Author Topic: Healing my anxiety.  (Read 9956 times)

Gaining Strength

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Healing my anxiety.
« on: November 17, 2006, 04:15:28 PM »
New thread  - old topic.

I read on www.anxietyzone.com under Generalized Anxiety Disorder that resentment is a cause of anxiety.  Boy did that hit home in terms of my basket load of resentment developed (but unconsciously) in my N childhood.  I believe that I have madegreat progress on letting go of that resentment.  Most of it came from listening to my N father talk about so and so's son/daughter who graduated summa cum laude from this Ivy League and moved on to a position in X corporation or law firm, etc., etc.  My father always upheld the loftiest attainments as the only acceptable goals.  And I lived in fear of not getting there, and hating myself because I fell short. 

Little did I know that all that talk was just posturing.  There were other things he would do  in setting up unattainable goals and then being SILENTLY critical about the failure.  This summer I heard Cong. John Lewis talk about the "literacy tests" given to blacks in some parts of Georgia and Alabama.  He gave as one example a question that could not be answered correctly and if it was then the answer could shift so that ultimately there was no way to pass the test.  When he told the story I felt my heart stop and the blood rush from my face.  I knew that experience but I had never been able to put words to it.  There it was - I had been given tests or chores that I could not possibly pass (and if I did the target would change).  Ultimately, I internalized the "knowledge" that I was insufficient, fell short, was not good enough.  Little could I know that it was my father and my mother who had projected their utter inadequacies on me and demonstrated how my brothers could do that too.  Sadly I bought it hook line and sinker.

Feeling inadequate, I expected to be left out, even among my friends (what a contradiction - I felt accepted and rejected by my friends).  Out of those feelings I pouted and lashed out.  The way I learned to try to get something was by telling a "poor me"story rather than trying to charm my way.  Charm was absolutely not allowed.  Wy would anyone exile charm from their own household?

If I did well in something, it wasn't good enough.  Eventually, I became afraid of whatever my results would be and then the fear became destructive and omnipresent.  I expected and got criticism, I interpretted complements as superficial and as having some
hidden meaning like politeness.  I learned to be my biggest critic and to really hate myself.  But who hates themselves? So I was in denial about that and felt like it was THEM.  And boy did I resent THEM.  Them being anyone who didn't get the endless criticsm and unreachable expectations that I got.  I was completely lost as to what was truly valuable and who I wanted to be.  I had ADD before there was a name for it.  I was loud, athletic, wild and falling short of my academic potential.  I tried everything with gusto and when I failed I landed hard with no shoulder to cry on but sneers and put downs at home.

Now why is it that I wonder why I suffer from depression and anxiety?  I have really learned how to work with depression, ward it off, and battle it.  Though I still suffer from it, it is not at all debilitating.  But the anxiety is  a problem.  A big problem.

I have to remind myself that in two short months I have made great progress with this anxiety.  Far more progress than I made in that time frame with depression.  Four years after being laid low by depression, I no longer fear it.  It is no longer debilitating.  I keep that in mind to keep me encouraged about finally getting out of this paralysis due to the anxiety. 

In just two short months I no loner fear that I won't be able to follow through on a commitment due to anxiety and that has been
one of the greatest problems for me the past five years.  I would agree to do something and never know if I could get it done or not because I would simply get paralyzed.

This morning as I lay in bed, struggling because I had two early morning commitments the anxiety was raging but suddenly I realized that I was struggling but that there was NO concern that I would not be able to follow through.  That is probably the most significant progress I could make.  To know that I can get through the anxiety enough to follow through.  That is where all my hope is.  Now I must just keep plugging along, accomplishing two (or more) daily responsibilities each day and by years end, if not sooner, I will bump it up.  But Christmas and sons birthday party (Dec. 9) are big anxiety provoking events and that may be all I can handle until years end.

