Well this will be my last post for a while as I am going on a 12 week retreat around Devon and Cornwall on Sunday. To be honest I did a mini one years ago and found it an excellent way to detox the mind. I just found being away from all the memories and stresses that seem to keep my anxiety ticking over a real help. It was like dumping everything in a bin and leaving it all behind. Speaking of this it leads me on to this weeks post.

I do use twitter and although it is a personal account I do add statements that I think will help people and last weeks got a massive response with people retweeting it and adding it as their favourite, the tweet was;

‘The worst part of my anxiety was trying to cover it all up and pretend to the world that I was fine, I learnt to stop caring what people thought”

I was also recently talking to a friend who suffered badly with depression and he said the same. The pressure to try and hold it all together, smile in the right places, plan things to get through a situation, analysing it after, thinking where it went wrong, trying harder next time to make it go perfect, thinking and planning inside with internal dialouge whilst in a situation. The list was pretty endless for me and was the sole reason I developed social anxiety. I was so used to having an awful time in people’s company and hating acting my way through that I started to avoid social occasions or people. If I was walking through town and saw someone I knew then I would think ‘Oh please don’t come over’ and if they did it was all about getting away, rambling at 10 miles an hour (must not let them notice). In doing this I had started to tell my sub concious that people and social things were to be avoided and it just carried out this order and saw them as something to avoid and get nervous about.

Well I spotted this cycle and realised I needed to stop it and that came through no longer making an issue out of going places or meeting people. It meant just putting myself out there and not caring how it went, if I still felt nervy and tounge tied then so be it. What was the alternative, to just keep on avoiding and making things worse? Again this was not easy, but as soon as someone asked me to go somewhere or do something, then I just did it and took all my insecurites and nerves with me. And I found without all the pre planning before hand, without the ‘watching myself’ and trying to act my way through it that things were better, still not great, but better and more importantly I was telling my sub concious that things were ok, we are not running away or avoiding people today. My life now was about opening doors and not closing them, I was fed up with closing them and if opening them brought some discomfort (which it probably would), then so be it, it was the long term I was looking at, not the usual short term ‘Safety behaviour’ the quick comfort blanket that brought so many long term failures.

A lot of people see anxiety as something that ‘we just have’ and that we just have to wait until it goes away . But a lot of it is self created through the habits we create. Every habit can be reversed and a lot of that starts with us and the way we approach things. I was stuck in bad habits for years and learnt to reverse them. I did not just wait long enough for anxiety to leave me and one day got lucky. It was a change in attitude and approach that brought me my rewards, a surrender to everything that was going on, no longer letting it control what I did and did not do, where I went. I did not become brave overnight, I just took small steps that turned into huge strides. Going back to the social anxiety, I was the same person with the same anxiety levels, yet one day I was making excuses not to go out, the next I was sick of my life and decided to now go and come what may. I was avoiding the feelings, not the people or the place, that is key to anyone who suffers with anxiety, you are always avoiding the feelings yet blame the people or the places suggesting it’s them that create it, so you avoid these people or places.

I will leave that for today as a lady from this blog passed me on a poem that I said I would place on the blog in my next post. It is about her recovery with anxiety and is really well written. To finish from me, I will keep people up to date on twitter about my trip and will have people to look after and moderate this place when I am gone and will also try and post when I can. I am also meeting someone from this blog on my travels so looking forward to that also.

Anyway here is the poem and remember stay positive and keep opening them doors

From my bed where I lay

Thinking life was over

From the thoughts that came my way

Believing life was over

What demon had taken me

From a girl who loved life

To this empty shell

A scared, broken, mother and wife

Lying in silence

Watching and waiting

For the voices I thought

Would start in my head

Listening and waiting

Driving myself crazy

Oh God, no this is it

What is my mind creating?

I am now dead, I was inside

Nothing was real

Nothing felt mine

Numb without tears

Lifeless and fears

No love to give..

STOP this ringing in my ears

So fast came strange feelings

Terrifying panic

Is the sky falling down

This really is manic

Don’t want to be alone

I want to be alone

I’m feeling so so tragic

What must I do

What must I make happen

Searching for answers

So I can map them

Reasons for me

To know why I’m feeling

As weird as can be

This can’t just happen?

