Forget chasing happiness and fulfilment through material things or outside validation and invest in the most important thing in your life, your mental health.
So many people believe that the secret to happiness is on the outside, when in fact it is on the inside. You can move home, gain promotions at work, win the lottery, buy as many material things as you wish and jump from one relationship to another, but without good mental health, you will never find the peace and happiness you are looking for.
Symptoms of poor mental health
- Relationships and friendships full of conflict
- Feelings of worthlessness and depression
- Finding no joy in anything
- Having little to no energy and motivation
- Irritability
- Unable to think clearly
- Withdrawal from the outside world
- Irrational fears and worries
- Poor concentration
- Low self-esteem
- Excessive worry about how others view you
- Poor sleep
- Inability to cope with everyday life
- Anger issues
- Lack of self-care
The trouble with poor mental health is that it can lead to the opposite of what is needed to improve, which is looking after yourself physically and mentally, as the worse someone feels, the more they tend to indulge in destructive behaviours or attempt to self-medicate.
So poor mental health can lead to poor eating habits as those who suffer turn to food for comfort, leading to them gaining weight which only makes them feel worse about themselves. They may turn to alcohol in an attempt to numb their feelings, only to feel mentally worse due to the effects of the alcohol. They may spend too much time in bed or isolate themselves, instead of getting the social interactions and connections that help promote a sense of belonging and security.
Also, the last thing someone wants to do when they have little to no energy is to go for a walk outdoors or hit the gym, so they don’t get the exercise and fresh air that can help them improve their physical health and overall well-being.
So, as you can see, poor mental health leads many people into behaviours that make them feel worse and so it becomes a vicious cycle.
My own experience with poor mental health
After I had recovered from anxiety, my mental health wasn’t at its best, to say the least. The years of overthinking, introspecting, worry and mental work I had indulged in, in an attempt to get better, had really taken its toll on me mentally. I struggled to concentrate, couldn’t think straight and had days where I found little to no joy in anything.
I remember sitting on a beautiful beach many years ago feeling absolutely miserable and detached from my surroundings, I thought to myself, ‘If I can’t be happy and feel present here, then I can never be happy’. The trouble is, no matter where I went I was always taking my brain with me and if that was worn out and depleted, then it didn’t matter where I went, where I lived, what material things I had, or what relationship I was in, I would still be unhappy.
On days when my mental health was poor, I would initially do everything I shouldn’t do. I would go over past and future events in my head, stay in bed, reach for a can of beer, eat crap food or lay on the sofa all day watching TV or aimlessly browsing the internet. I would also go to war with how I felt, trying to think my way out or force change by struggling with it all, which only led to my brain feeling more exhausted and so I felt worse.
When none of this worked, I finally realised it was my mental health that was the problem and it was my responsibility to improve it; no one else could do it for me. It wasn’t struggling with how I felt or self-medicating that was going to help me overcome how I felt, it was looking after myself.
If you look after your car and service it regularly, top up the oil, attend to any issues with the engine and wash it often, then it will look and run far better than if you neglect it, and the same principle was true with my mental well-being.
So now when I felt mentally off and down, I knew this was not a sign to turn back to old habits that would make things worse. It was a sign that my brain needed looking after more than ever. Alongside taking better care of myself, I also stopped going to war with how I felt. If I had a bad day, then I would accept it fully, knowing that trying to fight it would only make it worse and lengthen the time I found myself in mental discomfort.
Self-Care v Self-Improvement
The bigger mistake I initially made was that I looked towards self-improvement to fix all my problems instead of incorporating self-care. When I went towards self-improvement as a means to feel better, then I mainly began to feel worse. This was due to me always trying to fix myself and not allowing myself to experience negative emotions while being obsessively concerned about myself.
The paradox is that those who are able to accept negative feelings rather than trying to get rid of them, actually feel better, and those who are able to accept themselves as they are rather than constantly striving to reach some goal of perfection, feel more at peace with themselves.
Self-help is not about trying to get rid of anything, it is about no longer doing the things that hurt you, like lack of exercise, poor diet, isolating yourself and using harmful substances to cope. If you look at all these behaviours, it goes back to trying to suppress negative feelings, which is what I was also trying to achieve through self-improvement. I also found that the better I felt mentally and physically, all the things I was working on like lack of self-confidence and being better socially, improved on their own.
I am not saying there is no place for self-improvement, it certainly helped me understand my thoughts better and change faulty beliefs that weren’t serving me. Inner work is also vital in healing emotional scars and helping change the way you view yourself only that you don’t get addicted to it and end up in a constant state of trying to fix yourself and use it as a way of solving all your problems while neglecting self-care and making positive changes towards self-growth.
Ways to improve your mental health
- Eat healthier
- Reduce alcohol or give it up altogether
- Stop smoking
- Start to exercise, preferably outdoors
- Let go of excessive worry and let life unfold as it does
- Have a purpose for your day
- Become more spiritual
- Get a good night’s sleep
- Join a group or class or find a new hobby
- Take time to do nothing and just be
- Talk to someone about any issues bothering you, don’t bottle things up
- Learn to give to others and be kind
- Make social connections
- Cut back on social media
- Turn off the news
- Let go of any toxic people in your life
These are just a few of the things you can do to improve your mental health, but each person is different and only you know what truly helps. My personal guide was to let go of the things that made me feel worse and do more of what made me feel better.
When I first began to change and make my mental and physical health a priority above anything else, I found it hard to motivate myself to make the positive changes necessary, but I saw my lack of energy and motivation as a symptom of what I had put myself through previously and knew things would improve in time.
So I ditched all the crap food and improved my diet and ate at regular times. I started to walk in nature and bought a bike. I then joined a Buddhist and local art class. I cut my alcohol intake right down to where hangovers were no longer an issue. I also found a part-time job and did some volunteering to have a purpose to my day rather than laying in bed feeling sorry for myself.
