may be experiencing, the more tired and overworked our nerves become, perpetuating the state of depersonalisation we find ourselves in.

Dpersonalisation does not mean you’re going insane

A common fear people have (including myself at one point) is the fear of going insane whilst experiencing unreality like sensations. They may have reached the conclusion that they’re already insane because of how bizarre and disturbing depersonalisation can be.

However, this is simply not true in the same way as thinking you’re having a heart attack when you’re heart is racing rapidly is not true. It’s important to understand that nothing you experience in relation to anxiety disorder or panic attacks can cause insanity or death. No matter how terrible you feel and no matter how disturbing the sensations are.

Why can’t I just switch depersonalisation/derealisation off?

The same reason why we can’t just “switch off” any manifestation of anxiety. Everything we experience in relation to anxiety is happening within our subconscious mind. A reaction to a perceived danger has happened causing all of the these bodily changes, chemicals and hormones which are being pumped around the body creating these unpleasant feelings. We can’t change any of this once it has happened so no amount of trying to stop it will make the slightest of difference.

Naturally and out of habit, we have internalised and constantly analysed the sensations and as a result, tbis tires out our nerves and as a side-effect we experience depersonalisation. This has happened on a subconscious level so we can’t just make it disappear overnight. The only way to break a habit is to unlearn it. What I’m talking about here is the habit of constantly checking in to see whether or not the DP is still there.

Your fear of depersonalisation keeps it alive and fresh within you

Let me just explain to you how the nervous system tries to keep you safe when you fear something. And why a certain thought or sensation becomes sticky.

Okay, so when we react in fear to the depersonalisation, we are showing our brain that we are afraid of the way we feel, the brain decodes this as a threat. The more we check in to see if these strange feelings of feeling removed from reality are still there, the brain (subconscious) goes into it’s memory banks to show us what we’re fearful of so we can take action to keep ourselves safe.

It’s the exact same mechanism and process that happens when there is a real life danger. But because there is no real life danger, this mechanism and process turns into a vicious cycle due to our fearing it, constant analysis and introspective behaviour.

Said another way, our brain cannot differentiate between a real and an imagined danger so whatever it is we fear (in this case feelings and thoughts associated with depersonalisation) our body will react as if there is a tiger in the room with us. It believes we are in real danger so it is filed as a threat and every time we check in to see if the DP/DR has gone, our brain knows from our reaction that we are afraid and so it shows us what we’re afraid of so we can take action. This is really the only reason why it keeps showing up for us.

How can we actually deal with depersonalisation?

Acceptance

From my experience they were a few very helpful pieces of advice that allowed me to desensitise from this bizarre symptom. I’ll now explain what they are.

There is nothing more important than giving up the fight with the experience of DP/DR. Accepting how strange it makes us feel and how dreamlike the world seems is a must if we wish to lose this symptom of chronic anxiety.

Constantly trying to make it go away and arguing with it only serves to keep us in the state of DP – resistance tires out our nerves even more which strengthens the depersonalisation.

Not adding second fear

No matter how strange everything seems in your experience right now, learning to not fear depersonalisation/feelings and thoughts of unreality plays a HUGE part in desensitising from this symptom/sensation of chronic anxiety. I’ve already talked about what happens to our nervous system when we fear something so I don’t need to go over it again here. What I will say is when we practice a new response of not reacting to the way we feel in fear, we start to rewire our anxious brain.

Basically, new neural pathways will be built and strengthened every time we do not add second fear. The better we get at doing this, the more our brain deems this behaviour to be important and the neural pathway of adding second fear will become weaker and weaker every time. This is why after a while of practicing this, you begin to notice how much improvement you’ve made in regards to not adding that second fear.

Keep occupied – breaking the habit of constantly checking in

Another behaviour to unlearn is this non-stop desire to check in and over-analyse the symptom. Every time we scan our minds to see if the DP has finally subsided, we are pulling this strange sensation back into the forefront of our minds. Not only this but our brain goes into it’s memory bank and finds the ‘depersonalisation equals danger’ file and warns us by shooting our bodies full of adrenaline so we can fight or run from this so called “threat”.

In other words, checking in and analysing feeds the anxiety and exhausts our nervous system at the same time.

The solution to this is to focus our attention on external sources of data. Preferably highly stimulating and creative activities because they offer a powerful enough diversion to break that habit of introspection. Old habits die hard and this is especially true when we’ve spent a large portion of our lives caught up in the habit of introspection so please don’t beat yourself up. Instead be patient and make it your new habit to keep projecting your attention outwards onto things that interest you.