A racing mind, full

Of what ifs and maybes

This is too much

I must surely be crazy

My head is so full

So heavy and thick

My stomach, it churns cartwheels

I feel so so sick

Truth told, there really

Are no answers

You are here now

You have to be with your monsters

You have to go through

You will find your way

The best way out is through

At the end of the day

I thought I was crazy

Going mad, felt so unreal

These feelings I’ve met with

I can reveal

Will trick you and turn you

Til you think life has gone

But I want you to know that you can move on

Time

Little by little

Day by day

To bring you through

Do it anyway

That dreaded task

You just cannot do

Leads to another

Through and through

You just cannot do

So on, brave heart

A little at a time

And you will see that

You really can shine

It will take time

Step by step

Hour by hour

You will see yourself begin to flower

To face your fears

To go it alone

To see yourself through

Into the great unknown

That slight turn of thinking

No matter how small

Will lead you to greatness

No time left to mourn

To take that first step

For what you must do

Is believe in yourself

You really will come through

Your head hurts like hell

It’s swimming and giddy

Your eyes are all blury

Shocks through your body

No one will know

It is what you’re going through

They’re not to know

No one will know

Unless they too, have been through

A day, you feel fine

Oh great this has gone

To be awoken next morn

To find, back its come

A good day turns to two

And then to a few

And bang here it comes

hits you out of the blue

Never lost heart

This is what must happen

To find inner peace, to grow and to strengthen

We’ll learn from these times

Hey, I felt so good then

So I know that I will

Find peace, happiness again

So your will grows stronger

A little day by day

You keep moving forward

It has to be this way

For now at least

Feelings come and go

They won’t last forever

I want you to know

Those days will serve me

I’ll never forget

How bad things were

But you know, I’ll never regret

What happened to me

What’s happening to you

May feel like it just came out of the blue

But when you recover, you truly will see

What lead you to this great anxiety

You’ll know and you’ll see

Believe me

Now on with my life

I am now going forward

But how grateful am I

That I had fallen

I truly believe, sometimes we have to break

So we can fix ourselves up

with knowledge, understanding – How Brave!

So if you’re feeling right now

How I did back then

I give you my heart

And again and again

Will say to you onward

To take the first step

Nothing will harm you, there’ll be no regret

You will be so glad that you kept

Trying and trying

And one of these days

Your heart will start flying

You will say to yourself

I’m glad I never gave in

I did what I feared

Again and again

So on, brave light

And be on your way

To do what you must

Day by day

The glimmer of hope

You see shining anew

You know you can do this

From one who came through X

Paul

New Anxietynomore App

http://www.anxietynomore.co.uk/anxietynomoreapp.html

For more information about my book ‘At last a life’ visit www.anxietynomore.co.uk/the_book.html

For more help with anxiety visit www.anxietynomore.co.uk

Follow me on Twitter

I should though be around on the blog more as things have calmed a little and it starts with todays post.

A mind that never seems to switch off

I know a lot struggle with an over active mind and wonder how to calm it. Again there is no quick fix, but I will pass on what really helped me. I like others struggled with an over active mind that did not seem to switch off, it really was the last thing to settle. When we are anxious then our body works over time and the reason we may sweat or feel restless and unable to sit still, with this comes an over active mind that seems to start on one subject then jump to another with little rhyme or reason.

Firstly I realised that a calm mind led to a calm body and the mistake I was making was to try and figure my way back to a calm mind, to try and unravel what I was doing wrong, what I needed to do etc. I was sure there was a secret out there that just needed discovering. It was then that I realised that I did not need to figure my way back to a calm mind, I just had to stop going over my past experiences and stop peering into my future experiences.

People may have different experiences but the root to cure is the same, I will give you my own example which stemmed really from a fear of losing the people around me that were close to me;

My main problem was that I would keep jumping back to something that happened last week and how I felt, this would mainly be negative thinking like ‘That night out with friends last Tuesday did not go well at all, next week I will try harder to fit in and come across as normal’. So then I would be looking into this coming Tuesday and building up to what to do to make sure it went better this week, so as to make sure I did not ramble through and come across as odd, what I had to do was do this or that and I would then go with a bunch of mental instructions and the night would again be a disaster as I would not be joining in, I would be mentally trying to fix myself and remind myself what to do. Then home again and looking back to how bad it went and feel sorry for myself and fill myself with self pity, waking the next day trying to find more answers.

This is what I mean by looking back, I would constantly go over how things went and what I could of done better, then I would be looking into the future and plan certain things to make sure they went ok. All this mental planning was constant and it could be a simple trip out with friends or going round to a family gathering, I was obsessed how I as coming across and how things were going, then filling myself with negative thoughts about how bad my life was and how it was not fair that others could enjoy themselves and not me, more thoughts on how to fix it, my mind just never switched off.

How I over came this was to say to myself that this was the last time I went over something that had happened and the last time I planned for something that was up and coming and more than that I would not entertain another negative thought. I had to change this pattern as it just was not working.

Through habit my mind would sometimes drift back to something that happened last week or try and plan for the future, but I would say ‘No I don’t do that anymore’ or a negtive thought would come up about my situation and I would say ‘No I don’t do negative anymore, anxiety has taken enough of my life, it is not having anymore’. I would then wake up with a smile on my face and just face the day whatever may come, no planning, no safety behaviours, no negative thinking about my situation, no going over something that someone did or said or how a situation went. I am not saying from that day on everything was brilliant, it was not, but it was far, far better.