Initially, progress was slow, but I did start to see changes in my overall well-being. I found that my concentration was much better, I had more mental and physical energy and found my overall self-esteem increased. The irony is that the better I felt, the more I wanted to look after myself, as I didn’t want to ruin it by going back to abusing my mind and body. So just as poor mental health leads to you looking after yourself less, good mental health leads to you looking after yourself better.
Practising good self-care is not only good for you but also for those around you whom you care about. The better you feel the better your friendships and relationships are. Unhappy people tend to withdraw and lash out, whereas happy people are more inclined to help and serve others.
Also when your self-esteem improves, you no longer seek validation outside of yourself, leaving you to express your true self instead of putting on masks or people-pleasing in an attempt to manipulate others into liking and accepting you.
Signs of good mental health
- More able to cope with life’s challenges
- Better concentration and mental clarity
- Increased mental and physical energy
- Increased feelings of well-being
- Forming better relationships and friendships
- Increased self-esteem
- More rewarding and better social interactions
- Less worry and anxiety
- Far less conflict
- A change in perspective and what is important in life
- Caring less about what others think
- Kinder and more giving towards others
Some people think it’s normal to feel down and have little motivation, believing this is just how they are or that life has dealt them a bad hand. What they don’t realise is how different things can be if they make the changes necessary.
The key to self-care is never about trying to find ways to get rid of any kind of suffering, but finding out what is causing it and making the changes needed. Suffering is always telling you that changes need to be made. If you regularly feel down, angry or irritable, have a lack of clarity and self-esteem, and feel as though life has no meaning, it is a clear sign that your mental health is not in good shape and needs attention.
No one is asking you to be perfect in the changes you make. People who fail at dieting are the ones that cut out everything they like, and then find it impossible to stick to. If you can make a few positive changes then you will feel the benefits, which will hopefully encourage you to make more. Also, remember you are human and even with the best of intentions, moods and confidence fluctuate, and that’s fine. We are not after perfection here, only to improve our overall well-being.
So when you work towards better self-care, understand that there will be bad days along the way and don’t let this deter you from your goal. Be patient and kind towards yourself at all times and understand that you are going through a tough time at the moment, but with positive changes, things will gradually improve. One vital thing I learnt was to no longer take my moods out on others. This only led to regret later on and only hurt me and those around me.
Finally, if you have made any bad decisions towards yourself and others due to how you were feeling, forgive yourself. It wasn’t your fault. You were being directed by how you were feeling and not who you truly were. What happened before has gone, work now towards a new you. Look after your mind and body like you would your own child – it will thank you for it.
Just remember the world and how you view it is a reflection of your mental state and the beliefs you have. Change them and your life will look and feel completely different.
- How being too Self-Absorbed can affect your health - 21st February 2024
- The importance of self-care for good mental health - 21st April 2023
- Why does my mind go blank when talking with others? - 7th March 2022
Do you have any post talking about dizziness/ unsteadiness/offbalance
I just asked him about this the other day. I haven’t received an answer but I deal with the same thing. I think it’s depersonalization/mental exhaustion. I’ve been following Paul’s advice from his books for 3 weeks. The first week I had one day without brain fog. The next week I had 1 day without brain fog also. This week I had 2 days without brain fog. I really believe it’s going to take time but I am seeing improvements! It’s also very helpful not being afraid of it anymore.
Hello Jaan,
with my anxiety (which manifested mainly in the form of insomnia) I was consistently dizzy, unsteady, and off balance. The attention you give these manifestations determines how long they’ll linger.
Now, I experienced those feelings for about 2 years straight. But my biggest fear was the lack of sleep… so, those issues (the dizziness and unsteadiness) were more side issues for me. But in both cases the solution was to become less concerned with them when they happen and you do this by allowing your life to be more than just focusing on those issues.
What I mean is: when we’re struggling with something that strikes concern/fear to our core we give that thing more and more attention. That attention further exacerbates the power of that fear. We have to get to the point where we say “oh well, so be it: I’m dizzy. Now it’s time to live turn my attention back to other things in my life.” We do this knowing that that fear/concern will still be there… but, in time it loses it’s strength.
My dizziness, feeling off-balance hasn’t bothered me for years now. Be patient with yourself
It’s so nice to know you are still around Nolan. You have helped so many people. At one stage, this site had such a family feel to it, and you were one of the people that made it like that. All the best mate.
Hi Nolan,
I thought you was fully recovered?
I am a little confused….
Best regards
What about my post confused you?
Hi Nolan,
Sorry i dont want to write something wrong. You wrote :
“My dizziness, feeling off-balance hasn’t bothered me for years now. Be patient with yourself”
Does that mean you have it now and you don’t recovered. My English is not so good not my native lanuage thats because i asked.
Thanks for all and for your great input and help.
This post has come just at the right / wrong time. I’ve today decided to get myself signed off from work as I can’t cope with it anymore (I work in complaints in financial services) and generally feel very down with my life situation (divorced, single, very little social life and affected by General Anxiety Disorder daily) and this is now the 3rd time I’ve had to do this in the last 3 and a half years. I will now wonder what I should be doing to get myself ‘better’ and back to work all over again. More therapy (it hasn’t really helped before the numerous times I’ve tried it), more / different medication, sit at home and watch TV, ruminate / think too much, do exactly the same things that Paul did that led to his ‘recovery’…..
At the moment, I just feel mentally and physically exhausted, have had enough of my life (comparing my life to others is a theme), spend periods either crying or just staring into the space. I feel very lost at the moment.
At last a life, this book of yours saved me. Thanks a lot!
