..and it all comes back =/

[agoraphobickatie]

hiii if you know me on here, you know i'm 'wordy', so sorry in advance for the long post......

ugh... so, i've been doing really well with my agoraphobia/anxiety for the past six months or so, i got a job and i've been spending lots of time with my friends, etc etc.... but sometimes you hit a little bump in the road and it kind of scares the crap out of you and it feels like you take two steps back.. know what i mean? the main fear/cause for my agoraphobia is i'm afraid of getting sick in public or anywhere outside of my home.. on new years eve i was visiting my mom four hours away from home and i got freakin' deathly ill (nothing to do with drinking or anything, it was a virus).. it was HELL, i was puking every 30 minutes for 12 hours straight.. omg, i haven't been that miserable EVER! lol.. anyway, it kind of brought back my fear of getting sick, and it set me back a little and i was kind of afraid to leave the house again for a few days but i eventually forced myself to face the fear and i was okay again....

so even though i'm doing well, that fear is still constantly in the back of my head, like i'm always reminded of how horrible i felt when i got sick on new years eve and it freaks me out and sends me into panic because i don't want to feel like that again, especially if i'm at work or out with friends... so a few days ago i was at work (i work at a daycare) and all of a sudden i felt anxious and like i may be sick.. i went to the bathroom to try to calm down and then went back to the gym with the kids... i kept telling myself it was in my head and just to think about something else but i just got overwhelmed and kept feeling worse and worse.... then i straight up just walked out of the gym, got my purse and left work. i didn't say anything to anyone, not my boss, anyone.. i just left. lol.. of course my boss called worried and i just told her i left sick and she just said she hoped i felt better and she was sorry i was sick.. so it was fine, but i was depressed that i had done that. i felt like i let it get to me and it really set me back....

so now i guess i'm in a rut.. everytime i go to work since then, it's like a constant battle in my head.. i'm fighting and telling myself it's all just stupid thoughts, but i think too much and then i FEEL sick and then i get more scared, ya know? it's just really getting me upset and down =/

i'm sorry this post was so long.. and i don't know what i want from y'all, i guess i just need some kind words, positive thoughts or any advice you could offer.. i'd really appreciate it, hopefully i can climb out of my rut and get back into the swing of things soon... thanks guys

 

[Remus]

so now i guess i'm in a rut.. everytime i go to work since then, it's like a constant battle in my head.. i'm fighting and telling myself it's all just stupid thoughts, but i think too much and then i FEEL sick and then i get more scared, ya know? it's just really getting me upset and down =/

That's the best thing you can do, you cracked it once, you can do it again! Agorophobia can creep back sometimes but if you apply the same techniques as before, you soon kick it's arse

 

[agoraphobickatie]

thanks remus i guess it just gets depressing when i constantly have to do the whole battle thing in my head.. makes me think it'll last forever..

 

[awkwardamanda]

That's a problem for me too - arguing with myself in my head. I constantly have intrusive thoughts of all sorts, and then I get mad at myself and try and tell myself it's not true, or to just think the opposite. It can get pretty annoying.

 

[Hastings & Main]

There's a trick I came up with a few years back that may or may not apply here, but I'll give it a shot anyways.

Whenever I get a bad thought, I can put a halt to it immediately.
Seems all my life I've had this bad mental space. Like say my parents are coming out for a visit, my mind would just take off down some dark trail. Suddenly I'll be imagining their car skidding off the road and into a tree and they're both dead. A female friend lets me know she's going out somewhere and will be getting back late, at some point my mind starts up a scenario of her being abducted and viciously raped or killed (I don't get to the actual end-scene btw). Or burglars break in while I'm out and they kill my cat.
All very negative thoughts, coming out of nowhere for no reason, except to cause angst and fear in your own mind.

I looked it up just for the hell of it years back and weirdly enough they're actually (or were at the time) called "bad thoughts", and stranger still, are not uncommon.

Anyways, I came up with a simple idea: whenever I caught my mind starting to blindly take off down that dark trail, I mentally conjured up a gigantic "BAD THOUGHT" image of the words in concrete or steel and slammed it to the forefront of the bad images I was conjuring. This snapped me out of it and I went right away to thinking about something else.