This new approach was a major breakthrough for me and I felt far more mentally free and even though at the time I was not a big believer in how close your thoughts were to how you feel, without all the negative bombardment of my situation I felt so much better. I can’t express how much not going down the road of self pity and negative thinking about how you feel is so important.

Other things I did

I always tried to stay positive and just when anxiety was just about to control what I did or did not do I would say ‘You have had enough of my life you are not having anymore’.

I also got into meditation a little, maybe just 3 times a week for half an hour. I would just get out of the bath when most relaxed, lie on the bed and just put on a C.D or headphones and drift in and out with the soothing music and would feel so refreshed afterwards, I still do it to this day.

I made sure I got out in the fresh air and went walking, running, cycling, again a healthy body leads to a healthy mind. I also cut my drinking down and felt so much better for this. I still went out as much as before, but instead of getting drunk I would just stick to 4 pints.

Again it is not an over night thing but the above really helped me on my way to who I am now.

I would also love people to watch a film that had a big effect on me after my recovery and just shows the importance of a calm mind. The link is here and it is over a few episodes and around 3 hours long altogether, but do try and watch it, it is very inspiring and a real eye opener.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_zDtdYu3mA

Paul

New Anxietynomore App

http://www.anxietynomore.co.uk/anxietynomoreapp.html

For more information about my book ‘At last a life’ visit www.anxietynomore.co.uk/the_book.html

For more help with anxiety visit www.anxietynomore.co.uk

Follow me on Twitter

Me and a developer who actually comes to this blog for help, have spent the last 5 months creating an app for the Iphone and the reason I have hardly been around recently, it was such hard work and took up so much of my time.

Many people used to email me and ask why I did not have one and how useful it would be. So no trumpets or sales pitch as people know I don’t push anything on anyone, if people want it then I am just making them aware of it’s presence.

We did though both spend a lot of time and money trying to create something with loads of features and new information whilst trying to make it as cheap as possible to people. The price is £9.99 and is available from the istore or a by searching on your phone in the app store under anxietynomore.

It has the full book on there, a section with new information, direct links to this blog, site and my twitter account and a full audio and video section.

If anyone decides they would like it then I hope it helps them, for more information on it visit the page below and do check the video out at the bottom.

http://www.anxietynomore.co.uk/anxietynomoreapp.html

Please feel free to continue posting on the previous post for help and support. I will leave this up a week and then post a new one next Tuesday.

Thanks Paul

As stated I have been very busy with another project , it is now just about completed and I will reveal all that in my next post. But it has been the reason I have hardly been around, it took a lot longer than I expected and a lot more work. I am also looking for more success stories for this project. I tend to get emails or posts of thanks on here when people recover, but rarely a more detailed story of their recovery. If you wish to forward any on to me then just email me your story and I will tell you exactly hat it is for before publishing it.

I am going to put up 8 posts this year and I have a clear view of each one. 2012 is the year I hope to really get certain things across and this comes through what people post on here and continually struggle with.

Right on to today’s post which is called 2 roads and the choices we can make

When we suffer from anxiety we can hit a fork in the road and make 2 choices, one sign points us to a safe, but lonely road, a road that leads nowhere, the other points to a road that is full of life and choices, the road looks more daunting, but leads to a fulfulling place.

I once saw a documentary on a soldier who lost both legs in Afghanistan and when he came back to England his mother said he gave up on life, he just stayed locked in his room, locked in his own head and became very depressed with plenty of ‘Why me’? He had decided to give in to his disability and taken to hiding away feeling sorry for himself. This was until someone came and spoke to him and said ‘You can have a very fulfilling life with the way you are, you just have to make the choice to live again, how will you know if you don’t try?’ From that day this solider was determined to give life a go and stop hiding away feeling sorry for himself. He made a choice to forget his disability and went out socialising, finding local clubs he could get involved in. It followed him on from this and he went on to represent his country in a particular sport and made so many new friends, going on to life a life that he started to really enjoy.

I am telling this story because this person had a choice, he also met a fork in the road and took the safe one at first, to hiding away feeling sorry for himself, the road I took many years ago. Well I was sick of this road and I decided one day to stop wishing it all away, anxiety was just the way I felt, there was nothing I could do about that, I had to accept that it was part of me for now. The outside world had not changed and anxiety or not I was going to be part of it once again.

We can choose a road of avoidance, one of trying to control our anxiety, thinking this temporary relief will help us long term. But it never does and leads to a very restricting life, one were we make excuses not to go here, not to do this and that. We are giving in to the way we feel and letting it control us and what we do, this is the wrong road and leads to more feelings of hopelessness and disconnection with the outside world. You also begin to make deals with your anxiety, ‘I won’t go here if you leave me alone’, ‘I will avoid this place if you don’t come today’.