Hi there 🙂just wanna thank you for your book. I am a mom of two ADHD boys and for last 3 years have been totally exhsusted… Your book helped me to understand WHY I feel this way now. Seems I start my way back to life🙂wish me luck and thank you one more time.
Hugs from Poland
Awesome article Paul! Loved it! Interesting to differentiate almost the fact that you don’t necessarily need to be anxious to experience poor mental health. I’ve just finally learned recently to fully leave my inner chitter chatter alone , with the “it is what it is” attitude and realising the more I try to solve it the less gets solved. It all comes naturally in the end. Just need a little understanding and some patience. And what do you know, after a good few years my mental and physical motivation, optimism are back like never before. For the first time I read your list of signs of good mental health and I was like “seems that I’m all good then” haha. And I can no longer indemnify with any of the symptoms of poor mental health. I’m like a man on a mission again =D thanks for all that you do!
I am in the midst of being anxiety ridden and exhausted. I find the mornings the worst when I wake in a black hole and it takes a few hours to get going and even then I feel too tired to even get dressed. I am trying to get used to these feelings but find it very hard. I lost my son 4 years ago and I know the grief does not help me, but I just want to be “me” again. I have two other children and two little granddaughters I adore and I hate being like this. I keep reading your book Paul and I know it all makes sense but accepting these feelings is so hard at the moment. I need to learn how to just accept these feeligs.
Hello Kai,
You’ve been through alot. No parent wants to see their child pass away. That has to be the hardest thing one would have to live through. It’s cold comfort: but it’s better to feel the pain of a loved one passing than to have no feelings about it at all. But with that topic we are never out of hope. We have a reason to hope… a promise that was given to us.
As for the anxiety: when it’s rough it’s simply going to feel hard. That’s what you have to accept. Don’t live your mornings with the expectation that the anxiety will lift. Live your life regardless of the pain. Allowing the pain to be there but not allowing the pain to dictate what you do with your mornings. When the anxiety starts to lift you will feel it and know it to be true. Your true, calm self will slowly start to emerge. Patience: something all of us who have suffered or are currently suffering have to learn. We don’t have to force happy thoughts into our minds, we just need to make our lives more than the pain that we’re feeling.
This is important because it’s the attention that we give to the anxiety and pain that determines how long it lingers in our lives. When we brood over the pain, fall into pity because of it, we just give it more reason to lord over us. We take that power away from it by not letting the anxiety have the final say over what we do. This isn’t the same as trying to shut it out of your mind. Trying to do that is a futile exercise. So, if the anxiety is flooding your mind that is fine. Just keep on living your life doing the things of your life regardless of the demands of the anxiety.
Hello lovely people,
I follow since 1 year the Blog and read the Book. And follow the very good conversations.
I am since 5 years in the loop after giving birth to my son. Never had anxiety or dpdr before.
I know all about anxiety and dpdr but still stuck.
I have 2 questions :
1.
How do you handle the thoughts what if this is not anxiety what if have long covid or what if I had chronic fatigue syndrom or Fibromylagie or chronical depression and what if dizziness is not caused by anxiety and it caused by neck pain and vitamin deficiency and so on?
2. I get off meds in january after 4 years. I am afraid i have long term damage or withdrawal which last years?
I can’t handle it anymore. I was such a happy Person and loved my newborn so much. But during this 5 years i turned into a empty shell with pain, depression, Depersonalization and anger and destroyed my marriage. I loved my husband so much but since years i am in my head and not spend time with him because i try to find a cure. I know i must stop reasearching and stop fighting but i cant believe that i one day recover. I will be the Person who will have this forever and this thought makes me cry. Missed 5 years with my little son. Please heelp me please i cant anymore.
Thanks for all and this Blog.
God bless you all.
Duy
Hi Duy,
I thought I would try an help with some of your questions – from reading your post I can feel your pain and how frustrated you feel, I have been there myself.
To answer your first question, the clue is in your first sentence, ‘How do I handle’ – the answer is, I feel, that you don’t have to handle anything. This feeling that you have, that you must ‘sort out’ or ‘figure out’ or ‘handle’ that you have mentioned, suggests to me that you are trying to battle with yourself. That you must be doing something wrong because you’re having these thoughts about ‘what if’. The ‘what if’s’ are scaring you, then you are getting scared that you are scared about being scared.
I find what helped me was to look at the facts, the things ‘I knew’ for sure – and this is, that I had anxiety. What does anxiety do? It makes you doubt everything. So if we accept this as fact, can you now look at your thoughts about ‘what if this is something else – like a vitamin deficiency’ and recognise, that this is your anxious brain talking to you.
Now that we know, in all likelihood, that this is just our anxious brain whispering in our ear, it should hopefully make it a little easier for us to see through the mirage and let these thoughts fade into the distance. This definitely takes practise, and patience, but I promise you – you will get there.
What helped me – was to treat these ‘what if thoughts’ with a bit of humour, and get silly with them. For example if a thought popped into my head such as ‘What if you never find a job that fulfils you’ – a question I of course can’t answer, I would maybe play with it and go, oh well if nothing fulfils me as a career, I might as well go join the circus, it doesn’t matter anyway.
Of course I’m not going to do that (well somebody might if they’re a talented performer!) but it helps to take the emotional sting, that sharp pain you get in your heart, when you first think of something unpleasant, and it also helps me see, well, how melodramatic I am being.
A thought is just a thought, and as easy as it is for me to say that, and as difficult for you to believe and feel it, it is true.
I have my own worries and thoughts that bother me, because they’re about something I really care about. And thats why yours play on you so much, because you care about your health, and your husband and child you who care for very much. Thats the worst thing about anxiety, because it comes from your own brain, it knows all your biggest fears and knows exactly what worries you the most.
