Owner: The Reality of Anxiety URL:http://anxiousnomore.blogspot.com Join Date: Tue, 24 Jul 2007 14:17:23 -0500 Rating:0 Site Description: A personal journey through anxiety with coping strategies and motivational thoughts, as well as setbacks and a community feel. Site statistics:Click here
You Never Know What Others Are Struggling With 2007-07-22 18:20:00 photo by simon.flanaganLast night I had two girls and their significant others over. The men left to go rent a movie and the three of us were left to just talk. At first it was a little awkward, not knowing what to say, but the conversation quickly turned to something very interesting. I can't remember how the topic came up, but one girl confessed that she suffered from depression and how she just barely got off her meds because her fiance thought she didn't need them. (Duh! she seems normal BECAUSE of the meds). So now she has been off them for about 3 weeks and she is extremely emotional, crying all the time. She talked about how she has panic attacks and passes out sometimes, and how hard it is for her to make friends because she is so self conscious about what others think about her. Then the other girl opened up about how she thought she had depression too and how her husband would get offended when she would talk about it because he assumed if she was depressed it was because o Read more:Others
What is Anxiety? 2007-07-21 09:29:00 Lately my anxiety has been flaring up. I almost had an attack the other day and in all honesty I think I would have if I didn't escape the situation when I did. I'm not feeling all that great today either as I have two BBQs to go to tonight, one I am hosting. I stayed home from a boating outing I could have gone on simply because I don't feel bathing suit worthy and didn't feel like dealing with the insecurity and constant fidgeting I would undergo. So I am blogging and I plan to do some yoga since it has been way to long since I last did it and I hope it will help me to feel better about tonight. I also plan to reread some of my older posts that I wrote to help me prepare for similar occasions.The last poll was very interesting. It seems like most of us are either pretty personal about our anxiety, telling only our close relatives and friends, or we are very outgoing about it and willing to tell anyone who wants to know anything. Only a few don't dare to tell anyone. I added a ne
Is Recovery like Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny? 2007-07-18 22:47:00 photo by Space PotatoSeriously, is Recovery
even real? Or is it something doctors make up to tell their patients so that they will keep coming back over and over again for more medication, more therapy, more hope. Can someone with anxiety ever be "normal"?I have been trying to be grateful and soak in the goodness I have been feeling lately since I haven't had a full on panic attack but that doesn't mean I am cured. I am far from it. I still get anxious and I have anticipatory anxiety and I am majorly avoiding my fears. This weekend I have a conference for work that involves a luau and a family BBQ. Did I think to myself, "Oh that sounds like fun. I can't wait to go." No. In fact I put down that I wouldn't be attending. Why? Because I don't know how to drive there and I don't want to stress about trying to find it myself or feel stupid for putting someone out of their way for a ride. Also because I will be going alone and I don't feel like having to eat at a small table with oth Read more:Santa
, Claus
, Easter
, Bunny
, Santa Claus
Breaking Up With My Therapist 2007-07-18 10:41:00 photo by Hair Grows, right?It wasn’t her, it was me. Sure we had some great times, a lot of laughs and some real serious talks that brought more depth to my life. She was a great listener and was always putting things in a new perspective for me, opening my eyes to a world I didn’t see before. She helped me to feel understood and valued. But I feel that we ran out of things to talk about. She knew all my stories. Yet I knew so little about her. Maybe someday I will come to realize that I need her in my life again. But for now I feel I need my space and its time for me to move on, to take some time to figure things out on my own. Plus, my insurance won’t pay for it anymore.If you enjoyed this post Subscribe to The Reality of Anxiety
Read more:Breaking
, Therapist
Taking Deep Breaths 2007-07-17 12:22:00 photo by Mark GarrettOne of the easiest things to do when you start feeling anxious is to focus on your breathing. Most people with anxiety tend to breathe in short quick breaths. If your like me, in a horror movie when you get scared you might hold your breath altogether. In movies you see when people start hyperventilating (or taking quick short breaths) they have them breathe out of a brown paper bag. That actually works because it forces you to take deeper breaths because of the lack of oxygen. So here is a really simple exercise that can help you out tremendously. At least once a day either when you are anxious or just when you have a time that you can sit and focus, take a deep breath in and as you breath in, count to 4. Then HOLD YOUR BREATH for a moment. Release the breath slowly, counting to 4 again (or counting backwards from 4 to 1, whichever you prefer).Repeat steps 1-3 several times until you feel relaxed and calm, or a 0 on you Read more:Taking