Thanks for letting me post.  It is so much more helpful for me to write here than in a journal.  All I ever had was myself and now I have this community.  It does give me the support and encouragement that I have needed and longed for.  I do feel accepted here.  And this is the first place I have felt truly understood and truly empathized with.  Those are the very things that I need to heal.  I have know this for a long time but had no idea how to find it.  Then I opened my heart and my prayer was answered.

Gaining Strength

Hopalong

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Re: Healing my anxiety.
« Reply #1 on: November 17, 2006, 05:23:05 PM »
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a question that could not be answered correctly and if it was then the answer could shift so that ultimately there was no way to pass the test.  When he told the story I felt my heart stop and the blood rush from my face.  I knew that experience but I had never been able to put words to it.


That is a breathtaking realization, imo, GS. Awfully sad, what a waste of a chance to love by your ignorant parents...but at the same time, I think moments of penny-dropping like this are the seeds of liberation. Name it and TAME it. And you are so clearly doing that. It's your whole process. Bravo!

And this is just incredibly mature. I think you have learned soooooooooo much--the kind of thing that people don't get summa umma bumma wummas for--(oh how this culture loves its rankings)...):

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This morning as I lay in bed, struggling because I had two early morning commitments the anxiety was raging but suddenly I realized that I was struggling but that there was NO concern that I would not be able to follow through.


Incredible.

Okay to offer a little piece of advice re. son's bday party and Xmas?

Keep them both simple.
So simple you could imagine the entire Junior League of Successful Women standing in the street with their girdles pinching but not allowed to adjust 'em, all of them, millions and millions in proper outfits and uncomfortable shoes, saying in unison: tut-tut, oooo, tut-tut.

While you stand at your doorstep with a peaceful smile. Happy birthday, come play checkers. Merry Christmas, we'll sing one simple carol now.

JOY to you. Or heavenly calm.  :)

(((((GS)))))

Hops



"That'll do, pig, that'll do."

Gaining Strength

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Re: Healing my anxiety.
« Reply #2 on: November 17, 2006, 06:26:07 PM »
Thanks so much for all your responses.  It is so miraculous to pour your heart out and to get friends come by and say good for you and then to share something of their own.  I so love being a part of each other's lives. - GS

headed out to "Happy Feet" with my 5year old who yesterday wanted me to buy him a blazer and tie while I was holding out for a little boy Eton suit.  He grew up too fast - 6 in three weeks.  How I wish I could shrink him up.  This afternoon he sat in his blazer and tie and got out papers and envelops and a stapler to "work."  Just hope he can hold on to that enthusiasm for work for decades to come!

gratitude28

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Re: Healing my anxiety.
« Reply #3 on: November 17, 2006, 06:49:43 PM »
GS,
Really, the anxiety thing for me just took some time to pass. After I quit drinking and started in AA, I also decided I was in an unhealthy situation in my workplace and decided to stay home for a while. I would panic if I had even the littlest appointment or committment and sometimes even cancelled them. It amazes me to look back, because now I have things every day and no anxiety. I can't tell you when it will pass... but if you keep on keeping on each day... one day you will find it's not as hard as it used to be.
((((((((((((((((((((((((((GS))))))))))))))))))))))))))
Love, Beth
"There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable." Douglas Adams

Hopalong

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Re: Healing my anxiety.
« Reply #4 on: November 17, 2006, 06:53:40 PM »
My heart melts. Aww.  :D

GS, how lucky you are to have this precious boy...and vice versa!

He is going to learn so much good stuff from seeing his mother's honesty.

Hops

"That'll do, pig, that'll do."

CB123

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Re: Healing my anxiety.
« Reply #5 on: November 17, 2006, 09:12:20 PM »
ediy
« Last Edit: January 14, 2007, 01:06:23 PM by CB123 »
When they are older and telling their own children about their grandmother, they will be able to say that she stood in the storm, and when the wind did not blow her way -- and it surely has not -- she adjusted her sails.  Elizabeth Edwards 2010

Hopalong

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Re: Healing my anxiety.
« Reply #6 on: November 17, 2006, 10:22:08 PM »
Hi 123,
I remember when I chose Nbf after Nbf that one thing that often characterized my thinking of my next communication with them (these were men I just knew I was in luuuuuuuuuv with) was gasping for breath.