But take reassurance, from the fact, it is just smoke and mirrors, I am not sure if you are a Harry Potter fan, but there is a creature in these books called the ‘Dementors’, they are a supernatural being, that can take the form of a persons worst fear in order to terrify them. Anxiety is just like this, false.
My answer to your second point is the same as the above, you are ‘what if’-ing. Of course please work closely with your GP or healthcare provider to ensure you are following an appropriate treatment plan, but outside of this, give yourself a break and let the medical professionals think about that. But I can tell you now, you are absolutely fine and will be fine. Again, if this is something that is seriously bothering you, talk to your doctor, who will likely tell you – that wont happen.
Finally, you are you, and you are still that happy person, anxiety is just an annoying sticky blanket that has wrapped around you for a while, and you need a little help shrugging you off.
I wasted a lot of my time wishing and regretting ‘time lost’ to anxiety, but now I am better and looking back, I remember the small happy moments that happened to me even when I was seriously ill, your mind has a really special way of healing and helping you remember the good times. I guarantee, once you feel better – and you will, you will also be able to look back and smile.
I hope this helps and all my love,
Caitlin
Thank you Caitlin.
I try to follow your devices and you are so right.
I wasted 5 years wishing and regretting ‘time lost’ to anxiety .I prayed to god why me or that he should heal me every day during this 5 Years. Not one day i accepted what was happend to me. Now i look to my soon 6 year old son and i cant remeber the last 5 years with him, his first birthday, his first walk… I know it happened but i was not present…In my own mind keeping to find a solution out from this hell with this mental and physicall pain.
After 5 years i know try the opposite but its hard not to fight, not to reasearch, not to beg people for help when you feel so much mental and physical pain.
My aim every day was to find a cure to find a solution, to read one more pauls blog and posts. Maybe i missed something. But now after 5 years i understand i cant so anything about it and must trust all the recovered people.
Yes i have my doubts, yes i also think i have not anxiety and something else. But i dont want to lose another 5 years with my son and my husband. I always thought my son was the reason that i became ill . I said when i did not get pregnant and birth to him i was healthy. But it was not his fault. No sleep, much of stress and no eating while breastfeding start the cyle and my constant battle with this kept me in the cyle.
Thanks for your help and all love back to you,
Duy
Morning all!
I just had a quick question that has been causing me a bit of confusion. Essentially, I am absolutely fine with the concept of feeling and getting on with my day however I feel, it doesn’t bother or scare me to do so.
My question is around some of Paul’s metaphors around addressing the root of our suffering (I’m thinking of the cake bakery analogy here on another post), so that we don’t keep recreating our own suffering.
Essentially, my root cause of suffering is that I am a big time worrier, it’s not something I do consciously but has become so ingrained it is often my first response to most things before I’ve realised I’ve begun to worry.
The question is this – the advice here is not get too involved and over analytical with your thinking, which makes total sense, just letting it pass, but how do I address my root cause, I.E my worrying/thinking pattern, in order to not recreate my suffering every time. I’m quite happy to feel down etc (if that makes any sense), I just would love to reduce the habit that got me here in the first place. Any advice on this paradox greatly appreciated!
Thanks all 🙂
Caitlin that’s very good advice and shows you have a real understanding of anxiety/thoughts and the whole recovery process.
The below statement is so true but very hard to implement as it is our instinct to do the opposite and try to escape or get rid of internal discomfort.
“To answer your first question, the clue is in your first sentence, ‘How do I handle’ – the answer is, I feel, that you don’t have to handle anything. This feeling that you have, that you must ‘sort out’ or ‘figure out’ or ‘handle’ that you have mentioned, suggests to me that you are trying to battle with yourself”
We believe that to overcome any form of suffering we have to get rid of it, so we end up in a never-ending battle with ourselves. It took me a while to realise that the battle to rid myself of anxiety was the very reason I was suffering.
So I reversed the process and did nothing to overcome anything, if anxiety or any other unpleasant emotions came up, I allowed them fully. Of course, this entails some discomfort, the very discomfort I was always trying to distract myself from, get rid of or figure a way out of. It became a full-time job to manage and attempt to manipulate my inner state.
What happened when I did this?
I would constantly focus on myself and my inner discomfort, this meant I was never present towards life or others. I was constantly distracted as your focus can only be on one thing at once, hence why so many talk of feeling detached from life and others.
By constantly trying to figure it all out I was wasting so much mental energy and became mentally exhausted, hence why I always felt flat and drained, and why I found it so difficult to concentrate and think clearly.
By constantly trying to resist uncomfortable emotions I felt worse as resistance is what creates so much extra suffering. Try resisting any kind of pain and see how that pain increases.
Also by resisting and trying to suppress how I felt, I wasn’t allowing these energies to release themselves. Anxiety is nothing but energy trapped within, the reason you experience it is because it is coming up to release itself from your inner space.
So trying to get rid of it, resist or suppress it is the dumbest thing you can do. You can never find freedom through trying to get rid of anything, the way out is to allow yourself to experience so it can release itself.
I also built my life around not experiencing these uncomfortable emotions and so started to hide away. This not only stopped me from living the life I wanted to live but started to teach my subconscious mind that the outside world was dangerous and so it started to see everyday things as a threat and my life became narrower and narrower.
Yet all life did was trigger what needed to be experienced and that living my life would retrain my subconscious mind that the world wasn’t a place to be avoided and that I was absolutely fine and safe.
If you look at all the actions I was doing that kept me in a never-ending loop they were all built around no longer experiencing anxiety or any other uncomfortable emotions.
When I did the opposite that’s when things slowly but surely started to change as I was no longer creating more suffering. I was living the life I wanted while retraining my subconscious mind. I was no longer wasting huge amounts of mental energy, no longer resisting, was far more present to life and others and finally allowed this energy to release itself.