10 Common Ways to Trigger an Anxiety Attack 2007-07-16 21:23:00 There are many things we can do to work on our anxiety. The first is recognizing what it is that we do to ourselves that cause anxiety attacks. Sometimes we feel like they are completely out of the blue, but I bet if you thought about all of them long enough and figured out what you were doing before it happened, what you ate, who you were around, what you were thinking, etc. you would eventually figure out what your "triggers" are. Here are some of most common things we do to ourselves that can trigger attacks (in no particular order):Play the What if Game and other negative self talk- Setting Ourselves up for FailurePoor Self Esteem- thinking we're not worthy enough to be around others and be liked for who we arePut too much pressure on ourselves to be "perfect" for others or not to have an attackFocus on ourselves more than those around usEat poorly, drink a lot of caffeineDo not exercise and or meditate regularlyFull Exposure to our phobias instead of baby stepsDo not get enough r Read more:Common
Breaking the Stigma 2007-07-15 16:44:00 photo by cloois Before I introduce the new poll I want to quickly go over the last poll. Over half of the people that voted on what medication they take selected Clonozepam. I am curious if this is a daily pill for everyone or do you take it just when you feel overly anxious? Everyone else takes Zoloft, Klonopin, Paxil, Prozac, and something else that I don't have listed. Over the past week in different comments in the last poll post as well as the Q&A post I think we have had some really good discussion on what we take and why, so I won't go into that more.Ok, so for this week's poll:Our society has put a stigma on mental illness. If you have cancer then the whole world supports you and you become a fighter in their mind. I personally feel that by telling people that I have a mental illness I am asking for them to think of me as a disgrace of a human being. This not only hurts self esteem but it also prevents people from getting medication that could help them."An estimated 22 to 2 Read more:Breaking
Silver Linings 2007-07-14 23:20:00 photo by Arman Zhenikeyev'sWell all in all today sucked. I was supposed to have a BBQ with my new friend and her spouse at our house and then watch a movie in our new Media room that we just finished in our basement. And by just finished I mean the carpet was installed yesterday. It looked so awesome and we were so excited to finally use it.This morning I woke up and I was anxious thinking about the BBQ. What if I ran out of things to talk about with her and things got awkward? What if the whole night was a disaster. I hadn't felt this anxious for awhile. But before I could even get out of bed to take my medicine I hear Tyler tearing through the house like a mad man. Something was definitely wrong. So I go up to see what the problem was.No joke, our basement flooded during the night. All over our new carpet. What the?So we spent the entire day cleaning it up and we ended up having to rip up the carpet and dry out the padding underneath and leave some fans blowing on it all day.So her Read more:Silver
Be Assertive? 2007-07-13 10:10:00 photo by julsatmidnightFor my work I am a manager over approximately 6 people. I love what I do. I love adding organization to the chaos and being “in the know”. However there are many things about being a manager that I struggle with. One quality that I don’t have is assertiveness. My CEO has told me she wishes I were more assertive. I don’t know if I ever will be. Every once in awhile I have to have an extremely awkward conversation with one of my team members if they are not performing the way I know they can. I hate doing this and I usually procrastinate doing it until the problem has lingered for far too long. I just want everyone to like me and I know that unrealistic but subconsciously I will try to achieve that anyway. Today I knew I couldn’t hold off any longer. I practiced several times what I would say to him and then called him in to chat. Needless to say I was able to say what I had to in a nice way and we were able to talk a bit about it. After we