By human nature we try and find relief, normally it is the right thing to do, but with anxiety it is the opposite, because in trying to find relief your life becomes narrower and narrower, you begin to feel more and more sorry for yourself as you hate that you can’t go here or there. You can also start to go over and over things in your head, either trying to make more deals with your anxiety or knowing that this is not working and then trying to find another way out.

No matter how hard you try to make deals with anxiety, it never seems to be satisfied.

One day you must realise this safe road is not working, it is leading you nowhere, it is just restricting your life more and more.

Let’s go to the other road, the one without safety behaviours, without control and avoidance. This is the road I finally decided to take and anxiety would have to come with me, it no longer had a choice, there were no more deals to be made, no more excuses, if it wanted to be part of my life for now, then so be it, but it had lost it’s hold over me.

At first going out and about and not trying to avoid my feelings was hard and I felt disconnected for a while, but I no longer cared, it was caring so much that got me into the hole in the first place! If I let anxiety into my life without question, then what is there left to fight? What is there left to go over?, What is there left to avoid?, What is there left to control?

The mistake people make is that they are always trying to feel better, this has the opposite effect as you never truly let anxiety in this way. I may post something and people may then use my words as a mantra, say it is ‘Truly accept the way you feel’ they may then repeat this to make themselves feel better. There is the mistake, they again are trying to control their anxiety with a saying, trying to control it.

When I took the choice of the other road, I expected to still feel anxious, I expected to still feel disconnected, more in fact as I was going out of my comfort zones, I held to expectations to how I would feel, my only goal was to live a fulfilling life again, how I felt was secondary and certainly not something I would be trying to control anymore, I had tried this for years and it did not work.

In time this second road lead me to a far better place, to a more fulfilling life, places and experiences I had avoided in the past opened their doors and let me in, my life grew and grew, feelings and insecurities dampened. The other road had the opposite effect, life became narrower and narrower, I felt more and more isolated, my whole day seemed a battle of avoidance and control, no wonder I never got anywhere. But I loved this new road, it was not as safe as the other road and had a few bumps in it, but it was full of victorys and suprises, I felt good about me again, in control.

I was actually always in control, I just never realised it. I had just had to let go of all my uncertainty and insecurities and embrace life again.

To finish just remember you are not your anxiety, you are not your thoughts, so don’t feel the need to control. Many people who progress and those that recovered tell you that eventually they just became on observer of the way they felt, they shifted their focus elsewhere and it did not seem as important as it did before, it was just something in the background. This is because when they accepted it as part of them through understanding, they could begin to focus on other things in their life, they had stopped spending hours inside their head trying to constantly fix things, constantly find ways to control or rid themselves of the way they felt. Until you truly let anxiety in without question and stop making deals with it, then the same fruitless battle will continue. Nobody has ever fought or thought their way out of anxiety, it is like quicksand, the harder you fight to free yourself, the further you sink. 

I hope that post helps. My next post will address how to get out of your mind and free yourself from over thinking.

 Paul

For more help with anxiety visit www.anxietynomore.co.uk

For more information about my book ‘At last a life’ visit

www.anxietynomore.co.uk/the_book.html

Follow me on Twitter

This also gives me time to reflect on the last year and certain observations. I will say in the last year I have seen a shift in people’s attitude to anxiety. We have also had some recent high profile cases on depression and other issues which seems to have woke people up that there can be other problems out there and attitudes have to change. Recently many famous people have come out to speak out on the subject and organizations have been set up like State of Mind, which helps ex rugby players with mental health problems.

Mental health is no longer a stigma, no longer two words to be avoided and it is something that many, many people suffer from at some point in their life, be it anxiety, depression or anything else. It certainly does not mean you are going crazy or this is you for ever, so many people do get the right help and move on with their lives. You will be amazed at the people who find out what I do and say, ‘Oh yes I once felt like that’ or ‘My sister suffers with that’. It is extremely common and thankfully attitudes are now changing.

On the blog itself, well it has been a very successful year with so many coming back to say they have recovered or are well on their way. That is something I never tire of hearing and it is great that people come back and share their stories. Many don’t post on the blog, but I get as many emails telling me the same thing. I even had someone telling me that their doctor pointed them  to the blog, which is something everyone here should be proud of. It really has become a great little community that helps so many people, many who don’t actually post, but just come and lurk and find comfort in what others have to say.

