Microsoft Word - At Last A Life Final Copy 16-03-09 (15 page)

deep into my recovery, old fears kept resurfacing, but I knew that I

just needed to let them go and they did not hang around for long!

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Sometimes this new way of thinking will make sense and come

easily one day and then the next day it will be gone. This is

something that happened to me, but it is just your memory trying to

suck you back into old habits. Accept these days and keep

practicing the new way until it becomes your new habit. Just stay on

the road and as your memory fades your new habits will take over.

Trust me, it works.

When we seem to go backwards

This is one of the most important things and is something I failed at

more than anything during my recovery, even when I had been

warned about it. Since I have recovered, I now know how important

this is.

Setbacks - what are they?

When I knew I was on the right path, I had days when I felt better

than I had ever felt before, but I was warned: “Paul you may have

had a week/month of feeling great and think you have finally cracked

it, then, wham, you have the worst day/week ever and think you are

back at square one. This can happen, so do not think you have not

moved forward - you have”.

Well, I listened to this advice and what did I do? The exact opposite

of what I was told to do. I started questioning it all over again, falling

into the trap of telling myself that this was not working. I thought I

had recovered and now I felt worse than ever. I did this on

numerous occasions, feeling great one week and terrible the next,

until it was eventually drummed into me that this was only to be

expected and is part and parcel of recovery. Once I started

accepting these setbacks, they occurred less frequently; I had finally

got it. I now know how much not accepting these setbacks held me

back and I cannot stress enough that if, as part of your recovery,

you are experiencing days when you feel you have made no

progress, then just accept them and don’t let them throw you back.

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It was also explained to me that there was a period when I had felt

terrible all the time, so surely this up and down affair should make

me realise that for once I was moving forward. Trust me, even

during your deepest setback, you never lose what you have learnt or

the progress you have made; it is always there stored away. Old

memories can still be fresh in your mind and return at the most

unexpected times. This is only to be expected, but just let them go.

Don’t question why you feel so bad today, when you felt so good last

week. It is not important so just accept these days as part of your

recovery.

Also, when I first received the help necessary to put me on the path

to recovery, I was told that I might feel worse in the beginning. I did

not understand this because, as far as I was concerned, getting help

should have made me feel better. Well, I was wrong again. The

reason for this, as I now realise, is that when you are scared of

anxiety and in fear of it through lack of understanding, every mention

of the word can be enough to make you feel more anxious. So by

putting yourself in the front line of battle, you are putting yourselves

in situations you may have avoided for a very long time.

I was also told that when anxiety has been explained to you and you

fear it less, gradually you will be able to think about it and talk about

it more without feeling any worse. The more you learn, the less you

fear it, which is how it worked for me. That is why I teach

understanding, which I believe is one of the most important parts of

recovery. I can now talk about anxiety all day and read as much as I

like without any bad feelings whatsoever. I have no fear of it

anymore and I live in a body that is no longer sensitised and a mind

that is no longer worn out through worry.

Nerves are easily triggered

When people find themselves in a state of anxiety, the slightest

noise or incident can trigger their nerves and make them feel

anxious. There is a simple explanation for this. When your nerves

are tired, they are already vibrating. Compare them to a tuning fork.

If you hit a tuning fork on a table, it would vibrate, wouldn’t it? If you

hit it again while it was still vibrating, well then it would vibrate even

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more - agreed? Well, in your case, your nerves are the tuning fork

and the vibrating is your nerve endings, so another little knock on

the table or the slightest trigger sends them off to a higher level.

Something that you could just have dismissed when your nerves

were healthy, i.e. a sudden shock, maybe a door slamming or just

seeing something that slightly scares you, now makes you feel

panicky. Because your nerves are sensitised your nerves are on red

alert and little fears become exaggerated.

A healthy body resembles the tuning fork that has not been hit on

the table and is very still. The slight knock on the table would hardly

be felt and you would not experience any symptoms. That is why

your fears seem out of proportion - your nerves are sensitised and

you feel anxious and panicky for very little reason. This is the only

difference. Your nerves just need time to calm down, until the

slightest knock will no longer send you into a wave of panic. That is

what happens when you decide to just get on with your day and not

add more worry and fear to how you are feeling, it is the letting go

that calms them. It calms the tuning fork so that it does not vibrate

as readily and once more your nerves become just like those in a

healthy body.

The above explanation is one that I used to help me understand. It is

the one that helped me to recognise that my bad nerves were just

vibrating and, in time, they would calm down, until they vibrated no

more.

I seem to have lost who I am, how do I begin to feel like me

again?

