Microsoft Word - At Last A Life Final Copy 16-03-09 (21 page)

would not feel this way, but this was all wrong and I would never

move forward like this. I had to let go and welcome any feelings that

came. I had to learn not to care if they did, this was the only way

through. I ignored my body's instinct to avoid and started to embrace

how I felt. I moved forward towards these feelings. Eventually, I

started to understand my condition so much more.

Q.2 Will these feelings ever go away?

Yes, they will. Once you understand why you feel like you do, you

can unmask the fears you hold about anxiety. There are so many

myths about anxiety that it worries me to know just how many

people are misinformed and truly believe they will never get better

and will just have to live with it. Like me, too many people spend

years searching for that elusive miracle cure that just does not exist.

Understanding anxiety takes so much fear out of how we feel. Every

stage and symptom has a logical explanation that can be explained.

With less fear and more understanding, we also calm the constant

worrying. It is the lack of information on the subject that keeps the

worry cycle going. Constantly worrying that we will never get better

also adds to the belief that we will just have to live with it.

Once we start to understand anxiety and use the tools we have

been given to cope with how we feel, the change can be dramatic.

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During my recovery, I found that the more knowledge I had and the

more I understood my condition, the easier it was to not fear or

bother about how I felt. There was a logical explanation for it all and

I was not going crazy as I first thought. I started to lose the fear of

my symptoms and how I felt. Eventually they began to hold less

power over me and I started to pay them less respect.

It is your desperation to rid yourself of how you feel that keeps your

anxiety alive. The stress you put on yourself daily and the constant

worrying and thinking about your condition, puts tremendous

pressure on your body. Is it any wonder you stay anxious? So many

people first come to me in total desperation for help, never believing

they can get better. As time goes by, I receive an email from them

saying how much better they are doing, how much easier life is and

they can’t believe how far they have come. So don’t be depressed

by how you feel now. I spent 10 years getting worse purely because

I did everything I should not have done. I fought, worried, avoided

and became more bewildered. My illness just became me and

nothing mattered but getting rid of these awful feelings. This just left

me more detached from everything around me. The worry was

fraying my nerves even further, the deep thinking was tiring my mind

even more and, more than that, the feeling of desperation crushed

my spirit. I just became a shell. But in time all this was reversed

once I had the information you now have.

Q.3 Why do I find it so hard in social situations? I find it so hard

to communicate with people.

Avoiding eye contact and running away became a habit for me and I

had to find a way to reverse it. Firstly I decided that how I came

across did not matter any more. If I stuttered or felt awful then so be

it, I had to go accept this to move forward.

We must not run away from conversations, but allow ourselves to

feel strange if we have to. We must be prepared to feel half baked

and not with it, but just chat away. People don’t notice our

awkwardness as much as we think they do and remember the aim is

to embrace situations we may have run away from in the past. Don’t

wait for the day when you wake up and all this is behind you and

you are able to talk freely and easily with anyone. As you know, that

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day never comes, you have to make that day happen by not caring

how you feel or how you come across. So what if people think you

seem a bit distant, is it really that important? Remember in time the

real you will return.

When we find the courage to accept how we feel, even embrace

these feelings, we find it easier to follow what the other person is

saying. We become less concerned about how we feel which gives

us more time to be interested in the situation we are in and become

more involved in the present

Q.4
Why did anxiety choose me?

Anxiety does not choose certain people. It is not something that you

just get such as a cold. Anxiety is the result of your body being over

worked, be it through long hours, stress at work, a problem or

collection of them that you worry about. You over work your body

and it breaks down. Your nerves have been battered so much that

they go ‘bad’ if you like. If you work anything you buy beyond its

capabilities, whether it be a blender, a vacuum cleaner or a car, it

will break down or begin to clunk and run badly. Your body is the

same. So anxiety is not an ‘it’. It is not something your body wants to

go through. It is your body telling you that it can no longer work with

the pressure you are putting it under. That is why it is so important to

take your symptoms with a pinch of salt and not to get stressed or

worry about them; otherwise you are just working your body far too

hard, a body that is crying out to be left alone

Below are some questions that others asked me in an open

session
.

Q.5 Paul, here is something I have wanted to know about you

during recovery: When you say, “whatever” to a thought or

feeling, do you feel confident when you say it each time or is it

a matter of just saying it even if you feel like you’re treading

water to stay afloat at that moment?