To finish it does take time to recover and you can slowly see people’s posts get more positive and educated as time goes by, until they are then helping and advising others. I see many come here distressed and at the end of their teather. But all you can do is sit back and let them learn gradually, I wish I could wave a magic wand and everyone would be o.k. I have said in the past the one thing that kept me in the cycle for so many years was trying to find that magic sentence or pill to make it all go away, it was just a battle each day from when I woke, to when I went to bed.

Finally as someone said the other week, I have slowed down on posts recently as I want them to be really helpful and not just post for the sake of posting. The next one I promise will be on the 2nd January, one that I am sure will help. I should also have more time to answer here also, again I have been very busy on something which is just about completed now, so I should have more time.

Thanks for everyone who has posted here, especially those that have advised, you will never know how much that means to people.

Happy Christmas and 2012, lets make it the best year yet

Paul

Firstly I would say the hard part of recovery is keeping the faith that things will get better, too many people are impatient and think how they feel today, is the way they will feel in the future. I was tested many times through my own recovery and the odd day I would shed some tears, feel frustrated and back to square one. I would also feel the need to scoot off and find the miracle sentance or cure that would make it go away instantly. I knew though that I had to stop looking for a way to make it go away and become one with it. To take the sting out of it you have to learn to be fine with the way you feel. Don’t be anxious because you are anxious !

Also another part that is very important is having the faith in yourself. When anxious our subconcious plays many tricks. We may think about going somewhere or doing a certain task and the hovering anxiety tells us to take the safe route and hide away, don’t go. Then we get frustrated that we can’t do ordinary tings and start questioning everything. It really is about feeling the apprehension and just doing it anyway, what you are getting is a false signal caused my your current state. I could write a long list of all the times I just went straight through my insecurites, my fears and apprehensions and nothing ever happened. I knew this was the way to get my life back, to stop giving in to my anxiety, to take away it’s power and see what it really had, I wanted to stop closing doors and start opening them and this meant going against my instincts and start living again. I can’t recall how many times people have come to me and said ‘I used to do this, but I can’t anymore’ when asked why they can’t, they cannot answer. You can do anything you want, there is nothing to stop you, don’t listen to that voice that says you cannot and start to nurture that voice that says you can. To feel normality you have to live normal, to lose your fears you have to go through them, not around them, you have to have the faith that although you may not always feel great, you will be fine. Anxiety symptoms really are surface symptoms, you have not lost who you are, that person is just waiting to resurface again.

Anyway here is the story that was passed on to me, hope it helps and inspired people.

Hello everyone, I haven’t visited this website in so long. The reason? Because I am no longer anxiety ridden. In fact, I rarely think about it anymore. Now that I went back to see what’s new here, I realized and got reminded how many people are still suffering with anxiety, the SAME way I used to. I remember when my life was hell and anxiety cosumed me every moment of my day. Everything,  had to be planned “in case I panic”. I avoided many activities. I almost became house ridden, but thank God I went to go see a doctor specializing in anxiety and CBT treatment. After I saw him, I wasn’t cured, I just felt a little bit more comfortable and he boosted up my confidence that I could beat it. I remember thinking “How long will it take? Why has it been a year and I am still anxious?”. The main solution came from this website. Paul was so right when he said “just start living your life, stop consuming yourself with anxiety and constantly researching it. Just stop and do the things you used to enjoy and the freedom will come to you, layer by layer, slowly but surely if you just stop thinking about it constantly.”

I remember asking myself “How can I stop thinking about it and live my life when I feel like im on the verge of an emotional breakdown or something?”. But I SLOWLY stopped letting anxiety ruling my life. I was scared to do everything I used to do at once, so I started “progressive exposure”. I would go out where I would feel somewhat comfortable at first, then once I got more confidence I started throwing more things into my daily activities. Eventually I got confident that even though I am out and I have anxiety INITIALLY, I am still going to stay there and I will NOT run home and avoid it. I knew that this is an essential part of recovery and no magic pill will ever make me feel better, it was up to me and slowly I started enjoying my life again, I got more confident and rarely get anxious anymore, when I do, I know I am not going back to square one again. after all, anxiety is a natural and a normal human emotion. 

I know we became used to being ’scared ‘ of anxiety, thinking we MUST not feel it ever, but in reality, we will feel it on many occasions and take it as a normal part of life where we know it will not stick around forever. The real difference between “normal people” and anxiety ridden people, is that anxious people experience anxiety and take it as a some sort of catastrophic event, where as normal people experience it , and say “oh well” and move on with their activities and the feeling eventually passes, that’s the KEY. 

I hope this short story helps. just stick with this website, get courage and start living the life and it shall pass, I promise.

Anon

I just want to add something to the story sent in above;

The key point is that you probably will feel anxious when you go somewhere or do something that in the past you have avoided, but so what? Again feeling anxious has been here since the dawn of time, it is how people reacted to it that differs. Remember it is just adrenalin, it cannot harm you , it’s just a feeling, a feeling that was put there to protect you, it truly is nothing to run or hide away from.