Put it this way, the less time we spend in deep thought obsessing and constantly checking in to see whether or not what we’re experiencing has subsided, the greater the chance we have of desensitising and thus replacing this habit with a more empowering one.

There was one other tip that helped me to stop this obsessive need for this symptom to be gone and that was being okay with my experience. I read something from At Last a Life by Paul David that when he stopped trying to get better, when he let go of his obsession to heal/recover from severe sensitisation, he no longer cared so much about checking in and when you no longer keep checking in, you allow your nerves the chance to unwind.

This is true and allows a deep release. When we have been caught up in this habit of desperately wanting anxiety to be gone, then it only makes sense to keep checking in and obsessing over it. However, when we adopt the attitude of no longer caring whether or not it is still there, then we are not going to be as bothered with checking in. See how this change in attitude helps.

I hope that you have found this post interesting and helpful. If you have any questions then please feel free to ask. Also, if you would like me to cover another topic, please let me know.

Take care

My Recovery Plan for Overcoming Anxiety and Panic Attacks

Reassurance & Understanding

One of the first things we want to know is if anxiety and panic attacks are harmful. Our initial assumption is that they must be harmful because they feel so intense and unpleasant.

One of the turning points in my recovery was getting told by a doctor that what I was experiencing wasn’t going to harm me. Oh the relief! This was also confirmed by an ex-anxiety sufferer who managed to pull himself out of hell after suffering for so many years.

Reassurance that no harm can ever come to us from anxiety and panic, no matter how severe it gets and no matter how intense it feels is so helpful to know.

It’s normal for us to stay in the reassurance seeking mode for a while until we fully trust that anxiety and panic attacks cannot cause us any harm. There’s nothing wrong with this. In fact, I recommend people stay in that mode until they can finally trust that anxiety and panic attacks are not going to harm them.

The reassurance that we are not going insane is very empowering as well. I spent most of my life thinking I was going insane during anxiety.

I mean, I did have really unpleasant and disturbing thoughts and sensations. The thoughts were about harming myself and other’s. I also suffered from derealisation where everything felt like a movie.

In fact, it actually seemed as if there were parts happening which I’d seen in films before.

I remember having a very disturbing experience where I was reliving a scene from a film called The Happening where people commit suicide thanks to an air born virus which is released into the air by plants. My parents convinced me that it was most likely hallucinations from medication that I was on for a little while.

Anyway, with that being said, it was just my over-active imagination merged with anxiety.

Acceptance for generalised anxiety

After spending most of my time with anxiety fighting it and trying to escape from it. I eventually realised, with the help of other people, that maybe this wasn’t the right way to approach things. If fighting my anxiety was causing me more emotional pain and torment, then surely it only made sense to do the opposite?

At first, acceptance didn’t feel right. I was so used to fighting anxiety and not allowing myself to “let it go” that this new approach brought on feelings of uncertainty and apprehension.

But then I reminded myself that it was akin to learning a new skill or technique, so it’s only normal to feel the way I felt. I stuck with this approach and I haven’t looked back since.

There were times when I wanted to resist the anxiety because it feels so intense and unbearable, but I knew that fighting my anxiety only gave it more power. Acceptance is one way of showing the brain that everything is alright. Through resistance, we turn anxiety and panic into a problem.

This breeds more anxiety because the brain is a problem fixing machine. So, it will go to work on fixing a problem that doesn’t even exist. I would simply let whatever feelings and thoughts that arose the space to play out until they were not getting empowered through my resistance.

The anxiety loves resistance. It loves the attitude of “I shouldn’t be feeling this way” “I wish I felt like I did when I didn’t have this” because it refuels itself through our attitude of non-acceptance.

Whilst it did feel unnatural to not want my anxiety to be gone anymore, it felt so right as well. I could actually feel the internal harmony of no longer being at war with my anxiety. Of no longer wishing that it was gone.

It’s this ‘wishing it was gone’ mentality when we are already in the midst of it that creates more suffering. It creates an internal tug-of-war with our current state. This is obviously not conducive to healing.

So, mentally say “YES” to every thought and sensation that you experience. Fully feel the sensations, give approval to all thoughts.

The moment you resist any aspect of anxiety and tell yourself that “I should be in a better state” or “I shouldn’t be feeling this way” is the moment you turn the anxiety into a problem.

More resistance is created because you’re telling your brain the anxiety itself is the threat. It tries to fight off or run away from this “threat”. Hence why you feel more internally disturbed.

