overcome anxiety

anxiety ruins everything. such a pity there are no good drugs to just make it go away.

I am kind of struggling here again.
Maybe its the time of year.

I am having anxiety about my teaching, and about my boyfriend, and about my future.

I feel I’m not a good enough or knowledgable enough teacher.

I feel like he doesn’t want me.

I feel like it won’t come quick enough.

man, i can say, my life changed completely this year. i’ve been fought anxiety for over 12 months now, on my own and it’s been painful and hard, but, man, it’s really worth.

i found joy in life, i found myself at ease doing things i’ve always wanted to do but i was always afraid. and it’s amazing.

i’ve been anxiety attacks free for about 5 months i guess. and i can say that it got a lot better since i’ve started acupuncture. the best i ever tried against anxiety.

i think i just have some tests to do, facing some fears i’ve had like forever, to see how much of anxious i’ll get.

Started meditating for 10mins every 2 hours (this is day 2). Suddenly I’m much clearer-headed and more productive. Well worth continuing, I think! If it takes that much of my day to control GAD I’ll schedule it in permanently.

I just made a little MP3 with a few seconds of blips at the beginning, 10min of silence and then more blips at the end, and I use that as a timer. A fixed time is good because if you’re relaxed the time flies, but if you’re stressed it seems like it will never end – either way you get the right dose of medicine.

The Bach Remedies seem to have done something for the palpitations.

I was getting them almost every night, just before dropping off…annoying. Having been on Aspen and White Chestnut for some weeks now, they’ve reduced to only being on nights when I’ve gotten to bed late and not had a proper chance to wind down. Which isn’t often.

The job? It’s going OK. I got through a couple of meetings I really was not looking forward to (one of them, actually, looks like it’s a pretty interesting meeting….if you like icky medical stuff, as I do…). I got some issues solved that I didn’t, at first, know how I was going to deal with. Without ending up with fifteen doctors and a computer technician hating my guts. Must be doing something right.

I’m asking myself what I’m actually worried about right now, and…you know, I’m having trouble thinking of anything there isn’t at some point going to be a solution for.

So, things are looking up.

This is something I really want to accomplish. I have had problems with it for quite awhile and depression and anxiety disorder runs in my family. It’s actually gotten me so down a few times before in the past that it’s put me into deep depressions lasting about a month or longer.

I’m just tired of getting freaked out over things I have no control over. And I am tired of living in fear of when I will have another horrible anxiety attack. And I have no idea how to stop doing that!

I’ve been able to keep it under control for quite awhile now, but lately it’s started to flare up again.

One thing that I have found that seems to help me a lot is I take St. John’s Wort every day. This is a much better alternative for me than being on medication, because even though I have health insurance, I am low income and I am currently unemployed. The St. John’s Wort seems to have a calming effect on me, lifting my mood and making me more happier, and greatly reducing attacks.

I need to snap out of this.

That is all.

I didn’t say back on that last entry, but I was actually in the process of weaning myself off the beta-blockers…veeeery slowly, the way you have to, although being low-dose this might not have been so crucial. By the time I wrote that, I was on one perhaps every three or four days.

I’ve now been off them completely for a couple of weeks. I can’t say the palpitations are any worse, but I don’t really think the pills were making them any better.

Not much progress with the CBT, but something else that I’ve been trying: Bach flower remedies. Some people might see this as slightly woo-woo, but I figured it couldn’t hurt to give them a go. Hubby and I have always used Rescue Remedy for various stressful times, so it was a short step to checking out the individual remedies.

Aspen is the remedy for non-specific fears. That is, you’re scared but not sure what of. Or, as in my case, fear that shifts itself somewhat arbitrarily from one thing to another. (For a specific fear, like flying or public speaking, it would be Mimulus.) White Chestnut is the remedy for intrusive thoughts.

I’ve been taking them in combination for about the last couple of weeks now. And you know, I actually think they might be doing some good. I’ve not been so consciously anxious during my working day, and last night, for the first time in ages, I dropped off to sleep almost immediately without, as far as I can aware, my heart thumping.

These next few weeks will be a testing time, as I’ve just taken over a colleague’s old job. I finished moving offices yesterday, and I have to get stuck into a load of her stuff next week. She’s elsewhere in the same organization, still, so only a phone call away, but the whole thing of her finding a new job happened rather quickly, so it’s been a bit of a steep learning curve. So, I’ll see how it goes.

i have a lot of flaws and i’m always focusing on them to overcome them and be a better person. but, i can’t overcome my anxiety, be confident, stand up for myself and relax if i don’t be sure of all my strenghts and qualities. things to keep in mind:

- focus on my strengths and qualities
- keep positive thinking
- stop thinking about other people reactions (specially my mom’s)
- ignore other people’s expectations about my life: i’m the only person in control of my life and my frustations affect only myself
- focus on what can be done today (might be my last day afterall)

I think i may be getting more control, i’ve been on meds for a while and last week i went to a concert, in the rush to get ready to go i forgot to take the meds and i haven’t taken any since, it’s been five days and i am feeling brilliant and back in control. The meds were only herbal but i’d started to rely on them but it wasn’t dangerous for me to just stop, i don’t recommend it with perscription meds.
But i feel brilliant, i haven’t had an attack since stopping them, it was odd, arriving at the concert i seemed to arrive a different person, confident and happy! Something i haven’t been for a very long time.
I’m hoping this could be it, i know i’ll never get rid of the anxiety, it’s a part of who i am but i think i’ve managed to accept it, accept myself.

In other words, i’m feeling pretty darn good!

If i can keep this up for the whole of september i think i’m going to tick this off.

good luck to everyone else.