I always found that when I did not go for the quick escape or run away from it and rode it out, then it always calmed. You cannot produce adrenalin indefinately anyway, that is a medicl fact, so it will always calm. I eventually got to the point where I did not care if I felt anxious or not, it made no difference to me, it was just became a harmless feeling and that was when the real progress started as it was no longer an issue.

I hope the above helps and inspires people.

Paul

For more help with anxiety visit www.anxietynomore.co.uk

For more information about my book ‘At last a life’ visit

www.anxietynomore.co.uk/the_book.html

Follow me on Twitter

I actually got the idea for the post when I was on holiday last week as I was sat outside in the sun having a bottle of cider and looking at the great view. It was then I remembered a holiday I had when I sufferered many years ago and spent it all trying to feel better.

It started off with, ‘The holiday will make me feel better’

‘I will go for a walk and that will make me feel better’

‘I will go swimming, that will make me feel better’

This really was all the holiday and each day was about, making myself feel better. This is what I had to change, to stop trying to feel better, to stop always trying to supress the bad. It was only later when I truly understood that I had to be o.k with the bad, go towards it and feel it. I had to stop trying to supress the way i felt and stop spending all my day seeking to feel better, trying to avoid and supress bad feelings. This was the battle I was still having with myself, a battle I could never win. If I stopped trying to supress the bad and walked alongside it, the battle would end. I had to stop trying to make the pain go away, I had to stop trying to solve the problem that i could never solve.

I have a small interest in buddism and it is all built around having a calm mind, it does not want to fight all day, to battle with feelings, to keep trying to supress, it just wants to be left alone. i had to stop aiming for peace and just let it come to me.

The more we allow the bad, allow ourselves to feel the way we do without supression, without searching for peace, the less respect we give it and the stronger and more resiliant we become. The less we use our minds to solve a problem time and time again, the more flexible and at peace it becomes. This of course goes against our impulse to fix things, we have a scratch and we itch it, we are always looking for comfort. But it is this looking for comfort with anxiety that keeps us in the cycle. 

I am sure everyone who has improved or recovered here will say one thing. That they hardly if ever fight or battle with how they are feeling now, that they have stopped trying to mentally run around and solve the problem. It really is about letting things go, throwing away all your coping tools. It’s almost like being stripped naked and just being you again with all the past anxiety baggage left behind.

I dropped and no longer had aims of who I wanted to be, about how i wanted to feel, whilst I was always aiming, then the fight was still on each day, striving to be something or someone or to feel a certain way.  This led to tremendous relif in the long run and made me feel far more relaxed, a relaxed mind leads to a relaxed body. I had to learn though not to fight towards relaxation or seek it out like I did on the holiday I mentioned earlier.

If people truly accepted themselves for who they are, then the blog would be dead, as everyone would just be living alongside the way they felt without question and without fight. This is because it is in our human nature to avoid pain, to avoid feelings, to seek feeling better. It is this automatic reaction that we need to change. I no longer seeked out the good or avoided the pain, it was part of me for now and I had to accept that, I learnt to be o.k with not feeling perfect. I gave up the battle to feel better, to work it all out, it had drained me for too many years and got me nowhere, if something was making me feel worse, then why not seek out doing the opposite. If only it was our human reaction to do nothing, things would be far easier.

To finish I remember a documentary on T.V about a lady who was burnt very badly in a fire when she was younger and at first she hid away, hated her refelection, was full of hate and self pity. Her life was utterly miserable, she was full of hate and self pity , all created because whe did not want to be who she was. When asked what turned her life around, she said it was the day she finally accepted herself for who she was, this was the only thing that truly brought her peace and gave her, her life back.

Wise words indeed

I hope that post helps people and they can really relate to it

Paul

For more help with anxiety visit www.anxietynomore.co.uk

For more information about my book ‘At last a life’ visit

www.anxietynomore.co.uk/the_book.html

Follow me on Twitter

Many people may remember me doing a charity run a couple of years ago for anxietycare, a London based charity that does great work and relys totally on volunteers. Well I decided to get fit again and do another one, this year for another excellent charity called Anxietyuk . They are the largest charity in the U.K and rely on donations to keep them going and are manned mainly by volunteers. They do some great work and have helped many people at their lowest ebb,  that first contact with someone who understands and does not judge is so important and without charitys like this it would not be possible.

If any would like to sponser me I have set a page up where people can donate, again I don’t want anyone to sponser with money they can not afford, any size donation all helps, but it is always a personal choice. I hope to raise as much as I did 3 years ago and will be bugging friends and family

I promise also to get more involved in the blog when I come back from holiday and place a new post up. I have been so busy recently and things will be back to normal when I get back on the 12th of August. Please just use the other blog posts for help and advice, even though I go away on Monday, people will still be looking after and moderating the blog.