One of my main anxiety symptoms looks and feels exactly like an asthma attack.

It is so rare now that I have almost forgotten it.

Yes yes yes, anxiety symptoms can and do get better when you are no longer in situations where you feel as though you're emotionally drowning. Like your marriage. And especially when you've learned as much as you can to prevent a compulsion to repeat them.

What a good question you've raised. I'm happy we're discussing anxiety here. There is so much commonly-understood info about depression, but I think not so much general understanding about anxiety.

Panic attacks are horrible. I'm glad that's passed for you. And I think the free-floating anxiety that wakes you now and then will ease too. Just keep caring about yourself, literally feeling that care. It's okay to put yourself first.

I think I knew that intellectually for a long time but it's relatively recent that it's clicked as a genuinely good, right, responsible and sane thing.

Hops

"That'll do, pig, that'll do."

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Re: Healing my anxiety.
« Reply #7 on: November 17, 2006, 10:39:26 PM »
This afternoon he sat in his blazer and tie and got out papers and envelops and a stapler to "work."  Just hope he can hold on to that enthusiasm for work for decades to come!

well I'm sure you teach him he has lots of choices!

Good that you are working through this crippling anxiety and I hope every day gets better in some way.

Do you journal still? I have foudn it such a comfort lately whilst moving and discovering journals from a couple of years or more back and I was ill or in a bad relationship or worried about getting my career on track....it reminds me how far I've come.

Welcome C/B123,

'What was that about?  Is this something that commonly happens to people who are closely related or married to narcissists?'

to anyone who has lived through trauma. The pressure of being with someone who demands you build something out of shifting sand is pretty relentless.

Even tonight I could sense something about my ex, something he wasn't happy about me doing or not doing. It's him projecting out, and though he got me well-stressed yesterday about practical things we had to sort out they sorted themselves today so there was no place for him to focus his anger and I resisted the urge to discuss it.

I would panic if I had even the littlest appointment or committment and sometimes even cancelled them.

I have to psyche myself up for stuff Beth, have my day mapped out in my head somewhat.
I wasn't always like this but stress can reduce me to a heap in no time now. It's like something inside me snapped and said 'enough'.


Gaining Strength

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Re: Healing my anxiety.
« Reply #8 on: November 17, 2006, 11:14:34 PM »
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I would panic if I had even the littlest appointment or committment and sometimes even cancelled them. It amazes me to look back, because now I have things every day and no anxiety. I can't tell you when it will pass...
Thank you, thank you, thank you.  This is just the encouragement that keeps me going in the right frame of mind.  "Anxiety passes.  It can. It has for others. It will for me."  Thank you, thank you, thank you.

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how lucky you are to have this precious boy...
I am very thankful.  I wanted children all my life and finally in my 40's my true love came.  The miracle of becoming a mother is a reminder too that I can expect and receive miracles.  Getting beyond where I am seems like a miracle but I believe in them and that helps with the encouragment.  Thanks for the reminder Hops.  Tonight we have "Happy Feet".

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(I'm sure you all have experienced that grand SWOOSH that happens when all the seemingly unrelated symptoms seem to come together and make sense for the first time.) 
Absolutely.  For years I read all I could.  I would go to Barnes & Noble and get stacks of books, a cup of coffee and read for a couple of hours several times a week.  Reading helped but talking here and getting insight from others really brings things together and opens up my eyes, speeding the healing process.