This was one question I welcomed as I got stuck the same way and I

did actually do a post on this a while back on this. I think certain

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people get too hung up with accepting how they are. This should be

a ‘whatever’ attitude and NOT a need to keep reminding yourself to

accept how you feel. Once you start battling with yourself again, it

becomes a ‘do’. I think someone once mentioned that they had to

keep reminding themselves to accept how they were. There is no

need to do this and as some people may know it loses its force in

time. Accepting is all about not doing - not fighting, not worrying, and

not filling yourself with self pity. Giving your body a break is never a

‘do’, so please don’t feel the need to walk around telling yourself

daily that you must accept this. I see it more as a case of putting all

your tools down and accepting this is you for the time being. It’s

more of an ‘attitude’ that just becomes second nature.

It’s not about putting pressure on yourself expecting a word to make

you feel better and then getting frustrated that it doesn’t. You are

putting your faith in a word, when what you should be doing is

developing an attitude born out of the practice of not caring. There is

a world of difference between feeling awful and just carrying on with

your day and saying ‘whatever’ and then getting frustrated that you

still feel awful. Can you see the difference? It’s like having flu. We

know we can do nothing about it, so we just get on with our day

even though we feel awful. We don’t battle to feel better, worry and

obsess about it, because we understand the condition. It’s the same

with anxiety.

Q.6
Paul - I was doing so well these days and out of the blue I

got this setback. I feel the terms I use to accept no longer carry

any weight. They feel meaningless when I say them to myself.

For example, when I say to myself “it’s only a bad habit”, then

automatically my mind will start questioning. “What’s a habit?

Are you sure it’s a bad habit?” I don’t know what to do. I have

tried using new sayings but the same happens. It’s so

confusing. Please advise!

Again you don’t have to have sayings, as you can end up putting too

much faith in them to make you feel better and they can lose their

effect. When you say ‘It’s only a bad habit’ and then the other

questions come, again this is adrenalin building up and needing an

outlet. You need to let the extra thoughts come if they wish, but let

them burn themselves out. As you say, at the moment you let them

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frustrate you as you become sucked in by them. If you had not, they

would not have bothered you.

But more than anything, I would drop the sayings, just let come what

may. If your mind questions a question, then let it, but don’t get

involved or let it frustrate you. Also don’t search around for a phrase

to make you feel better, ‘That saying did not work, so what about

this saying. That did not work, I’ll try this. You see you are back in

fight mode. You are not accepting; you are searching for something

to make you feel better and having a mental battle with yourself to

do so.

Q.7 I have been doing great, but I stumble when confronted

with the reality that people do suffer from bouts of major

depression. With these thoughts come rushes of fear and then I

get caught up in a swirl of anxiety and low mood. How would

you move toward these feelings appropriately in order to face

them head on?

This question was asked in a different way before. This is the cycle

of anxiety. An initial thought like ‘maybe I will suffer with depression’

on a sensitised body will set off the anxiety, which is just adrenalin

on sensitised nerves. This brings feelings of fear and you may feel

down that you feel awful again. Firstly, understanding that this is the

cycle can help. Just understanding why you get such an

exaggerated response to a thought can be a comfort. If I understand

your question, then the initial thought of developing depression is

the answer. To desensitise to a thought you need to allow yourself

to let the depression come if it wants to. Give in to the initial thought

and say “If I become depressed, then so be it”. This thought then

won’t have the same effect, as you have allowed yourself to feel it.

There is no recoiling from the thought, which is why you feel the

initial reaction to it. Never recoil from any thought.

I have been asked the question ‘Did you ever worry the anxiety may

come back?’ Can you imagine the worry, the stress and the

watching I would have endured if I had this thought daily? I

understood enough about anxiety to not have these fears anyway,

but if that initial thought had come, I would have just paid it no

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attention. My attitude would have been that there is nothing I can do

about it anyway. Anxiety is a condition, not an illness and your

attitude should be ‘If it wants to come back, let it’ - just give in to the

thought /fear. You have allowed it to come back if it wishes, but do

you see that with this statement, the fear and worry has now gone

and the thought has nothing to feed on.

You can ask any ex-sufferer and they will all tell you that they could

never suffer again. People who recover understand what got them

there in the first place and what got them home and are far less

vulnerable than someone who has never suffered before.

Q.8 “What does it feel like to be fully recovered” and “How do

you know”?

I have been asked this question more times than any other. The

feeling of full recovery is really special, but something I truly never

aimed for. I just wanted to feel better and I think that helped me. I

was not desperate to recover; just feeling better was great and it

kept opening new doors. But feeling better was up and down. It

would go something like this……feeling better, then having bad days

- feeling great - feeling awful - feeling really good - feeling awful. It

was up and down until the good days were really good and the bad

days were not too bad. I may have had a couple of really bad days,

but I had been there many times before, so I did not let them bother

me. I had so much faith in the fact that I would soon be back to

feeling great again.

Full recovery was strange as I thought I had just about recovered

before. But I do remember the day when I could just chat freely