I am not saying this was easy as it meant I would finally have to experience what I had been trying to avoid for so long, I had to be brave at times when my mind was screaming at me to go back to my old ways and battle once again or hide away but I stuck with it and began to make huge strides even in the midst of some difficult releases of anxious energy.
On your own question Caitlin I can only pass on what helped me which is twofold
I would never see it as me worrying but my mind that was worrying, so if my mind went into a worry storm and started to create all these scenarios that needed attention I would allow it to do so but no longer join in with it. So if it said something like ‘What if you lose your job” I would leave it there. Me going through hundred scenarios of what I needed to do to stop this from happening or where it might lead would only feed energy into the thought and would fill me with all these anxious and stressful emotions which made it feel more important and worthy of attention. I found if I left the worrisome thought alone it would hang around for a while and then my mind would let it go as it wasn’t getting any energy to continue. When the thought disappeared then so did the so-called problem. The more I did this, the less worrisome thoughts came.
Secondly, I realised that life would unfold as it did and that I had no control over it, sometimes good things would happen and then other times I would have genuine problems. If they were genuine problems then I would do what I could to sort them out and not stress it. Every problem we have ever has is now a distant memory, we always find a solution, If we stress and worry over any genuine problem it doesn’t make any difference to the outcome, it just makes us feel like crap. So it is an attitude shift, realising you have no control over life and others. People who seem calm in life usually have as many problems as others it’s just that they see and react to them differently, they just see them as part of life.
When I started to see more then I would laugh at some of the worrisome scenarios the mind would create and would take the first action. If it was a genuine problem I would take the second option. None of this comes overnight and it is something you have to work on but the more you see the less you worry needlessly.
Thoughts are never a problem it is identification with thought that is, where you shower it with belief and importance. That is when you get involved with it, end up stewing over it or trying to reassure it. In reality, thoughts are nothing more than harmless forms of energy passing through our consciousness.
This realisation is so freeing as you no longer have to waste any energy trying to suppress or change thoughts. They no longer mean anything so you have no fear of what your mind will throw up, it’s just pointless noise of no relevance that you can allow to pass on through.
Duy to add to what Caitlin says
The very need to escape DP is what keeps it going.
You wear yourself out mentally by trying to figure out what’s wrong and what you need to do to escape how you feel
You focus on the feeling of DP, scared that you will be this way forever, if you want to keep DP going then focusing on it is the best way to do it
You battle with it, researching, trying to find ways to make it go away
All this is what keeps it going, what creates the depression and all the other symptoms you talk of. The way out is the very opposite of what you are doing. The way out is to no longer look for a way out or to be free, when you do this all the actions that keep you suffering end and you break the loop.
I did everything you did and ended up in the same place. When things started to click I did the very opposite. I lived alongside how I felt, all the feelings of DP and depression were a sign of a worn-out brain unable to cope with more thinking, more worrying, more searching and more focus. If I allowed these feelings to be resent then all that ended and that’s exactly what happened.
Again this wasn’t easy as your instinct is to fight and search harder in desperation to be free but trust me this only keeps you stuck in a loop. I would live my life and DP could be present or not, to be honest, it was going to be and there was nothing I could do, so why try?
I would go swimming and feel that I wasn’t really there, I felt like an empty shell going through the motions but that was fine, in time things would change. Previously I would focus on how I felt through the whole swim, come home disappointed and angry, and then back to researching on how to get rid of this feeling.
But now I wasn’t doing anything but allowing myself to feel the way I did for as long as was needed. I had no desire or drive to get rid of this feeling, I deleted all my internet searches, didn’t talk about it, didn’t battle with it and basically gave it no more attention. Slowly but surely my tired and weary brain began to recover and my DP began to fade, some days it would come back and be as strong as ever and then others I felt nearly normal but again I no longer cared how I felt, the worst thing I could do was go back to battling, focusing and overthinking. As time went by the spaces of feeling normal grew and the DP as a whole weakened until eventually, it passed completely.
I hope that helps
Hello Paul,
first of all thank you very much for your answer. For me you and everyone else here is a hero and every answer especially from you is a miracle for me and I am very grateful.
Paul when I got Anxiety and DPDR 2018 the symptoms were so clear that I knew it was DPDR and Anxiety. Syptoms like something out of a picture book.
But now after 5 years I am unsure if it is still the same or if I got something else in addition. The symptoms have changed so much over the years and I have some symptoms that I have never read about here on the blog.What if I have a mental disorder that no one else has and no doctor in the world knows about and I am like this forever. I am not afraid anymore or have panic attacks (since 4 yeas no panic attack) but the symptoms are so bizarre that I am almost ashamed to think or feel this way. I have so much mental and pyhsical pain that sometimes I think how I survived these 5 years in this condition and now function for 5 years in a full time job as a team leader without anyone from the outside noticing.
Paul, I stopped my only Anxiety medication on 11/01/2023 after 4 years (since 8 months medication free) and I am afraid that now I have 2 problems ? Do I have to heal from withdrawal first and then anxiety disorder or are the high discontinuation symptoms the anxiety disorder ? I wish I had never taken these but the doctors said it would help and I didn’t know any better to help myself. I am afraid that I have interfered with my natural recovery process.
And Paul (and everyone else too, of course) I have a symptom which I will describe in a moment and have never heard of it and don’t know how to handle it.