What do you do when you’re resisting your inner state? Allow the resistance to happen. Don’t try to stop yourself from resisting once you are resisting. Instead, go with it. Watch it happen, encourage yourself to resist more and watch the resistance fizzle out.

Trust me, this works. What usually happens is we beat ourselves up for resisting and then try our hardest to stop ourselves from resisting. This is resistance!!!

In order to create a state of non-resistance around our resistance, we have to give it space and permission to carry on.

Important info:- This only applies to when you’re already resisting your anxiety. Of course, don’t deliberately go out of your way to resist. Think of it in this way. If something is flowing in one direction, you don’t try to make it flow in another one.

You flow in the same direction as the wind, you float in the same direction as the stream, so to speak. Resistance is created when we go in the opposite direction of the wind flow or when we try to swim against the tide.

The point is – accept everything. If you’re resisting your anxiety, accept that you’re resisting. Don’t try to end the resistance because this is a state of resistance. Let it happen.

This is acceptance. The resistance will fizzle out if you try to make the resistance worse. Here’s the secret. When you try to make the resistance worse, when you watch it happen, you are actually accepting the resistance.

It’s the same with thoughts. Let the thoughts you’re thinking be in your internal space without trying to make them go away.

Don’t get into a mess by telling yourself that certain thoughts are acceptable whilst other thoughts are not. Thoughts are fine. No thought we experience is inherently bad. It’s only our negative interpretation that causes us to suffer.

Trying not to think thoughts will not help. It’s exhausting, draining and will make you feel more anxious. It’s like trying not to think of a pink elephant when I tell you not to.

If I told you that for the next 10 minutes, you are not allowed to think of a pink elephant. You have to try your very hardest to stop this thought from entering your mind.

If I told you that for the next 10 minutes, you had to do your very best to stop thinking this thought. That you had to try and force it out of your mind.

How do you think this exercise would go? It would probably go disastrously wouldn’t it? The very effort to throw a certain thought out the window actually puts more emphasis on the desire to think that certain thought.

We are better off just giving up trying to push the thought away and being okay with experiencing it. This approach tells our brain that the thought is not to be taken serious. It will just become another thought that floats on by without disturbing us.

The “make it worse” approach for panic attacks

So, one of the main questions anxiety sufferers have is, how can we overcome panic attacks? My personal answer to this – we have to learn how to stop fearing them.

When we stop fearing panic attacks, we take away their power. It’s only when we fear them do they have the power to disturb us. Fear breeds fear. If you have a fearful perception of panic attacks, they will persist.

The only way we can really overcome our fear of panic attacks and ultimately stop them from reoccurring is through reassuring ourselves that they cannot harm us and making them do their worst.

This is the attitude of giving in to the panic attack. This “technique of making panic attacks do their worst wasn’t something I came up with myself. I discovered it through reading books and implementing programs.

I was very fearful of trying this approach at first because it sounds so backward and illogical to what we normally get told. However, it really is effective because it gets us to see for ourselves that the panic attacks are not going to hurt us.

The only way we can know for sure about something being true or not is through our own experience. Sure, we can read stuff about panic attacks being harmless, but it’s only until we see it for ourselves can we develop trust.

This counter-intuitive approach of making panic attacks do their worst is actually like a kill-switch. Remember, it’s our fear of them that keeps them going. It’s the approach of running away from them that makes them chase and engulf us. It’s all about changing our response to panic attacks in order to extinguish them.

It’s the difference between being in the darkness and being terrified of it, and being in the darkness and don’t being bothered by it. All it takes is a shift in understanding and most importantly, a shift in our response.

Me telling you that you’ll take away the panic attacks power and placing it back in your hands is not enough. You have to do it for yourself. So, if you trust me, then you’ll need to encourage the panic attack to do it’ worst.

There’s a scientific reason for why this approach is effective. When we change our fearful response to a fearless one (telling the panic attack to do it’s worst – “Bring it on!”), we are sending a message to our brain that the panic attack is not a danger.

The only thing the brain can do with this message is obey it. It will decode this message as panic attack = no danger. No danger means there’s no reason for the fight or flight response to stay activated.

Here’s how the ‘make-it-worse’ approach looks when put into practice.

You experience the familiar sensations and thoughts that trigger the panic attack.

Instead of mentally running away and/or pushing it away, instead of fearing it, you tell yourself that you enjoy the panic and you want more of it.

You allow yourself to fully feel the sensations of the panic attack. Leaning into it. Mentally say ?