If anyone would like to sponser me for the run which is the Wetherby 10k in september, then the page is below and I will also thank everyone personally, it means a lot.

http://www.bmycharity.com/anxietynomoreuk

Thanks Paul

The first email was from Dash Berlin, who has had huge success around the world with their music. The email with the link to the song is below. I truly love the song and the style of music is really my type, I have also placed a link to the lryics below the email.

Hey Paul,

Just wanted to let you know your (life changing) book has inspired us
to write this song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qScjGvaix0

All over the world people are singing a long..

Cheers

Seb

Lyrics

http://artists.letssingit.com/dash-berlin-lyrics-disarm-yourself-feat-emma-hewitt-qdt6b8m

The second email came a few days after, which stated a short film was made in dedication of the site/book. Here is part of the email after I gave feedback telling us more about the film. I watched it and found it very well done and I could relate to so, so much of it, it was basically my life many years ago.

Hi Paul,  I’m a Uni student and I made it for my final major project. The guy in it is an actor from Manchester!  We want to enter it into various film fests and try and get it nominated at the royal television awards. It’s on vimeo and feel free to link to it.

I really really appreciate your positive feedback. I’m glad you can relate. It was such a hard topic to try and tackle. There is so much you could try to squeeze into a film that it was difficult to decide how it could be done as simply as possible. I was a little worried that people wouldn’t get it. By all means share the video around it will be nice to get interest. I hope it works to give others hope and Fingers crossed we get good marks too!

John

Here is the link to the film

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLrO6gGtDD4&sns=em

I just wanted to thank both Seb and John for making the song and film and it did mean a lot to me that the site could inspire both projects.

Paul

Follow me on twitter

Firstly I thought last month was a very good one for help and advice, thanks to Will/Scarlet and others that have contributed. I always set out to just build a community where people could just come and talk and find some support and advice. I know how important this is as I used to see a lady once a week through the NHS.  Her knowledge on anxiety was o.k, but it was a chance for me to talk without judgement, to bounce ideas of each other, to offload, just to talk with someone who understood. This was always a great help to me and I would walk out with a new sense of freedom and confidence and it was something I wanted for others to be able to do, as people know anxiety can be a very lonely place.

Also if anyone asks me anything on the blog and I don’t reply, then please don’t take offence. It is nothing personal, I just have days when I have plenty of time and am able to answer and other times when I have no time at all. I tend to read about 60% of posts and may miss many. Also rather than directing a question at someone I think you have a far better chance of a response if you just ask it generally as then anyone can pick it up.

To finish, I recently added some extra pages to the main site as people will know. But I am always open to new ides for pages that may help the majority. If anyone has any ideas for new pages/ideas, then please feel free to mention them.

On another subject I recently saw an advert in the local paper for a dog walker 3 times a week and put my name forward. The money just covers my petrol, but I have to say it is the best thing I ever did. I usually go for around a couple of hours around dinnertime and have some great views and moorland to walk over. Her favourite trick is running in and out of streams and then shaking herself down and soaking me through. I just read about someone who mentioned they adopted a dog and found it very helpful. I am not telling everyone to go out and buy a dog by any means, just that the exercise, the fresh air and the other focus to the day can really help, whatever you choose to do. Remember your focus tomorrow should not to be rid yourself of anxiety, it should be to get the shopping done, to visit that friend, to take the dog out, to get that job done. I work from home, but I always try and fill my day with living and a positive focus.

Anyway on to this weeks subject:

My partner of many years was with me through most of my dark days and was very supportive and non judgemental. Two weeks ago she seemed very quiet for a while and a bit distant. She then confided in me that she felt panicky at work and this had gone on for a few weeks, but she did not want to say anything and went to her doctor without telling me. She had this strange notion that if she burdened me with the way she was feeling, it may bring my old feelings back.

The history to this happening was that she is in a high pressure job as a truancy officer at school and recently staff have been cut and more and more pressure was put on her. I actually told her last year how important it was to let any pressure go over her head and to just explain that you can only do what you can do and if they want more work out of you, then they would have to employ someone else. She did not take heed of this advice and let it all get on top of her until the stress over flowed and she felt episodes of panic.

Thankfully she eventually told me how she was feeling and the first thing I did was sit her down and explain why she felt this way, what was happening and more than anything that these feelings were harmless and were just an overflow of stress. Just a simple explanation helped calm her down.