Everything I see bothers me or it’s a feeling that it’s not supposed to be there. For example, everything I see in my apartment bothers me or I feel like it shouldn’t be there. I already put away so many things so I don’t have to see it but it doesn’t get any better. My clothes, or if something is colored or if something has a pattern or polka dots my brain tells me everything has to be white and clean. I would like to clean out everything. Or if someone has brown eyes and blonde hair, my brain says no, it doesn’t go together, everything has to be brown. I’ve never had anything like this before, but these thoughts are killing me. Or alle the things in the refrigerator or fridge i see (normal things to eat it feels false and not right. Or i have different colors in my wardrobe and have also book in it and i think it must be all one color and the books should not be here and such stupid things…how should i handle this ? Maybe i thing so because of my 2d perception without deepness. Or when i am in the office and on my table are my laptop my bag my phone and the sreens from pc it is to much for me and my brains says the table must be free from all this. I feel so ashamed for such thoughts and they dont go away.
Or when i clean the house i do it but i cant feel that is clean. Or when i hold my phone it doesnt feel like my phone. Or when i look at a tree or a street i know what it its but it cant feel the tree..hope you understand.
For examle its morning and summer but i cant feel the feelings to the picture. Or the feeling that i am in holiday or in my own house or in the office. I see all things but its like the feeling to the things i see is lost. The only things i feel are negativ dark emotions which i never felt before anxiety before.
And do i know when i am myself again ? Since 5 years i lost touch with me and i forgot how it was to feel like myself. I am afraid that i dont know anymore or who i am. I look in the mirror but have no connection to myself and i ask myself why i am in this body or why are people here. I feel so ashamed and start to cry..My brain automaticly compares all with the time before anxiety how things should feel and not feel and how things should look .
And if this not enough i get first time in my life pollen allergy with burning eyes and nothing helps. Never had problems with any typ of allergy but no medication or eye drops helps with my allergy and i thing when i recover from anxiety so also from allergy…Has anyone else experienced allergies during anxiety ? During anxiety allergies and flus feel 1000 worse without anxiety.
Sorry for the long message again but i feel so alone and feel ashamed for these thoughts and symptoms.
Thank you again and for your help.
God bless you and your family and also from all members to.
Really thank you for all.
And Paul does it matter which symptom you have ?
Sometimes I dont know what is anxiety and what not ?
And why does some people say : I have since 20 Years Anxiety and dpdr. I accept , do not research, do not fight and live life but its stll there…Have they a different version of anxiety and depersonilisation?
Thank you !
Duy
Hi Duy,
I have been reading your questions and rather than to focus on them one by one let us zoom out a little bit.
You are raising these questions on an anxiety platform. So you must know at some level that all of your fears, symptoms and thoughts are caused by anxiety.
I could go one by one through your concerns and explain them as the result of anxiety, but you have to ask yourself: Is this really what’s going to help in the long run?
Sure, you would feel at least a bit reassured and might feel a bit better for a couple of hours, maybe days. Until a new thought, a new symptom pops up sending you back to on the same path you are on now. The path of not accepting and therefore more stress, more anxiety.
The best advice still is to accept your thoughts, your fears and your pain. Nobody can do this for you and this is part of the reason why this is the best way forward. You are in control. You can decide to spend more time examining symptoms, questioning your thoughts and seeking reassurance. Or you can start practicing acceptance. Paul explains this in his book and I very much recommend the (audio) books of Claire Weekes on this.
I know this isn’t easy, but I am sure you can do it.
Hi Belgian,
thank you for your respond. I think there is nothing more to add. You and all others are so right. But when you have so much different symptoms you want reassurance that this is anxiety and nothing else. But i know no amount of ressaurance would last long or heal me.
Sometimes i think i am to silly to recover or I have a different version or a version which is not curable. Why some people are able to recover so fast and i am over 5 years in the loop. Then i read stories about people who say they have it for 30 years and couldnt recover then i start to cry. Maybe i am not strong enoug or i have a different version i dont know,…
I have the feeling like living in a different world in a different body and all familiar feelings i know are gone and all bad , negativ, unusal unnormal feelings are there.
I want to look at the beach and feeling that i am here and not asking myself why it feels so bad to be there or looking at my son and feel normal like a human and not thinking something is wrong he looks strange and so on. I want to feel love to him i want to see the world normal. Its like i am watching my life and all is flat the life is without life… I want to look at my family members and want all feelings back and not asking myself why they feel so trange and unfamilar. I have the feeling like my brain is broken and i cant remember how it is to feel or to be normal me again.
Belgian its one of the hardest things i ever gone through. There were lots of days were i think i cant anymore and prayed to god please take me that i can get out this hell.
Even when i write this i have tears in my eyes for all the lost years with pain, anxiety, depression and the other 100 symptoms. I always asked god why me ? I was always was a good person, why i must suffer so much.
I want to wake up in the morning and want to feel the morning the bird and not thinking how could i survie this day. Outside is the sun its summer and i cant feel it i feel so strange everbody laughs and i ask myself how could people be so happy or laugh when the world feels so bad and full of dread and strange.
Then i read about people who had chronical depression or who end up their lifes and then i start to cry again thinking this could happen to me one day. I was such a happy perosn, had my newborn, a husband which i loved so much and was thankful for my life and now i cant imagine to be there one day agan. I cant imagine looking at the mirror and felling like myself again…..
Thank you for reading and trying to help.
I could not show my gratitude and how thankful i am for this blog and the people here.
Thanks for all and god bless all of you
Duy
Hi everyone,
It’s been a long time since I was on here. Some of you might remember me, some won’t. For the latter I want to write again a piece of my journey to recovery as I notice that there is a lot of solace and hope to be found in stories that resemble our own. I’m not a native English speaker, so I’d like to apologize upfront for mistakes in spelling or grammar 🙂
9 years ago in June 2014 I had “the big one”. A full blown panic attack that would change my life. Up until then, I had been an anxious person for the most part of my life. Even as a 10 year old I experienced episodes of fear. I remember laying in bed and – seemingly out of nowhere – silence became an endurable loud noise while it felt as if the walls of my room were coming towards me.