Q&A Time 2007-07-11 10:41:00 photo by Emdashes.comAlright I am stealing this idea from Debaser’s blog My Brain: My Friend, My Enemy, but I can’t help it. I think its such a cool idea. At least I am giving credit where credit’s due. What I do is respond to all the search queries that people entered into their favorite search engine that led them to my blog. This way I can answer any questions people might have in case they couldn’t find it on the blog. It’s amazing to me that you can even see this kind of info and it’s always cool to see what others are wondering about. So here goes my first attempt. In the last week here are the following queries: “morning anxiety”- sucks doesn’t it? I have a post that describes my morning anxiety as well as some suggestions for how to get over it that you might want to look at. “rude to tell someone too thin”- whoever this person is I agree whole heartedly with them. I’ve said it before in my post "My Story" and "Absolutely Unapologetically Thin" t
My Dream World- What My World Would Look Like Without Anxiety 2007-07-10 11:01:00 photo by Aussiegall Oh my dream world, the one I can’t seem to actually dream about at night. Only during the day can I entertain the thought of what my life would be like without anxiety. I think overall I would be a lot more fun to be around. I would be much more outgoing. I wouldn’t be so hesitant to do anything fun. Anything that could remotely get you in trouble is too worrisome for me to attempt. Even normal things are too hard to do like socializing with other women, eating, driving, etc. If I had no anxiety, I would invite my favorite people over and entertain them with a home cooked meal and we would all sit down and eat together until we were stuffed. I would have so many friends that were girls, but only a handful would be my really close friends that I kept in touch with almost on a daily basis. We would go out to lunch all the time and have girls’ night out where we would go to the movies, hang out at my house, scrapbook, make crafts, watch chick flick Read more:Dream
, World
Safety First? 2007-07-08 11:53:00 photo by Jakob LodwickLast night I dreamed that I was going to a family reunion and I was really nervous and anxious about "preforming" in front of my family. I woke up with my stomach all in knots and feeling anxious. I realized I was breathing pretty quickly so I tried to slow it down and take deep breaths.I fell back asleep only to have more bad dreams about my family. They weren't violent or super disturbing like some of my dreams are so thats good, but I hope it doesn't make me have anticipatory anxiety for the next time I go home.An update to my earlier blog about morning anxiety: I did get a new bed- I went from a Queen to a California King and I love it. That means new bedding too. That hasn't been enough to stop the nightmares though. I do a pretty good job of getting around 8 hours of sleep a night. So there has to be something else I can do to make them stop. I'll have to work on it some more.This morning I had a bad scare. I was booting up the computer in my bedroom whe Read more:Safety
, First
New Poll of the Week 2007-07-07 20:55:00 I updated the poll today to reflect a new topic- Medications. I'm curious to know how many of you take meds and how many don't and which one you take. Not only that I am curious how you feel about your prescription, how much or how often do you need to take it, or why you don't take medication at all. I will start. I take one 50mg a day and 1/2 to one pill of clonozepam when needed which is like waves or rollercoasters. I will go for weeks without needing to take one of those but then there will be a month or so where I have to take it several times a day to make it through. Clonozepam (I swear I spell it differently every time) has been a life saver for me. It took me a lot longer to warm up to Zoloft. But I think I am finally seeing results from being consistent with it.The poll will be up until next Friday night and then I will replace it with a new one. Feel free to take it and add any comments you want.If you enjoyed this post Subscribe to The Reality of Anxiety
Who Are the Nebulous They and Why Do They Have So Much Power Over Us? 2007-07-06 11:48:00 photo by Steeev When you wake up and are feeling anxious and you try to write out your thoughts and you write, “I might get anxious, have an attack, and they will judge me” Who are those people? Who are the “They” that we are so afraid of and why do They have so much control over us? For me They is anyone I am not comfortable around which is almost everyone! They is anyone that looks at me with any vague suspicion. Anyone that shows general concern for my well being. Family, friends, coworkers; no one is immune from the gang of They. How can we wake up in the morning and already let They get to us? People we haven’t even encountered yet, haven’t even seen suddenly has all the power and has stolen our happiness. So how can we get the power back? How do we turn the nebulous They into comforting, peaceful, and non judgmental people in our lives? They don’t hide in corners waiting to ambush us. They don’t hold mallets and sentence us to prison taki