Sounds a bit ridiculous, but it worked for me. The more I did the trick, the earlier into the sick scenario I caught myself, and to my surprise, I hardly ever have these dumb thoughts anymore. Of course, there's no such thing as 'not slipping', so it still happens time to time, but I just slam those two words down and go on.

I've also applied this to other intrusive thoughts, the negative-me saying "she probably wouldn't like you' (put in your own bad mantra's here) or whatever.

Try it out for the hell of it. Catch the thoughts before they raise your inner alarm to panic-mode and avoid the sickness. It may take a bit of practice. Just remember to immediately focus on anything else after the trigger, like a work detail, shopping list, a scene from your favorite movie, ponder something useless like why do cats always look like they're smiling or something useful like 'I should volunteer at a food bank', anything as long as you keep the source of panic out of your sightline.

 

[NickyNacker]

I deal with the same thing when it comes to telling myself the irrational fears/anxiety are stupid. Sometimes it's like no matter how much I tell myself that, there's a demon in the back of my head that overpowers it.. and usually what I find helps is when I reassure myself out loud instead of just in my head. Well actually I just recently realized that. And it really does help me. Saying out loud "It's all in my head. Everything is fine."

I hope you feel better!

 

[panicsurvivor]

Yeah I have been doing this for over ten years now. I'll go through about six months to almost a year were everything seems to be pretty good, and then like you said, I hit a bump and everything comes to a screeching halt. Interestingly, now my cycles have shortened to days instead of months. I guess my disorders have evolved I go through these good and bad patches in the week now. I know completely what you mean about struggling with work. I have panic attacks at work almost every day. It is always a struggle to get in the car, and the drive there is usually a pretty nervous one. Its kind of like my daily exposure therapy. But on the other hand I am thankful for that. It makes me have to deal with a large supermarket four or five times a week for hours. So I kind of think that it is keeping me from being shut in again. Katie, one thing that I do is to try and remember that there are good patches too. Try and remember that when you are feeling bad. One of the techniques I learned when I was training was, if you were feeling nervous and not at your best, try to remember a time when you felt fast and strong and on your game. Then close your eyes and visualize yourself there. Remember facing your opponent and winning.Concentrate and try to put yourself there again, remember the moves you made, and how you felt at the time. I don't know if this will help you, but I thought I would mention it, since it seems like you and I have pretty matching disorders (isn't that great we're crazy partners yay!!).
You work in a daycare!! Thats what my wife was doing when I met her!! Daycare girls are hot!! That's a really cool job, I think that it takes a really special kind of person to be able to be good at that job. Plus if you want to have kids someday you are armed with a lot more experience than your average new parent. Your a badass when it comes to dealing with this stuff. So don't worry, you dealt with it before, and you will do it again!

 

[Feathers]

WOW! Katie, you're working, and at a daycare too!! I admire you!! WOW!!

You've done really well in the past few months.. so give yourself credit for that..
Some really good thoughts here by Hastings & Survivor and others..

Being sick with flu or such can suck, you can get that at home too - my Dad goes to the choir or to visit relatives with small kids and has often 'brought home' the flu.. You can't really escape it.. It may be worse in a daycare, at the start, someone I know said she was sick a lot in the first year of working there, then her immune system adjusted to it and she's mostly doing okay now..
The most important thing is to work on having a good immune system - healthy food/nutrition, enough vitamins and minerals, enough walks in the fresh air.. That's the most you can do for your health and health of the little'uns too..

And if you survived that 'bad flu' you can survive any other - you're probably immune to many things now!! Maybe it was also in the food or something (iffy egg nogg or such?) So maybe watch it a bit what you eat too...?

I sometimes got intrusive negative thoughts too.. It helps to focus on something else, yup (like writing answers to others on this forum, hehe..) Maybe it's good to recognize any triggers, RL events or mental images/smells/audio that trigger stuff for you? (could be memories or imagined scenes/thoughts) NLP is sort of into that, it helps some people.. I know you've done CBT before, this is similar, just includes images/little films in one's head.. you modify the movie somewhat, so you like it better - give it a 'happy ending' or something.. lots of examples on YouTube too..

 

[agoraphobickatie]

thank you all so much for the kind words and suggestions! i always get excited to see new replies

you're all so helpful and sweet.. it's nice to have somewhere to vent to people who can relate! ha! thank y'all again!! <3