Microsoft Word - At Last A Life Final Copy 16-03-09 (2 page)

thousands if not millions of others who are experiencing the same

symptoms and thinking that they are the only person in the world

who feels like this.

Recovery is different for each individual. People who have suffered

for a long period of time can be more entrenched in an anxiety habit

than someone who has suffered over a shorter time period. A

person who suffers from panic attacks, depersonalisation and

anxiety may take longer to recover than someone who just suffers

mild panic or anxiety. If only I had known what I know now when I

first became anxious, my recovery would have happened far sooner.

No matter what level of anxiety or panic you have reached, full

recovery is possible for everyone
.
If anyone should know that, it is

me. I suffered from every symptom of stress and anxiety and I

struggled with them for 10 years. I tried method after method and

medication after medication, only to get nowhere, I felt like I was just

going round in circles from one disappointment to another. It was

only after I learnt about anxiety and panic and put this knowledge

into practice, that I was able to lead myself back to a life free from

stress, panic and anxiety.

Full recovery requires the correct information, an application of it and

a little patience. Most have suffered for so long that they just want to

be better now. Well, I was the same. I also wanted instant success.

Unfortunately, our body takes time to recover; this is only natural, we

have been through so much. Most of us did not begin to feel like we

do overnight; it was a gradual process and this process takes time to

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reverse. But, trust me, what a journey it can be and it is well worth

the wait.

I have had many people come to me for help, almost in tears as they

see no way out. Fast forward a few months and they cannot believe

how far they have come. So don’t despair if you feel you have hit

rock bottom or have suffered for a long time, no matter how you feel

or how much anxiety has taken over your life, the real you is just

waiting to resurface.

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SO WHAT ARE THESE FEELINGS I FEEL?

In my experience, there are normally three stages leading to how

you eventually feel.

Firstly, there is what is known as muscular fatigue (tired nerves)

where you feel that you are dragging your tired body around all day,

going through the motions of living, but having little or no interest in

anything. This stage can come from a relationship break up or

maybe bereavement, but it is usually created by long term stress

and worry, which gradually tires your muscles and your whole

nervous system takes a battering, causing the feelings mentioned

above. I have been asked many times why anxiety sufferers feel so

tired. The answer is that adrenalin affects your body by making it

work much faster than normal and can totally drain the energy from

your muscles. This is the reason your limbs may ache or you feel so

tired and emotionally spent at times.

This usually leads to the next stage - mental fatigue/tired mind. This

is where people feel that they cannot detach themselves from their

thoughts. They have a hyper awareness of how they are feeling and

feel strange, sometimes described as feeling as if they are living on

another planet. I have lost count of the number of times I have had

to convince people they are not going mad. So if the above

describes how you feel, trust me, you are not going mad. It is a just

a tired old mind, battered with worry and bewildered by how you are

feeling.

The reason for this is that you have started to worry about the way

you feel. You have entered this stage by all the ceaseless

pondering, all the endless days of thinking “What’s wrong with me”

and “Why do I feel like I do?” until such thoughts run automatically

all day and your tired mind can no longer cope with all this

information. It reaches overload and in order to protect itself draws

on its inbuilt safety mechanism to shut down. This is why you feel

strange at times. It is nothing to worry about and is just your mind

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telling you that enough is enough. Your mind can actually make you

feel more tired than the muscles you use. It can drain you of all

emotional energy and your thinking can become laboured and

confused. You may find it hard to talk, as though you have to place

each word in a sentence.

This can then lead to the third stage, which is emotional fatigue. This

is the one that hurt me the most and is the one thing that can

eventually strip you of your confidence. This stage comes when you

feel that there is no hope and you will never get better. Day-by-day,

your confidence can disappear and you may not even feel like

getting dressed in the morning. “What’s the point when I feel like

this?” you may ask. Your spirit also seems to fade and you question

how you ever became the person you are now, how you ever came

to feel like this.

You may have experienced only one of these three stages or you

may have felt, or be feeling, all three. However, like me, you can

recover from all of them, no matter how far you think you may have

sunk. Your body is waiting to recover, it wants to recover and all of

these stages can be reversed, until eventually you become the

person you once were.

Anxiety is not an illness; it is a condition, brought on mainly by long

term stress or worry and is your body’s way of telling you that it is

overworked. Your body is like a car that needs looking after in order

to run properly. It also has its own limits on how far it can be pushed.

I am contacted by more business men/women and people in the

medical field than any other profession. These are people that tend

to be under a great deal of stress at work. They don’t listen to their

body and they overdo things, which leads to anxiety. Think of it like

this. It I went out and bought a blender that had a maximum running

speed of 1000 rpm, but I was not happy with this and wanted it to go

faster, so I tweak it up and make it go at double that speed. What

would happen? The motor would burn out and it would quickly

break down as it was never designed to go at this speed. I have

overworked it!

