That's really great that you are feeling much better! In some regard, who cares what the reason is, just enjoy the lack of anxiety.

The only thing I used much to treat the anxiety was CBT; my improvement looked more like a slow upward progression that had little bumps up and down. Sort of a predictable two steps forward, one step back. In retrospect, I suspect a lot of the severe anxiety was caused by overwhelm and exhaustion at that time (very active toddler and dh slowly beginning to experience problems). The CBT for me may have been more about exposure therapy and gaining tolerance, as well as adapting to realistic expectations and limitations- if that makes any sense.

I've always said I'd take being exhaustingly depressed over buzzing anxiety any day of the week. Depression/exhaustion is way more comfortable IMO- at least for shorter periods of time. The worst feeling in the world is that sensation like you could just jump out of your own skin.

I think my sense of focus and my anxiety are probably deeply linked going in both directions. My anxieties cause me to deeply focus on things for fear of missing details and that in turn causes more anxiety if I over-obsess. If I don't catch myself, I can waste all manners of time obsessing over a trivial detail of something I'm working on.

That's good awareness. Put like that, it almost seems like it points back to one of those catch-22 loops where one thing feeds into the other, and back again. The only way off the rollercoaster may be to literally get off of it for a while. Which isn't always easy when your mind wants to go where it goes, or whatever you're doing is necessary.

You're lucky to have those friends with whom you have a long history, are able to connect, and reconnect with easily. Do many of them live near enough that you could see them in person more often?

Your grandpa sounds like an absolutely amazing man to go through the things he has and be the person that he is. It's easy to see why he's such an inspiration to you. I have deep appreciation for his service and sacrifice for the country, and love our veterans very much. Your grandpa is a hero.

The lady who developed dbt (for borderline personality, but there are lots of good life skills in dbt) was borderline herself, and set out to figure out how to improve her situation— back in the day, borderline was sometimes considered too difficult to treat. One question she posed, and sought to answer, was why some people get destroyed by suffering and problems, and some people are resilient and just seem to get better and rise above the problems. Some of dbt (that's dialectic behavioral therapy, if you're not familiar with it) is based on learning to become more resilient. Your grandfather sounds like one of those people she looked to for answers. Have you learned from your grandfather how he moved on and stays a wonderful person despite some potentially serious setbacks? If you could bottle that….

Thank you for sharing about your grandfather, he sounds like the best of the best

Lol, there were few shrines that eluded DD for a while. She's having similar problems in TotK and has to give up at times. She doesn't like to look for info on the internet. She wants to figure it out on her own, even if it takes time.

Glad your new game is fun too. It's good to switch gears even when it comes to pleasurable hobby-type things too.

I wish I had the kind of mother who played games with me.

DD hears that from kids at school all the time. Many of them just wish their parents would find time to talk with them. As a kid, my parents were relatively disconnected workaholics, so that left me aware of wanting a stronger connection with DD. We've always played video games together- there are pictures of her at 3 years old, crashed asleep with a Wii wheel on her lap. (That was about the last time I could consistently beat her in racing)

I grew up with a couple of old Atari consoles, so generally played shorter, arcade style games. Later, I moved on to a SNES, and got my own mom addicted to Tetris . And so on through the years and a couple of systems…

After DD was a little older and got the switch (about 5 years ago), she was interested in playing a lot more and got me into games like Smash Bros., Hyrule Warriors, and Minecraft- in addition to MarioKart and the Lego games we already played. I love playing and spending time with her. Time is fleeting and finite. Time with her is always important.

Hope things are going great for you, and that it was a good weekend with low anxiety.