In my teens and 20s, I started to use my health as a vehicle for my anxiety. I believed I had HIV, cancer, ALS and went to see several doctors. My GP at the time should have recognized that I was suffering from anxiety. Unfortunately, he never mentioned it to me. Maybe because during all of that I remained highly functionable as I managed to study at university, get a degree and build a career afterwards. I’m still convinced that had he referred me to a professional therapist earlier on, I could have spared myself for the inevitable pain and sorrow that would follow.
Going back to a hot and sunny day in 2014, when I just turned 30 and I was on a business trip with colleagues. I was in a metro station when “suddenly” I started to feel as if I couldn’t breathe anymore. Although I had experience anxiety before, this was so off the charts that I truly believed I was going to die there and then. After a couple of minutes this tsunami of fear died out, but I wasn’t calm at all. It was as if this tsunami had ignited a vortex in an otherwise more calm sea. My thoughts spiraled around the one question that kept raving in my mind: WHY did this happen? I took immediate action and started to go to a therapist who was very supportive, unfortunately not exactly in the right manner. We started to explore my childhood to look for a possible cause which was interesting, but didn’t give me the tools at all to ‘manage’ the situation I was in at that time.
The days, weeks and months following up on that panic attack I can only describe as pure horror. I continued to go to work and to prepare my wedding which was set a couple of months after. But I did this in absolute terror. While my body was screaming for a break, I foolishly pushed through. There was not one minute in this period of time that I felt relieved, felt calm. People often name their wedding day as the most happy one of their life. For me, it was nothing like that. I was so tired and riddled with anxious questions – mainly focused on the love for my wife that the only thing that I focused on during that day was just not to break down and fall apart. And this wasn’t even my own rock bottom…
After the wedding we left on honeymoon. I thought that this holiday would finally offer some peace. The opposite proved to be true. The rumination spiraled out of control and I sunk deeper and deeper by the day. I even felt actual physical pain due to the constraint strain of my muscles while panic continue to rush through it. I lost the ability to connect with and felt increasingly alienated from the outside world.
When I came back from holiday I needed to start working again. It was the beginning of October, almost 4 months after the panic attack. I did go to the office. I remember sitting behind my computer and literally not being able to type one word. I went home and eventually crashed on the floor crying for help. Rock bottom.
Help came. In many shapes and forms. Through some personal contacts, I managed to see a psychiatrist at short notice. He put me on sick leave and prescribed therapy and anti-depressants. Very slowly I started to feel a bit better. Paul’s message was a big part of it and on this I would like to focus. I should mention that I came across this website and the books of Paul already during my honeymoon. It immediately struck a chord with me as it was the first time I read something on which I would say: this book is about me! I learned about the origins of my symptoms giving me some understanding of them. I learned also about how acceptance and how it can set you free. I remember very distinctively that I even cried as I felt so relieved that I finally found “the cure”. But… as I soon would learn it is one thing to learn about it, it’s another to practice it.
The moment of clarity soon got overshadowed by anxiety once more. I quickly ( as in the next day) went back to doing the opposite of accepting my feelings and my thoughts. It wasn’t until 10 months later when I picked up on his message again. In the meantime, therapy and medication had helped me back on my feet. I was doing ok, but still wasn’t really able to really manage anxiety at all times. And then, in June 2015, I stumbled across the works of Claire Weekes. I can’t recommend her work enough to people suffering from anxiety. Having experienced anxiety herself, she developed “a method” to help people deal with their own anxiety.
Face, accept, float and let time pass. Those 4 words have saved my life. If it wasn’t for people like Paul, I might not have found them. I have written a couple of posts about them in the past, feel free to explore in the other blog posts. But nothing can beat the original: Read or listen (there are audio recordings of her) to Claire Weekes’ herself.
It still baffles me how few medical professionals know how to deal with people coming in with anxiety symptoms. After having giving this some thought, I have come to believe that this is due to the fact that most of them haven’t experienced an anxiety disorder themselves. It’s only natural that when they think of anxiety, their frame of reference is how they have experienced it. After all, anxiety is a perfectly normal human emotion.
For them it makes sense that when you discover the ‘source’ of your anxiety and you realize that there is no threat, anxiety must calm down. This is what happens when fear arises with someone who is not sensitized. It’s like the fear you experience when you are crossing the road and notice a car coming over your way. The fear makes you jump back on the pavement right on time. Relief.
However, when you are sensitized (Claire Weekes’ way of saying that your nervous system is on red alert due to a prolonged period of stress or a sudden traumatic event) two things happen.
Firstly, your anxiety – and the same goes for all your other emotions – gets amplified. It feels as if your entire being gets taken over by this primal fear which is shouting for constant attention. Secondly, as it feels so intense, it seems impossible to reason with the very thing some professionals still want to do. Needless to say that in my experience, this doesn’t work.
It’s been almost a decade now and I still experience anxiety from time to time. These last few months were tough and I started to ruminate on my health again. There are times that I still need to practice acceptance, but it never gets to a point anymore that I’m unable to cope with work or other matters. In that sense, I have recovered and found my life back again. I am sure that whoever is reading this can achieve the same thing as I have. Take heart and.. face, accept, float & let time pass!
Belgian
Duy
Everyone’s mind and body work the same when it comes to recovery. So if someone has recovered they did what was needed to heal, those who suffer for years are stuck in a constant loop of recreating their suffering.
It took me a long time to see we create our own suffering, and that suffering is our body’s way of telling us something is wrong. So if you worry on a daily basis then you will suffer, what is your body telling you? That you are not seeing life as it truly is, you want life and others to follow your rules, nothing must ever go wrong. People actually worry about things that have not even happened.
