Matticus1983
Active Member
- Joined
- May 30, 2020
- Messages
- 262
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How could it be that (in my opinion 85% of my thoughts are anxiety ridden). I dare to say 100% given I become anxious about everything from what I eat to just standing up and walking to the sink...This road is almost 2 years old. (Older but suppressed with alcohol for years). I'm understanding that the tension I hold within myself creates the symptoms I question as unhealthy or downright dangerous. I don't think I've gone more than a day in two years where the fear of death hasn't crossed my mind and paralysed my decisions (even minor decisions). It all had to do with one conversation I had with a Dr., two years ago. That's a damn long time to hold on to thoughts. So memory is actually the problem. Everyday my memory highjacks my current/moment thought processes, like training a runner. I've trained myself to get dizzy and lightheaded everytime I get out of a car. I've trained myself to tense up before going to the gym just to get there and do as best I can all tensed up and not enjoying it as I should.. I've trained myself to ruin sex every time. I've trained myself to feel my pulse, breathe shallowly. In other words my nervous system is one screwed up individual that needs readjustment. Catching my thoughts before they become "what ifs" seems damn near impossible, but feasible. It's the what Ifs that start the cycle to physical sensation. Here's an example. My goal for the day is go to the gym, (it's back day). I get in my truck with full intention of going, not realizing all the what Ifs I had already began while getting ready. First and foremost the fear of dizziness, breathing, passing out, heart problems, etc. Now with all that penetrating my mind before I get in the truck, wouldn't it be sane to say I "should" feel some physical feeling?? Yes because I've started the adrenaline cycle.! Whilst driving, I begrudgingly try and occupy my thoughts with music, prayer, etc but the other thoughts are so ingrained they're virtually attached to my reality. I get to the gym in an anxious hesitancy over getting dizzy or lightheaded (btw a normal response to lifting weights and physical intensity), I get out of my truck and automatically get nervous and tense up like a rubber band, feeling the very symptom I feared (off balance, dizzy, vision problems, weird head feeling, trapped in a bubble etc). I go on in not focused and energetic to pound the weights but focused on my body, my vision (which has already gotten blurred a bit, I look intently at everyone and think to myself " don't make a fool of yourself"! I go on and do my routine as best I can. Sometimes these routines go well other times they increase the anxious state I'm already in., But the physical exertion (while anxious) reminds me I'm not going to die. I've done this for 5 months..3-4 days a week. Funny thing is I haven't passed out, had severe chest pains, made a fool of myself, **** my pants, etc. There have been times where I've left the gym only to feel very lightheaded mostly due to the inherent fear of just that (being lightheaded), It's lead me to a panic episode which includes feeling faint. I guess what I'm getting at is I have taken my thoughts and sensitized my body to react to stressors that aren't real. In two years I've never passed out from being lightheaded,. In two years I've not had heart related chest pain, In two years I've done what had to be done to the best of my minds ability under anxiety. Now, what basis do I have to continue thinking and fearing as I do? Memories of feelings. Just think If you could wipe your memory of past fights with fear and hesitancy how you'd feel. Free right? I'm tired of letting this thing rule me. And although it comes from me, I have a thinking problem more than a chemical/physical problem. It's a learned experience. Feel tense, think/worry, then get anxious think/worry, nervous system gets stimulated by the thoughts, think/worry, physical symptoms begin from adrenaline response, think/fear, symptoms persist in line with thought processes, think/fear, then comes the way this process relates to the real world. I get indecisive, angry, avoid situations other than my home (where I have time and room to calm myself), all over some unrealistic, obsessive, intrusive thoughts that are no more important than the pile my dog left out on the lawn. I've done this for so long it's changed my perspective of reality. I've become envious of the people I love the most (my neighbors) and I'm far from an unloving person. I've labeled myself as unfixable, broken, unworthy. This has led to living and truly feeling like I don't belong in this world, like God had other plans for me. Yet again a rouse! I've become so fixated on myself that that life is like living in a box with plexiglass walls. MY awareness of the world around me is dampened and inaudible. Just like you'd feel in that plexiglass box, all because of my learned habit of peering into myself methodically and constantly. My loved ones think of me as selfish, an isolated hermit, a scrooge. I'm really none of those things. I'm a lover of people but too damn concerned with my feelings to become a part of society. I'm tired of being scared of my body and scanning it. I'm tired of feeling like I'm on some sort of stage where people are throwing insults. I have collaborated such a pile of nonsense in my thinking and cognitive system that it's gonna take a while to get out of it, and I'm ready to be patient If that's what it takes. I don't mean analyzing my thoughts for right or wrong thinking like your therapist would lead you to believe.(I'd obsess over that too) I'm talking about an epiphany that these feelings and memories of failure and fear are no more than loss of confidence to be set free. So I'm giving up...... Giving up control, giving up scanning, giving up analyzing, giving up not on life, but on controlling it and that life includes my consciousness and unconsciousness. I'm ready to let the thoughts flow right down where they came from. Three days ago I had an EKG done and it came back abnormal. A branch block in the nerves of my heart. It's tore me up pretty good, I have to see a cardiologist. 90% chance it's not serious at all. Now I could absolutely succumb to this news, but what good would it do? I still have a beating heart. I physically can lift, run, jump, etc. I went back to the hospital ER I had went to a year ago. (I had an EKG done then as well). Guess what same little blimp on the EKG. That time they didn't care to tell me. This time the doc said she was reluctant to tell me because it could be as no significance. Yet as a good doc does, she sends me to a specialist. Am I ready for bad news? No, I'm not, who is? Am I going to analyze this just to get it outta my head? Probably, that's my learned nature. But the fear......IS NOT BASED ON REALITY!!!!!!!!!!!!! She told me she wasn't too concerned, and apparently neither were the ER docs on call that night a year ago! Since then I've lifted more weights and ran more than many do in a lifetime! Now I could say (that's the answer to my feelings of lightheadedness and dizziness etc) and become scared for my life. But when I'm able to see just how this illness of anxiety is a physiological process it becomes not the nightmare it seems. It's all been anxiety from the very beginning, I just had to open my mind to see it. Btw, what started 2 years ago was a doc saying I had high blood pressure. It started my cycle into all this. I can take my BP at home and it's normal. It's called anxiety. MD's suck at knowing how the mental can create the physical. Anyway I hope this helps someone out there. I'm nowhere out of the woods but on the right path. Prayers.
