PixelFool

I haven’t completely overcome my anxiety, but the intensity has definitely been reduced by 95%. I thought maybe my experiences could benefit the people here who still feel scared and uncertain.

My first recommendation is not to take medication unless you think you need it to get a leg up. I took it before I realized what was going on and it helped in some ways and hurt in many others (the withdrawal was not fun – if you go off pills, make sure you do it SLOWLY!!).

My second recommendation is to get checked out by a doctor. Once you know that you’re perfectly healthy, you can stop worry about what every sensation in your body might be. This was (and still is) my biggest problem. I always imagine the worst. The best thing you can do for yourself is be prepared for any and all sensations and feelings and just remind yourself that it’s just the anxiety. I can’t begin to describe just how many weird pains I’ve had all over my body, or weird sensations or emotions from this in the past year. One thing you can do to deal with your reaction to these sensations, or to soften or avoid an oncoming panic attack is to aknowledge the sensation and the fear – and accept it, ride it, and let it pass. For awhile it won’t make it less scary, but it helps over time.

Learn some breathing exercises and practice them every day. Meditation, finding your “happy place” and progressive muscle relaxation can also help greatly.

Consider therapy. I agree that there are a lot of therapists out there who are no good. Like most Western doctors, they just want to give you a pill and be on with it. Find a doctor interested in holistic remedies. I have a therapist right now and I think I’ve figured out the trick. It’s true that by undergoing therapy, you discover a lot of things that are messed up about you that you may not have thought or worried about before. I think a lot of people think this means the therapist is simply piling maladies on you when in reality everyone is a little messed up (does that make sense?). But I think in reality, everyone IS pretty messed up – therapy does make you face it, and it’s a HARD journey with lots of homework, but I think in the end we can benefit from it. I never realized how many unhealthy habits I have that make me socially anxious, or phobic.

Third. Go out and get yourself a copy of the “Anxiety and Phobia Workbook”. This thing was my savior. It told me everything the western doctor and my first therapist didn’t. Now of course I have a NATUROPATHIC doctor and a HOLISTIC therapist, and I think they would have helped a lot in the beginning. The book says you can overcome this, and it’s right.

Other things that can help a lot:
1. Take vitamins! Vitamin D (happy) and B-Complex (Stress) help me.
2. Exercise! If you feel anxiety coming on, go out for a walk, laugh, tire yourself out or get angry. Anxiety is incompatible with these other emotions.
3. Do breathing exercises daily.
4. Talk to people about it. You’ll be surprised how many other people share your experiences.
5. Know that you can get better. You just have to be willing to take the journey (in my case, the hard work looked a lot better than 5 panic attacks a day).

I love to sing, but I have stage fright. Not just stage fright, people fright. In school I could never read an essay in front of the class because my hands would shake the paper so much I couldn’t read the words.

I’ve found myself in situations where I feel comfortable, and I do really well in those cases, but trying out, or asking to sing for someone, are never those cases.

The other thing that worries me is that I can’t write music or play any instruments (I’m trying that, separately). I feel like no one would want a singer who isn’t also a musician (unless you’re doing covers or something, which could be fun I guess).

Any advice for figuring this stuff out?

I’ve found this to be a really hard task. I became interested in learning guitar probably in middle school, and I’ve had various guitars over the years, and here I am, age 24, still can’t play. Actually I can play and sing one song, and play another.

The hardest thing for me is getting over sucking. When I “became an illustrator” at an early age, it was easy because when you’re young, you think everything rocks even if you suck! At this age though, it’s very easy to tell that you suck and that’s just terribly discouraging.

I’ve been going through a really incredible year (incredibly sucky) involving panic disorder, GERD and therapy. I’ve learned a lot and come a long way so far, but I have a long way to go still.

Something Ram Dass says that I really appreciate is “Here we all are”. I think it’s hard to talk about mindfulness without talking about our emotional state. After you think through what may be bothering you one day, take a deep breath and just say “well, here I am”. I haven’t quite figured out why it works wonders for me.

I’ve found that being mindful, meditating, taking time out to relax or just BE has made me more in tune with myself. With my emotions, and physical sensations. I’m probably taking it in the wrong direction because for therapy I have to do a lot of analysis, which mindfulness is the absense of I think. All the same, it’s helping me understand myself better and it’s really fascinating.

I’ve become interested in this topic in the past few years and I’ve done a lot of research and thinking and arguing about it. I haven’t yet fully figured it out but I have a lot of thoughts about it.

First, when marriage was “invented”, people only lived until perhaps their 40’s, so “forever” wasn’t actually that long. According to evolutionary theory, humans did not evolve to love (although we are obviously capable of it), we evolved to procreate. Therefore I think the limiting nature of marriage goes against biology. In addition, our culture that looks down on divorce as something immoral is a big problem. Even if there are children involved, I think it’s best that the couple get divorced if they feel things aren’t working out.

