be less anxious

Well, quitting smoking is interfering a touch with my goal to be less anxious. My anxiety level has been way higher for the last 72 hours I’ve gone without smoking. But, big surprise: quitting smoking is WAAAAYYYY easier in real life than when you worry, worry, worry about doing it. I feel a lot less weird today than yesterday, and I really think that I’ll be less anxious over-all once I’ve really quit for, say, a month. Yay! A step in the right direction.

I’m working on it. I still feel pretty anxious when I leave the house, but I used to have terrible panic attacks, sometimes one after another for days, and that’s definitely stopped. I’ve had some anxiety attacks, but not a panic attack for a long time. I’ve been in therapy 2x a week for the past year, psychoanaylitic. It’s hard, but I love it. I think that understanding more about the sources of my anxiety—an unconscious underlying fear that I’m not powerful enough to keep myself safe, that I have no control over my safety—has really helped. Also I take a low dose of Klonopin every once in a while, when I feel the initial signs of an attack, and it knocks it out. But still, I’m working towards not having to take it, and working towards feeling even less anxious, and less compelled to do things that are kind of compulsive—like choosing not to leave the house.