We All Fall Down 2007-07-05 11:17:00 photo by Kungfukitten Yesterday I hit another mini milestone. I went to IHOP for brunch. I used to love breakfast and ever since my last flare up of anxiety I have been avoiding anything that was the least bit heavy or daunting. So for me to suggest going to breakfast where I knew there would be a big plate of eggs, bacon and French toast was taking a small risk. Granted I went with Ty who is my support person and I was a little anxious while I was there, but I ate a lot (I was hungrier than I realized) and the food was so yummy. So hooray for me :) I am trying to enjoy myself while things are going well because I know that at anytime I could lose my bearings and fall... again. When I had my major setback in Hawaii, I was crushed. I thought I had come so far and had accomplished so much and I had lost it all. In fact I thought I was worse off than before I started because I had a panic attack almost everyday. I would wake up nauseous and it wouldn’t leave until the evening or un
Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness 2007-07-04 09:52:00 On this Fourth of July I can't help but think about how lucky I am to live in this country. We may not be granted happiness, but we are given so many things that help us with the pursuit of it and isn't that what life is all about? Isn't that what we are all striving for every day? To find our own personal happiness, personal peace of mind and acceptance in this world.When I went to India a few years back, my eyes were opened up to just how lucky I am. Walking through the streets I saw these children running amuck, dirty, unsupervised, barefoot and their clothes were hanging off of them. My hearts went out to them. They loved getting their picture taken and seeing it on the camera. I went back a few months later and saw them again to my delight, but nothing had changed. Most everyone lived in cramped apartments and if you weren't that lucky you would be in a shanty or a small room made out of tin with a tarp for a roof. Your children would be playing in the sewers or helping you wo
My Top 10 Anxiety Tools and Resources 2007-07-03 11:31:00 photo by fotovizionsI thought I would discuss what I use as my favorite tools and resources for learning about and dealing with my anxiety/ phobias. All of these are listed on the right hand side of the blog that I leave up normally so you can refer back to any of them anytime. Its a long post I know but its I believe its very valueable for those trying to figure things out. Reading Material- The biggest help that I have gotten (seriously it has changed my whole perspective on everything) has been from the book The Anxiety and Phobia Workbook Fourth Edition by Edmund J. Bourne. I am not one that buys books very often and I came across the Third Edition of this Series in my public library. It was so amazing I kept it until I wasn’t allowed to renew it any longer. I returned it sadly and then decided I had to have my own copy as a resource that I could use whenever needed. The guidance in this book is amazing. It touches on everything that I Read more:Tools
, Resources
Helping or Hurting? What People Around Me Should or Shouldn't Do 2007-07-02 18:09:00 photo by filmsnotdeadOkay Ben this posts for you. I can understand the request for this post because if you confide in people about your anxiety, sometimes they don't know how to act around you in an anxiety triggering situation. The last thing I, or I am guessing anyone, would want is for the loved ones in our life to feel like they have to walk around on eggshells around us. I can sense when people do that and it makes me feel handicapped. So I want to share this blog so the people in my life or that have loved ones suffering with anxiety have a better idea of what helps in an anxious situation and what just makes things worse.I appreciate the sensitivity shown by my family and friends. It truly makes things a lot easier to know that I have someone that will understand my quirkiness and will still love me for it. My sister for example, didn't want to put me in an awkward position around her so she wondered if she just shouldn't invite me out to lunch anymore. On the surface that s Read more:Helping
Do We Spend Our Adult Life Getting Over Our Childhood? 2007-07-01 18:47:00 photo by Southworth SailorSeriously. Do we spend our entire adult life trying to get over our childhood? Is it just a phase? It seems like those critical childhood years of interacting with others contributes to so much of who we are as adults and if those years were dysfunctional, then all we can do is try to deal later on and not let it define us.The last several years I have been trying to make sense of my life and with how I was raised. I know that my anxiety is a combination of genetics and behavior I learned from my environment. In my home, there was questioning levels of child abuse. Child Abuse itself is a controversial topic, and is hard to define where and when the line gets crossed. Some cases are very black and white, others are gray. For my older siblings there was more black and white cases I think. For me personally, there was a lot of gray which almost makes it harder because there isn't easy validation for your feelings. There are a lot of questions and doubts and co Read more:Adult