This was me and I had to truly change my attitude, I finally accepted that life would not always go my way, I would have problems and that was fine. Other people may not always react like I thought they should but that was fine too, we are all running off our own belief systems and are all different. It was a huge shift in attitude that stopped me worrying and so my suffering started to fall away. I did nothing to try and get rid of it but change my own outlook on things.
This is the problem, people never look at the root of their suffering, or what’s causing it, they just spend all their time trying to get rid of it. When I suffered from anxiety my worries went up 10fold, I worried about how I felt, that I was losing all my social life, my friends and myself. What did this do? Created more anxiety and so I worried more. Not only that I did what you are doing, lived in my head trying to figure a way out, overthought everything, and constantly researched a way out. This took a huge toll on my mental health, I was overworking an already exhausted brain and so not only did I have anxiety but now I felt detached from my surroundings, depressed, irritable and no longer part of life as all my awareness was now stuck on me, how I felt, what I could do about it, trying to mentally find a way out. This led to me feeling how you describe and the more I felt this way the more I did the above and so absolutely nothing changed, I was now stuck in a loop, creating more suffering and falling deeper.
Eventually, I saw all this and just gave up trying to get better, I knew I had no choice but to feel this way, I had done it to myself. The harder I tried to escape the worse I felt and finally, it made sense why. You are at the exact point I was and so you need to understand what it means to truly accept and surrender to how you feel and then be very patient. It took me months to get better but just allowing myself to feel the way I did brought a certain level of peace but I was still having to deal with the past suffering I had created.
What did I do? I lived my life alongside it without any desire for it to be any different, if I felt detached and not with it, fine, if I felt irritable or depressed then fine, I truly accepted how I felt without trying to manipulate a different state. This very action was like having a broken leg and no longer running on it in the hope it would get better, which is what I was doing before. The brain started to get the rest it craved for and started to heal slowly but surely. I started to feel more connected to others, had far more clarity and was less depressed and irritable. The very act of no longer being obsessed with me and how I was feeling made me feel more present with life and others. Things were changing by doing absolutely nothing, just like doing nothing about a broken leg but resting it is the only way it heals.
You can never fight or think your way better, this does not work but you have to see how this is causing the very suffering you are trying to escape from that things start to change. Stop reading other people’s stories, stop obsessively researching full stop and go back to living your life. You will feel all the past suffering for a while as you do this and you may need to rest more than normal and when I mean rest I mean also your brain, no more overthinking, introspecting, feeling sorry for yourself, trying to mentally fix yourself etc. What your brain needs to heal is rest, not more mental work and worrying.
I hope that helps
Paul
Hello Paul,
thank you again for your respond. I am always so grateful and thankful for your respond and also for all other responds from the others. Sorry for my English, i am not a native speaker.
Paul what i dont understand is since 5 years I work fulltime, i take care of my son, go shopping, on holidays, meet friends and do all things but still stuck i dont understand this. Most people recover within 2 years and i am over 5 years in the cyle and i know all about anxiety all books, all articels in your blog and so on…
Paul how do I know it is still anxiety and depersonalisationand depression . Maybe anxiety turned in something else or maybe i have something else. Thats my problem.
And my second problem is during these 5 years i took 4 years medication (since 8 months medication free) and paul the periods when i get on medication and get off were worser then the original anxiety.
Am i also able to recover like somebody who never took meds?
And Paul will i know when all normal feelings are back and when i am me, myself again, i forgot how it is to see and feel the world normal, to feel like myself, to feel everday normal feelings and to be connected with myself .
The worst sypmtom from all Paul is when in your dream anxiety is so high that in your dream you feel the dread, independing doom, nausea and so on and wake up because of this in the morning and for no reason you have these negativ dark feelings and nausea, i couldn’t describe this feeling it is so bad that i start to cry to get relief..
Do you know Paul this horrible dark negatif feeling? It comes out of the blue sometimes and some days in my dream it starts and when i wake up i feel so bad cant describe it in words….
Paul its the worst thing ever when you walk with your little son on a sunny day, he eats ice cream, is happy and the only things you feel is dark negativ energy for no reason and i start to cry to get relief. You are at the beach with your family and everybody have fun and for you the beach the whole world feels strange and i feel like living in a nightmare but still keep going and doing my responsibilities. 5 years is such a long time why everybody recover but not me, i live my life….
Sorry paul again for the long message again but sometimes i think i am the worst case because so much symptoms and pain and strangeness i cant imagine that somebody suffered so much like me…
God bless you and thank you for your responds. Cant express how thankful i am.
Duy
As I said Duy you are exhausted mentally and causing yourself more anxiety through worrying about the anxiety and why it’s there, why you can’t feel normal, worrying more as each day passes and nothing is changing, feeling sorry for yourself, going over and over it constantly, trying to think and fight your way better.
This is not how it works, it works when you end all these battles and just give up trying to get better, stop obsessing about how you feel, stop the constant monitoring, no longer wishing it to be different. I can tell my what you write that you are stuck in this loop and getting better has become an obsession, your lack of acceptance of your current state as you complain about each and every symptom, praying they all go away.
I am not condoning you for this as it exactly what I did. One day I clearly saw what I was doing to myself, trying to escape was the very reason I was trapped and stuck in a never ending loop.
This is not about a time limit, it is like worrying for years and wondering why you can’t recover from stress. You need to have a change in attitude, a complete acceptance of your current state, no more praying it will all go away, fall right into your suffering, have no resistance towards it. This is what ends the obsession with yourself as you have nothing left to obsess about, it’s what ends the battle you are having with yourself as you have no more desire for it to go away.
I can’t give you this attitude it is for you to see this for yourself, try to really understand what allowing/acceptance means on a deep level. It does not mean the suffering will go away overnight, it won’t but you have finally stopped recreating it. At the minute you are running on a broken leg and wondering why it is not getting any better, it will only get better when you stop.