is anyone getting over there anxiety yet?

[nicki-s]

i have been having therapy for a few months now, and am starting to make progress..i really want to start going out again with my friends but feel as though my anxiety is still holding me back...i am in 2 minds whether to go out or stay at home...is anyone else feeling the same? :roll:

 

[scatmantom]

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[Scottish_Player]

i am in 2 minds whether to go out or stay at home

Get out there! staying at home isant going to help but getting out there and enjoying life will help you loads, sure you will feel anxious before you go out but this is quite normal for alot of people but once in the situation your anxiety will drop and you will feel more comfortable

 

[LittleMissMuffet]

Hi Nicki,

I feel like I am already over my anxiety problems. I feel like there is no such thing as an anxiety disorder: it is an illusion.

....maybe all of the above sounds fantastical. Maybe I am jumping the gun and looking through rose colored glasses. Maybe when I get back to a job my worries will come back to attack me.

Well, you know something, as I was just telling my psychiatrist of how good I feel and how I don't even feel my self to have a problem -she seemed reluctant to let go; and her manner reminded me a little of a bully who tries to put doubt back onto a person ...sort of like: "but are you really sure you're better"

...there is a fine line between being careful and down-to-earth, and being positive and encouraging what is in fact a growing confidence. And I think that she was a little more negative than was needed.

But it does not matter to me. And I kind of wonder about people in helping professions ...how they sometimes let their own insecurities take over in the form of thinking they know everything or that they lack the same basic problems that their 'patient' has.
I don't believe in such a separation between therapist and patient; and I never will be fooled into believing in this.

This perception is part of my cure. It is why I have confidence in my self. I lack shame about my problems: problems which are the same as everyoone elses', only in me have been more magnified.
Yet, you never know, I may lose such doubts and fears before so-called 'normal' people. ...All these views are based on illusion and there exists so much more beneath the surface.

This very same outlook is what makes a change in perception -what psychiatrists push so much. I've even been told that the best therapist is one who does not prefer to see a clear dividing line between therapist and patient, between ill and healthy, between sanity and insanity; but one who understands that there is invariably aspects of both of these within any given person. Moreover, a change in perception makes such a view of people (and the therapist-patient relationship) a requisite.

....basically it occurs to me that some people may not want a person to get better; that for this improvement to take place on the person's own initiative, because it did not involve the therapist, it must therefore not have happened at all -or otherwise, it is not done "the right way".
...what is "the right way"? Perhaps there are many "right ways".

Well, the important word here is 'belief'.
"If a person believes and does not doubt in his heart , then it will be done for him by my father in Heaven"
...I feel much better: I even venture to say that my anxiety disorder does not even exist. To be "cured of anxiety" makes no sense to me anymore. Anxiety is my emotions repressed through wrong judgement that is founded in a lack of acceptance of who I am; and it is my perfectly acceptable emotions that I have judged unnacceptable (and foolishly followed peer pressure or other such outside pressures and labelled unnacceptable and wrong). But accepting all of my emotions and all of my self without any such judgements or questions about whether they are right, now finally makes it possible for me to actually have self-control.

So I have no anxiety disorder, you see.

My "anxiety disorder", if it exists, is believing that I have an anxiety disorder; that there is something wrong or unnatural about they way that I am. IT is only believing this that makes me have something wrong with me; it is blindly following the lead of others that causes me to doubt my self because of how I am unique.

..And these "others" (by which I mean collective society) don't know where they are going either: we are all just sheep following the "rules" made by sheep, which is to say that we give authority to people who have no clue of who they are or wherre they are going either: what is right? what is acceptable? -just WHO has the final say on this? ...I say that we make these "rules" up and that rather than reactively, blindly making them up (looking to others for affrimation and direction) that we can actively make these up ourselves.)

so, yeah, I am feeling better. And I will venture to state that I am cured and that it is simply a matter of time before I make this inner reality a reality on the outside for everyone to see.
I am not arrogant or deceiving my self; but I most certainly take up the offer to believe in my self. I've rejected who I am long enough. And look where following others and doubting myself because I am different, has gotten me. If that is hell then I'm going in the other direction. ....and I'm not looking back... even when the so-called professionals seem to think that I should.

 

[Richey]

LittleMissMuffet i think you have a deep inner clarity of thought whenever you make a post, you seem very healthy & thats great that your recovered, its an interesting thought, to an extent anxiety/phobia is an illusion of perception and awareness of reaction, you can choose to react positively to almost any challenge or argument, but its easy to slip into a negative mindset ....and thats when people fall into the trap of "im always this way, i can never change" ..."I have a dull personality, so whats the point" "This can never change" ......

once you start to challenge these thoughts and you put yourself into the wilderness again, after a while you realise that alot of it is all your head ....

if a person believes an anxiety illusion enough of themselves then thats when the hole is being ready to fall into.

there are people out there who are homeless, have no money, health issues, and that doesnt phase their self perception that they are worthy as a human on an equal level to all of humanity.

circumstances are peripheral to your mind and spirit, its our environment that can easily shape our attitudes and thats the big point, just because you dont have many friends doesnt mean your without worth compared to someone who has many chums, its just the circumstances that are different, but alot of people would see it as an easy way to channel low self perception instead of understanding that STATE of YOUR CURRENT ENVIRONMENT being SEPERATE from your own self worth.