, Childhood
White and Nerdy- Exciting Blog Updates 2007-06-30 13:48:00 photo by cherbertSo I am a little bit of a nerd I admit. I work in a software company after all. I am also a widget junkie. I love trying out new tools and learning how to implement fun features. I don't want to overload my blogsite with these however, only the ones that have a real function and purpose. So please let me know how you like the new features and if you think they are helpful to you or a waste of space so I can weed out the bad ones. Here are a several changes I have made:I added a subscribe button that you can see at the top of the page. When you roll over it buttons will appear that allow you to select where you want the feed to appear. (This works much better in Firefox than in Internet Explorer). By "subscribing" you add a feature to your favorite search engine (google, yahoo, aol, etc) homepage that will update whenever I update my blog. This means you won't have to check back to see whats been changed. Instead it will tell you whenever there are additional posts an Read more:White
, Nerdy
Level 3 Panic, but I Survived 2007-06-29 20:40:00 photo by picturejockeySo I made it through today. Not scot free like the last couple outings, but I didn't have a full blown attack. I got a really yummy salad at lunch and it filled me up before my main meal came. So when the meal came and I wasn't hungry, I started to feel stupid, or that I should be able to eat more like everyone else. I started focusing on whether anyone was watching me and I could feel my anxiety get to a level 3 (see anxiety scale post for more info).Then, when I started to get lost in my negative self talk and the butterflies were soaring, I was saved by the bell. My phone started ringing and it was Ty. I was able to excuse myself and talk to him and refocus and calm down. When I got back in everything got much better. I was still feeling a little stupid, but I packed up everything I knew I wouldn't eat and left a bag of chips open that I could occasionally munch on. No one said anything to me even though I felt at least one set of eyes (a lady who already ha Read more:Panic
Broken and Bruised 2007-06-29 11:36:00 photo by Navarta Last night was horrible in sooo many ways. First off, I was doing laundry and I am not used to where some new furniture has been placed so I ran right into a nightstand with my knee because the laundry I was carrying blocked my view. I dropped everything and hit the floor it hurt so bad. It started bruising immediately and I have a nice muscle bruise about the size of a golf ball on my leg that shoots pain anytime I move. I then successfully stubbed my toes on one of my barstools. Granted I am a bit of a clutz and am always covered in bruises that I have no idea how I got them. [No, Ty doesn’t beat me ;)] That night was full of nightmares. First I dreamed about a woman that got kidnapped and she was tortured and they put it all on television. Very weird. Than I dreamt that Tyler and I were trying to save her and we got shot, and no one was helping us. Paramedics came and gave me an oxygen mask and then left again and never returned. The mask wasn’t helping Read more:Broken
Another Small Victory to Add to the Tally 2007-06-28 15:26:00 photo by chloemonster1 Today spontaneously at lunch a coworker decided to grill up some hamburgers. I was really hungry and they sounded so yummy. So I added my name to the list of people that wanted one. When it was time to eat, I didn’t even worry about my anxiety. I told myself I am going to eat what I want to and not worry about anything else. It worked. I was so hungry I was eating with everyone and not even caring what anyone might be thinking, and I am pretty positive no one was even thinking anything since I was scarfing it down! I don’t know if that somehow made it a little easier since I was starving, but I’ll take it as a successful situation! For some reason eating around coworkers is one of the toughest things for me and I did it today all by myself; with no Clonozapam as an aid. (I even forgot to pick up my Zoloft refill last night so I didn’t even take that today shhh!) Sure the thought arose in my head that it could be hard for me but I think my subconscious Read more:Small
, Victory
You Are Mighty 2007-06-27 15:36:00 photo by jwtgto64If anyone is looking for a quick encouraging message I have a couple websites that are a must see:http://your.phobias.willbedefeated.comand this next one you have to fill in part of it (for unpersonalized version just click the link otherwise type in the address as needed in your address bar):http://[type in your firstname].[type in your last name].youaremighty.comDoesn't that make you feel so much better?Thanks Ben for showing these to me. They made my day.