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....it reminds me how far I've come.
  I'm doing very simply journaling now - really brief notes on a calendar just for the purpose of seeing clearly and quickly how much progress I am making.  I find it essential to see right there in black and white that I am making progress.  It helps me keep faith for the future.  I am glad to read you write this:
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Even tonight I could sense something about my ex, something he wasn't happy about me doing or not doing. It's him projecting out, and though he got me well-stressed yesterday about practical things we had to sort out they sorted themselves today so there was no place for him to focus his anger and I resisted the urge to discuss it.
  I think it remarkable that you are able to do that at this stage.  You do have a deep source of strength and courage.  Things are turning for you WRITE.  I do so admire you and my heart is with you during this difficult transition. - your dear friend - Gaining Strength

Gaining Strength

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Re: Healing my anxiety.
« Reply #9 on: November 18, 2006, 10:01:41 AM »
This morning began well.  I haven't even felt the need for my meds.  That's a first since I began them.  I am gaining
enough strength to face some difficult issues.  Each one a potential for anxiety.  But I am going to shift my focus onto
my fear of inadequacy and then throw that open to the universe of intention to help me through.

This morning before I got up I went into a visualization process, part dream, part something else like imaging. I held in my mind a healer who acknowledged my deep pains, fears and resentments. He held me in a soft, soothing blanket as a mother figure healer
and a father figure healer were present.  They each in turn experienced the pain and fear and rejections that my parents each felt
and then projected onto us out of their own pains and fears.  Each acknowledgement, each revelation I processed with a wave of healing, a release of forgiveness and a crack of my soul to open ever so slightly to receive love. 

My fears are great.  Even in anxiety I have been unaware of how great my fears are.  I am opening them up and laing them out.  I am safe here.  It may take time but I will find healing here.  I give my love and my heart to my friends here.  Thank you all.

The irony is that as I give them up, the multitude and enomity of m fears just begins to present themselves to me.  It really is
like  an iceburg.  So much is suppressed, so much ignored.  That is the great pain of healing.  What I couldn't bear for so long
is becoming exposed.  Just as I get a smidge of relief from anxiety I expose more pain and the fears multiply.  That is part of the process and that must be why it is easy to turn our backs on healing.  It is painful.

Gaining Strength

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Re: Healing my anxiety.
« Reply #10 on: November 18, 2006, 10:41:26 AM »
Just needed a place to scream.  I keep coming here and then going away to get started on the day and coming right back here.
I am facing fears today and i HATE it!!!!   On www.anxietyzone.com someone posted that the source of anxiety is resentment.
Boy does that sting.  I've turned resentment into fear and my big one is about money.  I am so conflicted about money and
its value and my value.  Don't need help working this out quite yet but I really need to vent.  I really need to scream.

I DON'T WANT TO FACE WHAT I HAVE TO FACE TO PROCEDE.  I AM ANGRY.  I AM LONELY.  I WANT TO LET GO INTO HATRED BUT THAT ONLY MAKES THINGS WORSE.  I WANT TO GET INTO BED AND PULL UP THE COVERS BUT THAT ONLY MAKES
THINGS WORSE.  I DON'T WANT TO DO THE THINGS THAT MAKE THINGS BETTER.  I DON'T WANT TO FACE MY LIFE TODAY.
I WANT TO THROW A TANTRUM AND JUST SCREAM BECAUSE LIFE ISNT FAIR.  LET SOMEBODY ELSE COME AND PICK UP THE PIECES.  I DONT WANT TO ANY MORE!!!!!

I AM ANGRY!!!! and I am scared.

Hopalong

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Re: Healing my anxiety.
« Reply #11 on: November 18, 2006, 11:08:43 AM »
(((((((((((((((((((GS)))))))))))))))))))))))

It's okay, hon. Just do a 2 x 2 square today.

I understand exactly what you're going through.

Me, I'm going back to bed for a while.

I have weeks of paperwork, but I was up until 4:00, my D called late. She moves today.

When I wake up again I'll go to the gym and hopefully come home energized.

Meanwhile, I hear your scream and that's good! You made room for deeper breaths.

Lots of oxygen and just enough hope to you, (((((((((GS))))))))))))).

You have come SUCH a long way. Don't despair.
Saturday can feel like "the day we should get everything perfect."

Nope. It's just a day for another 2 x 2.

hugs,
Hops
"That'll do, pig, that'll do."