Once people can wrap their heads around that concept, the world is indeed your oyster, its just putting into practice in the REAL world that takes time, but it makes the process a peice of cake after chipping away and making the steps towards doing it

Its not that you cant go to a party and enjoy yourself, its just that you BELIEVE you'll be dissaproved or looked down upon, or humiliated in front of others .....and so what if that did happen?? ....people would laugh it off and forget about and move on, but a person with SA thinks its the end of the world ...

 

[JamesMorgan]

LittleMissMuffet,

It would seem beneficial to ask you a few questions, you raise some good points. I love your enthusiasm.

"I feel like I am already over my anxiety problems. I feel like there is no such thing as an anxiety disorder: it is an illusion"

I think that is wonderful. But it doesnt make sense to me. You cannot say there is no such thing as an anxiety disorder and refuse to believe it doesn't exist, that creates denial, does it not? Sure it exists. I bet you will go out and experience anxiety within a week. Will you believe it doesnt exist then? My point is this: You can understand it exists but only in realtion to your own mistaken way of thinking. You will then be in a position of actually accepting it, welcoming it even, whilst simultaneously disempowering it and believing that what you are experiencing is actually 'non-existent'. Thus enabling you to overcome your anxiety.

""but are you really sure you're better"

Surely we need reminding, constantly? Surely these people actually help us when the rest of the world trundles along like 'sheep'? Surely she is actually encouraging you to do yourself a favour.

" even venture to say that my anxiety disorder does not even exist. To be "cured of anxiety" makes no sense to me anymore. Anxiety is my emotions repressed through wrong judgement that is founded in a lack of acceptance of who I am"

To say that it doesnt exist, is that acceptance? It does exist. Understand how it exists, why it exists. If anxiety is your emotions repressed through wrong judgement, based on non acceptance of who you are, why supress it even further by denying its existence?

If you believe with all your heart that it does not exist, you will still experience anxiety, will you believe it or will you deny it? I am not saying you need to believe it exists before you can realise its non-existence. What i am getting at is that it would be wrong to deny it, simply to believe 'its not happening to me, it doesnt exist'. What i feel you are getting at is nearer the point of seeing its deceptive nature.

Can you believe you have an anxiety disorder and at that same time believe it does not exist?

"i most certainly take up the offer to believe in my self."

Wonderful. This is a good example to follow.

James

 

[LittleMissMuffet]

Thanks Richey. I like how you put into words the idea of social anxiety as an illusion.

James... I've been thinking about your questions. You seem to be challenging me to be clearer in my thinking and words. So, I'm happy to take up the challenge: the clearer the better, since there exists a narrow gap for getting things right when it comes to anything like an anxiety problem ...the vicious circle nature of it, making differences between helpful and unhelpful thoughts fairly subtle.

However, I'm operating more by sheer feeling and intuition and my perception and thinking is not perfect or the clearest. And I see that your intuition has picked-up on that a positive change has taken place in me regardless of my lack of ability to articulate what has been going on.

What I can say, though, is that denying emotions, and anxiety, is certainly part of the anxiety problem it self. -which is something that many people have realised. It is like a 'fear of fear', a shame about being self-concious. Really, it is our rejection of our present condition and cicumstance that prolongs our experience of this.
And it is judging our emotions and our self as we are, and needing and wanting to cover this up because of its unnacceptability.

And, likewise, to deny having a disorder or problem could certainly be part of the problem. -that this hiding something signifies shame.

However, to be cured of a problem, by definition, means the problem no-longer exists. And accepting having a condition is what actually allows a person to move out of having the condition -that, despite that you said you didn't think it was true- believing a disorder exists is what allows a person to no-longer have it anymore.

With denial of some 'thing', there is a spiritual principle that puts the concept well:- "What you resist persists..."

Yet, the second half of this saying is:- "...but what you look at disappears". And I actually think that one way of getting over anxiety problems is to believe anxiety exists in order to realise it doesn't exist. That looking at our fears head on can be a way of seeing through them ...like getting past the shame because we realise that the problem is much less big then we thought... or like how a drug addict will find giving-up much easier when he/she has gotten past the worst of the pain of giving-up.

Mostly though, it is about seeing through our pain and our perceived evil, our fear and reducing this to something much smaller and of less importance to us. That through removal of the judgement of anxiety and anxiety disorder (sensitivity, self-conciousness, shyness, introversion, etc....) as being "bad" and unnacceptable, that then is it possible to accept such a condition. Just as their is an association of 'light' with 'good' and 'darkness' with 'bad' ...being that to bring something to light and to properly see it, means it no-longer is evil; and vice versa, that we call something evil when we don't properly understand it.
So the judgement is really where it is at. That, by accepting ourselves and dropping our judgements, we lose our fear and can then see things in perspective and put ourselves into perspective.

And I think that to make my meaning clearer so that there is less chance of misunderstanding, I would say that... what was once a mountain is now a molehill. Basically, I am not afraid or ashamed of my emotions and don't judge them. And, what I am experiencing and have been experiencing, I no-longer see as so awful or unnacceptable.

I think that what you are talking of is...
That by saying that I have no anxiety disorder, that I would be continuing the judgment about my self that creates the problem with anxiety. since, I would be rejecting the label of 'anxiety disorder' because of a judgement of this as being a negative way to be. When instead, such a condition should be viewed as neither positive nor negative and just as a way of being.

...Well, I will give such things some more thought. Although, I feel that I've already accepted having this problem and that I essentially no-longer judge my self but instead can accept my self. And also, I think that the point is that I don't consider my self disabled or disadvantaged. The negative judgement has been removed. -In this sense there is no 'disorder'.
But write back if you have the interest.