Read more:Mighty
Spotlight: The Worrier 2007-06-26 13:55:00 photo by karl_eschenbach So this may sound a little cheesy to some, but I have been thinking a lot lately about doing a spotlight on each of the Sub personalities that people with anxiety suffer from to an overwhelming degree (the Worrier, the Perfectionist, the Victim, the Critic). They may appear different to you in your head when you think about each of them but I am going to describe how I see them in me. Today I want to focus on the Worrier since that is the strongest sub personality that I struggle with. My worrier is small and weak but very persuasive. She has dark circles because she hardly sleeps and wide bulging bloodshot eyes that skitter back and forth as if they are fueled with electricity. Her hair is frazzled and unkempt and she has a large wart on the end of her nose (Worry Wart, get it?). She can’t sit still for very long. Paranoia consumes her. She lives in a corner where she can keep her back to a wall and she has built a thick concrete wall in front of h Read more:Spotlight
Wondering if You Have Anxiety?- Assess Your Stress 2007-07-26 23:24:00 photo by In The Sun StudioSome of the new visitors to the blog may be wondering if you have anxiety or not. It took me YEARS to figure out that I had anxiety and panic attacks. Sometimes its hard to understand what is happening to you. Many people wander into ER's all the time with potential heart attacks or thinking that they are dying only to find out that they were having a panic attack. So its important to find out why your body is doing something that has you concerned.I found a stress test on Webmd that can help you evaluate if you have a high level of stress or not. It also has an article about managing your anxiety which I think is pretty interesting. It lists some symptoms to help you know if you should seek help or not as well as how to cope with your symptoms. Here is a small excerpt:"When anxiety is taking a toll, your body knows it. You have trouble sleeping, eating, and concentrating. You get headaches; your stomach is upset. You might even have a panic attack -- the pou
Shout Out to Beaumont 2007-07-26 13:31:00 photo by Angel-JaneIn looking at my traffic it appears the majority of viewers come from Beaumont (either Texas or Washington). I just wanted to leave a quick shout out to those viewers with a thanks. From the high numbers I can't help but be more curious about who it is that is there. Is it just MSN polling my site or is it real actual readers? Any other bloggers have the same phenomenon? Who is all from there? How did you find my site? Is there anything that you are looking for that I can help you with?Lets have this be a global shout out as well! Anyone who visits the blog leave a comment about where your from (if you are ok with leaving that info- it can be vague) how you found the site, and any questions or thoughts that you have about anxiety. I already know some of the readers but you can leave it again if you want for others to see. We'll open it up as a message board. Even if you don't suffer from anxiety I still want to get to know more about my readers.I'll start. I am f
Why Me? 2007-07-24 21:26:00 photo by Michelle GibsonA lot of us tend to fall into the victim like thinking of "Why me? Why do I have to struggle with this when others don't? I think I'm a good person, so why do bad things happen to good people?"This line of questioning is closely related to spiritual discussions such as "How could God let this happen?" I don't know if you are religious or not, but I am, and that in turn drives my thought process. I can't separate my religious beliefs and my thoughts on anxiety as both deeply are a part of me. So if you get offended about topics that are religious in nature you might want to stop reading now, although I encourage you to continue because I think I have found some interesting stuff.So- back to the "Why do good things happen to bad people?" question. I found a really cool quote that explains it much better than I could: "Now, we find many people critical when a righteous person is killed, a young father or mother is taken from their family, or when violent deaths
Confidence wavering 2007-07-27 21:19:00 photo by Mark GrealishThe last couple days I can feel my confidence dropping. Certain negative thoughts will arise and I find myself believing them rather than fighting them. This may be one of my biggest downfalls, never content with myself, never feeling good enough, and not knowing how to change that.Another thing thats been bothering me lately. I have been married for 5 years (next Friday) and I have been off birth control for about a year and a half. We are living by the idea that if I get pregnant, thats great, if not, thats cool too. Just letting nature do its thing. But lately the thought of actually being pregnant is very scary to me. Not so much the idea of having a child because I think that would be awesome. Not even so much of the labor and delivery. But mostly I am panicky about the nine months of caring for this baby. I worry that I won't be able to gain the needed weight to keep it healthy. I worry that I will be prone to miscarriages and high risk pregnancies with my Read more:Confidence
Slacking Off has No Pay Off 2007-07-30 23:39:00 photo by cybertoadI have seen this happen to other bloggers and I think its been happening to me lately. You get to thinking you can let your guard down. You can't get too comfortable with your anxiety because thats when you start skipping yoga sessions, (haven't done it in forever), skipping medication (I haven't taken it in 2 days cause my prescription ran out and I keep forgetting to pick it up), not taking time to prepare for situations (I have been feeling more anxious than I have in while when I am in social gatherings.) You get to thinking that everything is ok and you are doing so much better so its ok if you skip just this once. You forget how crappy it feels. You forget why you work so hard to prevent and manage it. You start to think you don't need to do so much work.Its so hard for me to get in the habit of doing what I know I should and its so easy to become lazy and slack off. Then I curse at myself when the anxiety seeps back in. And now I feel overwhelmed at the ide
Recommend Site To A Friend