We then went out that day for a drive and a meal and she kept gasping for air, holding on to her seat and darting her eyes around. I stopped the car and said to her, ‘You are trying to push these feelings away and stop them coming, take your hand off the seat and allow the feelings to come, it is just the excess stress you have built up releasing itself, I know it feels over whelming, but allow it to come and it will pass’  This is what she did and then a minute later a big smile came across her face and she said ‘It has passed now’. I explained to her that in allowing it to come, then it had no fuel to feed on and it spent itself. When you tried to stop it coming and hold on to yourself, you looked at it with total fear and fear on fear is the fuel it needs.

The next step was to tell her to take some time out from work for a little while, just to have a mental and physical break. This was not running away from the situation, she just needed a time out. Also to come out on walks and bike rides with me and not sit at home feeling sorry for herself, it was relaxation with action, not just staying in bed or watching T.V all day.

She then had to go back into work to hand her note in and have a quick word with her boss. Before she went she felt full of dread and panicky, I explained it was just an association to the place were she first felt this way and the school was not the problem, it was the stress she had been under and this could have happened anywhere. The best thing to do then would be to tell her bosses what had caused her to feel this way and that on return this pressure must be taken out of the situation.

She is now near the end of her break from work and feeling far better. She has had some episodes of feeling panicky, one being when she was asked out last week with all her friends. I told her that this was brought on because she had to mix with people for the first time and she was worried that she may feel overwhelmed and make a fool of herself. She agreed this was the reason and however she felt she was going, she did go and felt on the whole fine.

There was no earth shattering advice, I just kept it simple and it stopped her falling into any cycle. I even explained that she should expect to feel panicky when she went back to the work for the first time through memory and that this episode would pass if she allowed it all to come without resistance and trust in what I had told her, that it was totally harmless and just excess adrenalin over flowing.

The quicker you can give people an explanation the better, as it takes so much fear out of the equation and stops them falling into cycles. I know I would have been saved years of suffering if I had been given the right advice and guidence. I would have still been through a breakdown, but would have never spent 10 years getting worse.

Just to finish on this story; My partner said she understood far more of what I went through and although she trusted in what I told her, that actual doing was sometimes much harder. I told her that our body is there to protect us and when we feel any feelings of panic it sends a message to our brain to fight or escape, when we need not do any, just let it spend itself. It is like a bungee jumper who knows he is safe and the rope will stop him falling, yet his mind is telling him there is danger and not to jump. Going towards feelings of panic and allowing yourself to feel it, without running for the nearest exit is the same, it goes against all instincts. You just have to trust that you will be fine.

I took a choice one day to never run away from how I was feeling again. The first few times were the hardest as I was so used to avoiding, the temptation to run away from myself was strong. But I thought to myself ‘What’s the worst that can happen here, I understand it is just adrenalin and that it cannot harm me?’ The only way to find out if I do cope is to go straight through it. There were a few tests, going on a ride at a theme park where they strapped me in and there was no escape, the usual feelings surfaced, but I just sat on them and then within a short period of time felt a sense of calm. Adrenalin came as my body was used to seeing danger in these situations, it gave me the choice to run or stay, it was saying

‘There seems danger here Paul’,

My response by staying and not escaping is;

‘No there is not, thanks anyway’

And then it reacts by saying

‘O.k I am not needed, off I go and enjoy yourself’.

This is where the sense of calm arrives, adrenalin can not be produced indefininetly, fact. So it always has to calm down, it always does, it will though calm far quicker when given the right siganls

I used to enter a quiz and if you won it you had to read it the week after. This was my ultimate nightmare and I always passed it on to others, until one week I said I would do it. The fear rose, but I went straight towards it and just read the quiz, within a few minutes the fear had subsided and i had a massive smile on my face. After that I knew I could and would cope and nothing did happen as long as I did not add fear on fear and just allowed it to come. Things just got easier and easier, but I had to put myself out there and trust in what I had learnt.

I am not trying to simplify things here, people who have suffered with panic issues for many years have far more memory of suffering, avoidence habits etc, but the core principles are the same.

My partner has been lucky and was given an explanation very quickly and was able to learn so much in such a short period of time and now states that she does not wake up now watching herself and hoping that the feelings don’t come, feeling totally at their mercy, like she did a few weeks ago. She knows if she allows them to come without objection, they will always die down. Just a simple explanation has been able to help her change her attitude towards these feelings and stop a cycle in it’s tracks.

Today’s post was a mixture of different things and a story at the end to show that we live in a far more stressful world with more pressures in life and that anxiety and panic can hit anyone. Hopefully in years to come with the growth of the internet, people will be able to find real help far sooner and not have to go through years of needless suffering.

Here’s hoping

Also I have recently joined twitter, if anyone wants to follow me it’s anxietynomoreuk. I will keep people up to date with any new info, new posts and other bits and bobs.

Paul

For more help with anxiety visit www.anxietynomore.co.uk

For more information about my book ‘At last a life’ visit

www.anxietynomore.co.uk/the_book.html

Follow me on Twitter