Gaining Strength

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Re: Healing my anxiety.
« Reply #12 on: November 18, 2006, 11:28:58 AM »
Hugs in return my dear friend Hops. 
Hope that extra rest does you good.
Your due some refreshment, some revival.
your friend - Gaining Strength

Gaining Strength

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Re: Healing my anxiety.
« Reply #13 on: November 18, 2006, 01:22:42 PM »
Here is some more I found on the internet.  Little here is new to me but this is good material.  What is new of course
is how all of this relates to anxiety.  I am preparing myself to do an inventory of resentment and of fears so I can
expose them and deal with them.  This is really scary. 

http://ethesis.blogspot.com/2006/02/i-learned-lot-about-forgiveness-and.html
Friday, February 24, 2006
I learned a lot about forgiveness and avoiding resentment from someone who had been badly wronged. As the result of someone threatening a witness, and hiding the fact that her husband was sexually molesting their daughter, she lost custody. I was able to get the daughter therapy (which also resolved the custody issue, with the daughter coming home to her mother permanently, and the ex-husband staying far away from the state where she lived).

But, I was wondering what more should be done when I was asked for advice by the woman's attorney on how to seek a pound of flesh from the man who had enabled the ex-husband. In the midst of thinking about that issue, the mother talked to me, asking that I do nothing destructive, and thanking me for my constructive help, including things I had paid for out of my own pocket when money was tight. She was grateful, but she had been healed by the Spirit and did not want to disrupt that process.

With her example, I was able to take seriously the statements that if you are wronged and hold to resentment, you have the greater sin. Over the many years that followed, I spent time rethinking all of my theology on the basis of just what does it imply if I accepted as true that the greater sin is in failing to forgive (much like a friend of mine who treats "be ye therefore perfect" as said in the voice of "you do too know that I mean it.").

First, of course, the rule that not escaping resentment is a greater sin than causing the resentment means that only what we internalize is permanent, and only that which is permanent is significant. When I die, I will not take a cent with me. No material thing has any eternal value. When people rise in the resurrection, they are restored. Nothing done to them is permanent unless they do it to themselves.

Second, closely tied to that, is that in relative terms, most things are only dross. My car, my clothes, my fine twined linens (if I had any, but I couldn't resist the reference), all come from dust and return to dust. We are like children arguing over finger paints and broken toys when we could have so much more. We should ask ourselves, where are our hearts and what do we really treasure?

Third, resentment, the failure to forgive, cankers the soul and cuts one off from God and love. Failure to forgive blocks us from that mercy that would otherwise claim us.

Nothing is worth cutting ourselves off from the Spirit. I found freedom when I realized that what I resented others for was not significant in any real sense, and that the irritation I felt harmed only me. In the end, the only thing I wanted from the memories of those who had hurt me was to be free of resentment so that I would not be harmed further.

I wish I could say I would have found that place without the help of others, but I'm glad for their example and hope that wherever they are today, that God is with them. There may be shades of gray, but some things are absolute. May we escape resentment so that God's grace and mercy always have place.

Hopalong

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Re: Healing my anxiety.
« Reply #14 on: November 18, 2006, 03:28:41 PM »
I think this is what drives the Amish practice of forgiveness.
Not forgiving (holding resentment) is an enormous breach of their faith.

That's why after a shunning period of punishment for the offender, they have a strict policy of never ever referring to the incident or crime again. Because that would be a worse sin than the original offense.

It's pretty radical from the outside. And it backfired in the case of girls who were raped for years. (After six weeks of shunning the boy, the community was content. Not so the victims!)

So it's a balance. I see it as teaching me that although it's vital to recognize who's a victim, and when, and the severity of the abuse...that at some point the only way the abusers can be redeemed is by forgiveness. (It's not always possible for a victim to forgive an abuser and let go of resentment. And I wouldn't pile on more guilt if that's so. But even orienting our course in the direction of that growth, without suppressing our legitimate anger, might be healing.)

Maybe resentment is like a crust over anger that really needs a clean release. For me, my resentment often also covers my own anger with myself.

I can't fool myself for long, much as I'd prefer to sometimes.

Hops
"That'll do, pig, that'll do."