Second, probably because of legal issues I’m not thinking about but also likely because of our very religious “family values”, it’s incredibly hard and expensive to get a divorce. If you’re realistic enough to realize that you may not be with someone forever, it’s practical to avoid marriage in order to avoid divorce.

Thirdly, weddings are an incredibly lucrative industry and still a sexist and racist institution, and we risk playing into this. Girls are still marketed to in order to make them desire “their special day” (a very expensive white wedding) from a very young age, and the market still plays heavily to white women. And seriously it’s just gross to see woman shoving that big rock in my face once they’re engaged – it’s materialistic in the silliest way – it’s not even useful!

Fourth and perhaps the most philosophical, why get married? What does marriage really mean? How does it change the relationship (besides all the legal benefits – by the way, why do married people get legal benefits? Why not couples living together?)? I know this isn’t universal, but it has always bothered me to see people get married because of a lack of trust, assuming that perhaps if the bonds are stronger, the other is less likely to stray. If you’re worried about that, why are you together? Similarly, I’d always assumed that getting married is like the final frontier – the step that says “I feel the most I can feel for you”, something that validates the relationship. I’ve come to think that this is complete crap. If you feel that your relationship isn’t good enough unless you’re married, your relationship isn’t good enough. What does marriage change in the relationship? Nothing. Right?

Lastly what’s the deal with the officialness of a wedding? Lets say my partner and me (together 5 years now) wanted to have a party celebrating our relationship, but didn’t want to have a wedding. Who would come to that? Everyone would probably think we were conceited or something, what’s so special about our relationship that they should fly 6000 miles and bring us gifts? Yet no one thinks twice when it’s a WEDDING. Weird huh?

Anyway I probably sound like an ass cause I get fired up about it. I think getting married is fine, but I am uninterested in engaging in it for political reasons.

Damned straight, and going 2008 too!!

Ha! We got TWO!

Absinthe is a horrible beast. I’ll continue to love the cult history and cherish the bottles but cripes its just not worth it!

900 bucks later I have the sweetest little ubuntu box. Who knew? I did it all by myself. It’s actually not hard haha.

It’s amazing. It just tastes like shit (that is if like me you hate licorice).

Haha I dunno why SOME PEOPLE gotta be all mean about it. The academic word seems to be that all absinthe created today is “fake” because it’s not as strong (ie as poisonous) as it was before its contents became regulated.

I have tried various french and english blends, and during the times that I managed to drink a bunch (and not end up puking all night), I had a wonderful emotional joyous kind of drunk. It felt like alcohol with a bit of ecstasy, but then again, maybe it was just a beautiful night!

Likelihood is, you may experience some kind of high, but I seriously doubt you will find anything that will make you actually halucinate, as the blends are just not that strong anymore. Still – I salute anyone who has the chance to drink real absinthe (and the term “real” is debateable but it’s just like wine – there are many brands and the only stuff you can say isn’t “real” is that crappy boxed stuff and Arbor Mist), you have lived a poetic dream!

I imagine it’s going to be the atmosphere that really does it for you.

.... whatever.

Yet useful. On a site like this, learning PHP is actually rather useless in the big scheme. However I’m being forced to learn Smarty right now and I guess that counts – it’s fun. But it’s not going to save the world. ;)

This is more like an ongoing goal. It’s never going to be finished, but it’s good enough for now!

I did finally do this. It was like my life dream. I’m going to marry Jay Kay. But then my crazy boyfriend who doesn’t even care about the band got all drunk and pushed me out of the way so he could touch JK’s hand. Which he did.

... That bastard.

Actually I’m cheating. I LEARNED how to STENCIL t-shirts. It’s not exactly the same thing, but it turns out fairly similar results, and I’d say it takes almost the same amount of effort. Cutting the stencils really sucks though.
STILL.. awesome!

I finally learned how to knit! It’s awesome. But I’m really not very good at it yet. And I haven’t finished even a scarf yet. But I’m GOING to. Maybe I’ll list that as my next thing to do.

Holy crap, I can’t believe I’m crossing things off! This website really is kind of a wonderful gem on the wired.
So yeah I’m not PERFECT at it yet, but I will be eventually. As it is, I can at least complete the function of juggling for a few seconds before dropping the balls.
It’s so sexy!!

I just found this website again after probably a year of not using it. I can’t believe I can actually tick this off my list!! I have always wanted to go to Japan and ended up by the charity of others actually getting there for a week. It was kind of a rough trip and if I get to do it again, I will do it very differently, but I saw beautiful things, I was THERE, and I talked to people in Japanese! Just the most wonderful feeling ever. I intend to go back and make the best of it this time!

Finally got my tat. Hurt more than anything ever. Would totally do it again. Probably the most meaningful thing I’ve ever done.

cause… it’s licorice… and that’s just gross. Helluva time though..