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Old Mar 01, 2011, 12:36 AM
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sundog sundog is offline
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Member Since: Aug 2010
Location: San Francisco Bay Area, California
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Quote:
Originally Posted by sanityseeker View Post
I can totally relate to everything you say about anxiety. My dx is BP, anxiety and panic disorders, phobias and a few others I seriously question. I think sometimes they just like to make a list for the sake of making a list. Not to mention their interest in justifying a boat load of meds. The symptoms are so intertwined between all of these that labels don't much matter at the end of the day.

I can also relate to the kind of over thinking you do to try to figure out what is going on, how to fix it and questioning if what you are doing is working or not.

I know what you mean about the almost not breathing seeming contrary to popular assumptions. I have come to think of it this way... when our breath seems non existent I think it is our last defense to fight the anxiety. It is anxiety to the extreme in a way. It is like our bodies shutting down a little. It is not conscious but an unconscious anxiety driven response to overload. Just a thought... I overthink things too. lol.

Other then the circumstantially triggered anxiety that can catch me off guard and have me on my knees before I am able to get a grip on it, I have times when I just generally feel on edge and wound up really tight ready to snap at any moment. The anxiety I hate the most are those times when my hypersensitive to sounds in particular is heightened. Sounds that other people don't even notice will have me cringing and pressing my hands over my ears to try to block it out. A motor cycle or a siren can bring me too my knees and immediately trigger convulsive crying. A sqeak or a squeal or a high pitched buzz just crumble me. I am getting better and breathing my way to recovery but if I can I will find a way to escape the noise and breath my way back to center. On a good day I may not react much if at all but on a bad day, a day when my anxiety is up everything is that much more intense. Like you say it is when an anxious response catches you off guard that is the hardest to deal with. Just that experience zaps your reserves and before you know you are caught.

I found an interesting article today about coping with anxiety. Looking beyond the sales pitch I found the approaches he shared worth the read. Here are the links to a couple of the ones I read tonight....

End anxiety in 4 easy steps.... it speaks to the idea of sitting with the anxiety that Lavie has talked to us about.....
http://www.panicaway.com/newsletter/1

Here is another from the same site but it also has on the right side a list of other articles that don't appear in the first link but seem interesting as well.

Getting to sleep when you have anxiety.....
http://www.panicaway.com/blog/getting-to-sleep-when-you-have-anxiety

I too hope for a better nights sleep yet here I am.... here we are... lol... still on line at 1am. Intensions are a great think hey. lol. I guess it is time to live the intension and breath my way to bed. No fear, no presupposing, no pre-anxiety. With a spirit of calm and focus only on what reflects balance and harmony. My words for meditation before I submit to finding sleep.

Be well my friend. Given how long and detoured my posts can be I am happy to see others do it as well. I am not so sure though that it is relevant to our meditation. I think by sharing our day to day struggles we are learning from and teaching each other how to apply them to our everyday. As we share we find commonality with each other and as such we are able to relate and share ways that we cope that might be useful to others.

I like where we are going with this thread. It as become very personal, real life and practical. We are being strengthen to keep at it and feeling more empowered as we go along. We have more determination to find the other side of our disorders because we are walking side by side together. The encouragement and support we are getting from each other is for me a great and wonderful gift. It is good not to be travelling this road alone. I would have quit weeks ago if not for you guys.

Wishing you an anxiety free sleep and a calm and refreshing wake up time.

Thank you so much for this beautiful post. It is so wise and insightful and I really appreciate it

I also feel the same as you do about this thread. I love that it has become a safe place for us to really open up about very personal feelings and experiences. And to offer and receive feedback and support to one another. I value that so much.

What you say here is really insightful and I think you're right on:

Quote:
I know what you mean about the almost not breathing seeming contrary to popular assumptions. I have come to think of it this way... when our breath seems non existent I think it is our last defense to fight the anxiety. It is anxiety to the extreme in a way. It is like our bodies shutting down a little. It is not conscious but an unconscious anxiety driven response to overload.
This is also why I worry about taking tranquilizers (in case they shut me down even more). On the other hand, the panicky feelings are so bad sometimes that they feel almost completely intolerable. I have taken Ativan on occasion. And, obviously, I didn't stop breathing!!! I do worry about this though......

Do you take any kind of sedative? (If you don't mind me asking).

Thanks so much for those links!! I will look forward very much to checking them out. I definitely need more help with my anxiety. It's the single biggest psychiatric problem I'm facing. I feel on edge almost all the time. Even when I'm not doing anything remotely anxiety-provoking. When something anxiety-provoking does happen, I fall apart. It's proving really hard to make any significant headway with this. In fact, I would say, I'm going backwards. Because I've started avoiding a lot of things due to my anxiety. That was a big mistake and I wish I hadn't started doing that.

As you and lavie have suggested, I think I really do need to meditate on my anxiety. Rather than trying desperately to "feel better", I need to look more deeply at the thing I'm wanting to feel better from.

I'm really sorry about the noises triggering you so badly. I can definitely relate to part of this. I really crave silence a lot of the time, and I feel my stress levels shooting up when I'm exposed to a lot of noise......

I really hope you had a better night last night. I was on here late too, but then I had to sign off abruptly because one of my doggies got really sick. That sent me into an absolute tailspin panic-wise, and it was a really bad night. The good thing is that Bucky seems to be doing better today

Thank you so much again for this thread!! ((((((((ss)))))))

PS: Thanks too for the beautiful image of the balanced stones in your other post!
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Last edited by sundog; Mar 01, 2011 at 12:55 AM.
Thanks for this!
sanityseeker