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ANXIETY is the body’s way of responding to danger. It’s a survival mechanism designed to keep us alive.

But the danger we perceive doesn’t actually have to be there. We just have to think that it is.

Whether the danger is real or imagined, our automatic survival mechanisms will kick in and we will try to escape or avoid the danger.

We might avoid certain people or places. We might refuse to go out. Perhaps we’ll only go out with someone else present and then leave early.

If we choose to face the danger, we might use coping behaviours to get us through, like smoking more, fiddling with our clothes, avoiding eye contact or taking medication.

Whilst our coping behaviours get us through the perceived danger, they actually keep our anxiety going. As long as we depend on them to cope, we don’t give ourselves the opportunity for the anxiety to go away on its own.

Learning to confront our anxiety might be uncomfortable in the short term, but it helps us take control and feel better in the long term.

If you feel anxiety starting to overwhelm you, ask yourself if you have any proof that what you fear is actually going to happen. What is the worst that could happen and how would you cope with it if it did? Imagine it is six months from now. How important will this feel then?

Just because you feel bad, doesn’t mean things really are bad. Imagine yourself coping with this situation. If you can handle it in your imagination, you can handle it in reality.

via Inner Child Healing.

Panic Rant ‘n’ Roll

This! This right here! I finally leave mum’s house, meet a wonderful man and move in together to start our new life, and I settle into my new life and happiness

and

then

PANIC SETS IN because one of my sisters can’t get her shit together and yells at me about it on the phone. Because my mother will always see me as her baby girl and not the woman I’ve grown up to be MORE THAN 12 YEARS AGO. Because three moves, falling in love, and starting my own family wasn’t stressful enough. Because of so much family shit packed into 30 LOOOONG years I am a fucking nervous wreck.

No more.

I am not your therapist, nor am I your journal/diary. Do not call to complain about things I cannot control because all it fucking does is make me PANIC. You (plural “you’) ALL know I suffer from panic attacks and fucking ptsd so you best remember this: If you want to continue to be in my life in any meaningful way, then you will restrain yourself (plural again) and be civil in every last one of our fucking communications or, I swear to you, there will be no further communication between you and I. I will answer your calls again, but if/once they turn for the worse, then the call is over.

I don’t know if this is a form of Tough Love, and I don’t really care. All I know is this is now affecting my health very seriously. And if my family, my literal flesh and blood, can’t bring themselves to care, then so be it. I will always love you, even though you never believe it. But I will not die for you. I will not lose my sanity for you.

I am shaking so bad right now. I’m ready to cry again. Fuck. Fuck this shit. I need chocolate.

Related articles

• Anxiety, you’re not the boss of me (cnn.com)
• Women and Panic Attacks (everydayhealth.com)
• How to Handle Panic Attacks (everydayhealth.com)

Hey Fiver and Not Writing, or Writing Update « Bonnie Sparks Writes

That would have been my first write-in, had I attended. I’m prone to panic attacks, have social phobia, high anxiety, and haven’t been coping with social isolation lately, so had two panic attacks in the morning. Needless to say, I didn’t get in the building! I did make it, at least to out front. After being exhausted and losing the ability to make decisions (it happens when I’m hit with anxiety and have a panic attack)

via Hey Fiver and Not Writing, or Writing Update « Bonnie Sparks Writes.

 

 

Me too. Except I didn’t even make out my front door. The library hosting write-in I wanted to attend isn’t that far away, but it’s also at night and I’m not doing well being out by myself at night these days. Just thinking about trying a nighttime walk makes me tremble. Plus I should have roughly upwards of 6,000+ words by now — I’ve got zero. Ugh. I can’t seem to focus on weaving my plot threads together into a coherent story, let alone start writing it out.  The more I try to get into the storytelling frame of mind, the more distracted I get.