This is a question I get asked a lot and the answer is just live your

life as normal. Your anxiety wants you to hide away, avoid situations

and make excuses. It wants you to become a hermit and a slave to

it, but from today I want you to do the opposite and go towards it. It

is never caused by the lady you meet in the street. It is never the

social situation you have made excuses for. It is all about avoiding a

feeling and I know for a fact I recovered because I stopped avoiding

and did the exact opposite. I used to hide away at home, hide if it

looked like I may have to talk to someone in the street that I knew

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and make excuses not to go places. Eventually the light came on

and I decided that I was never going to move forward by acting this

way? I knew I had to do the complete opposite of what my instincts

told me and just thought ‘I don’t care how I feel - what happens,

happens. I am just going to go everywhere at will. This is no life’.

So I did go everywhere and interacted with people again. I was

putting myself in places and situations that I had not been in for a

while. Things gradually improved as my body was saying: ‘Hey there

is no danger here. You were avoiding a feeling, not the neighbour,

not the friend’s barbecue, just a feeling! There’s no problem here

Paul’. As time went by, I began to desensitise, and going places

and meeting people just became easier.

So keep moving forward. If your anxiety makes you think there’s no

point to anything, don’t let it bluff you. I had to go through many

things I had once loved doing, feeling anxious and wondering what

the point was, but the more you do it, the more normal feelings will

return to that area of your life. If you don’t feel like doing something

because you’re anxious, just see it as a negative thought caused by

your anxiety. Go against it, do what you used to enjoy doing and

eventually you will enjoy it again. The worst thing you can do is to

tell yourself that you will make an effort to enjoy yourself once the

anxiety has gone. You have to go through the motions while still

feeling anxious in order to bring back the normal feelings of

enjoyment again.

Paul How do I stop it?

This little section came up because of the amount of emails I receive

that start with the phrase ‘Paul, how do I stop it’. Well this is

something that I get asked about all the time. Examples of this

would be ‘How do I stop these feelings of panic? How do I stop

myself thinking scary thoughts? How do I stop feeling anxious? The

list goes on and on.

What I want to get across is that it is all about ‘don’t do’ than ‘do’. My

answer is always the same ‘Don’t try to stop feelings of panic

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coming – just let the adrenalin come without fighting or pushing it

away. Don’t try to stop scary thoughts coming - give them their

space. Don’t try to stop anxiety coming - you cannot control it

anyway. Let the feelings be there and try not to let them frustrate

you’. I rarely, if ever, tell anyone to ‘do something about it’ or try and

‘control how you feel’. If you just let feelings and thoughts be there,

you stop fighting, worrying, controlling and trying to figure it all out.

Basically you stop the very things that keep you in the cycle.

Refresh your mind

During my recovery, I indulged in too much self-pity, which is easy

for me to admit to now. It caused me to refuse to bother with

anything - getting dressed, my appearance, going out and meeting

friends - and I was generally left feeling sorry for myself. Try not to

wallow in any self-pity. It only causes your mind to become less

active, when it really needs something to concentrate on and

something to freshen it up. The same routine, day in, day out, can

make it stale. If you are one of those people who stay in bed or

mope around the house all day without getting dressed, this is for

you. Just try to take an interest in something, no matter how difficult

it is to motivate yourself, and do as much as you feel you can. In my

case, I drew a little and went for walks with my dog, which did

refresh me and gave me something else to concentrate on apart

from myself and how I felt. If you are housebound, I know this may

be out of the question so soon, but just get out of that bed in the

morning, take a shower and take a little interest in the day, even if

it’s just cleaning the bathroom or starting a job around the house, a

new hobby, anything that gives you a new focus. Give your day a

meaning and you may find it refreshes that dull, tired mind of yours.

Doing this breaks up the day and stops you going through the same

routine day in, day out. Just as people with healthy minds need to

stimulate them, so do those of us who suffer from anxiety. It helps to

give you something else to think about and uses a part of your brain

that you may not have known existed. It also breaks the chain of

habit. Too many people want to hide away at home and just ‘wish it

away’. Unfortunately, it does not work like that. Recovery comes

through changes and a break in habits and no amount of self-pity

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and wanting something to happen will help. You need to come out of

the safety zone and make some changes.

What I really don’t want you to do is wallow in self-pity all day,

asking yourself “what’s the point?” Just do something you used to

enjoy, even if at first it feels like a huge effort. When you are feeling

so anxious, everything does feel like an effort. Don’t wait for that

moment when you feel like going out, that moment never comes. Do

something today and you never know, you just might find you

actually enjoy it.

The above really helped me to recover. I had become stuck in a rut,

going through the same routine every day. Going out and doing

something different with my day refreshed my mind and broke

through the habit of constantly thinking about myself. My mind

became refreshed within its new surroundings and it was given

another focus which helped rid it of that dull feeling. It really is

important to shake those cobwebs from your mind and give it the