Well, it is exactly the same with your body and this is why you feel

anxious. Your nerves have become bad through over use and the

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stress and worry you have been piling on has taken its toll. That is

why it is so important to take your symptoms with a pinch of salt and

not get stressed or worry about them. If you allow yourself to worry

and get stressed, you are working your body far too hard, a body

that is crying out to be left alone. Let me explain……

You may have reached the point of suffering through too much

stress or worry. That makes sense. But why does it continue? The

answer is anxiety has then become your new problem and you now

have something else to worry about. Just when your body needs a

rest, it takes on more worrying thoughts and more stress about how

you are feeling. ‘What is wrong with me?’, ‘Why do I feel like this?’

You may become bewildered and lost, and each day becomes a

battle as you try to think and fight your way out of this hell. This extra

stress and worry makes you feel worse, so you worry more and you

fight more. Anxiety may be the last thing you think of at night and the

first thing on your mind when you wake. Anxiety has become you. I

am sure many people can relate to this.

Do you see now why we stay in the cycle? This is the reason people

find themselves going around in circles and getting nowhere, falling

deeper into the condition, because they do the opposite of

everything they should do. But with such a lack of information and

help out there, what else can we do but fight this condition? In your

desperation to get better, you have actually created the opposite

effect and done everything your body wanted you not to do.

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We can all experience anxiety at some point in our lives. There is a

whole new range of stresses on society today. Finding the money to

pay the mortgage, stress at work, an up and coming event - all of

these things can contribute towards making us feel anxious and

stressed.

A certain amount of stress is only natural. The problems arise when

it is continuous and our mind and body never get a rest from this

endless onslaught of worry, which in turn can cause our nerves to

become sensitised. Sensitisation of your nerves means that they

become easily triggered and the slightest thing - something as

simple as a door slamming - may bring a sweep of panic. The

weeks/months of worry and stress have caused your nerves to

constantly vibrate or become ‘bad’ and this can create feelings of

anxiety for no real reason.

Now you must be wondering how I managed to discover the key to

recovery, the key that, had I known about it all those years ago,

would have helped me to get better so much earlier.

The day came after ten years of suffering. It came as I was seeing

yet another therapist at my local hospital who, once again, could not

give me any answers and did nothing to make me feel any better.

The appointment lasted twenty minutes, during which time I told her

my problems, she listened, asked about medication and if I wanted

to try a new magic pill, and then I was on my way. I was given no

explanation as to why I felt like I did and I don’t even think I heard

the word anxiety mentioned. However, this particular therapist had

been told of someone in another town who was supposed to be an

expert on the subject of anxiety, and she asked me if I would like her

to make me an appointment to visit. I agreed to go as I was

desperate and was willing to try anything. I gained no more hope

from the prospect of attending this meeting than I did from any of the

other meetings I’d had with other so called experts.

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Much to my surprise, this meeting turned out to be very different

from any of the others. In fact, I can remember the therapist’s first

words to me. He said: “Paul, you will never get better until you stop

trying to get better” This statement made no sense to me at the time,

but over the next few months, it was to be the very statement that

helped me recover. It meant more to me than anything anyone else

had ever said to me in the previous ten years. During our meeting, I

knew there was a real chance, a real hope that I would recover. For

the first time, what he had said to me not only made sense, it also

felt right. Of all the other treatments I had tried over the years and

boy did I try them all, not one of them felt right. I would pay the

money and go through the motions, but they certainly never made

me feel any better and I was never given any explanation as to why I

felt like I did, something my present therapist had managed to

achieve on my first meeting.

Every book I had bought on the subject was thrown in the bin, every

treatment I was having at the time stopped. I knew I would never

need them again and I now realise how much rubbish is written on

the subject and how many useless treatments there are from people

who just want to make money out of other people’s suffering.

Not only did this therapist help me to recover by showing me the

right path, it was through his help that I was motivated to begin

studying the whole subject of anxiety and panic, so that I would

leave no stone unturned in trying to help others who suffered in the

same way as I did. What I discovered is what I am now going to

pass on to you in this book. In my opinion, it is the only path that

leads to success, so, read on, and you too can also have “
A LIFE

AT LAST”

Footnote
: Before I go on, I would like to explain why all these so

called cures did not work. I tried treatments like acupuncture,

homeopathy, hypnosis and many more. The reason they did not

work is because I was trying to rid myself of how I felt instantly. This

is the problem; so many people just want this ‘dreadful thing to go