[IceCreamKid]

I'm going to ask one of my doctors on Monday during an appt I have for a checkup, but considering how little time I have spent with him, I don't expect a complete answer (because he doesn't really know me personally), and I thought I would place this here for practical replies that aren't 'medical' in nature (He can answer that end of it on Monday). So here goes: at what point should a person become alarmed about a rather radical personality change -- even if the changes are good? I posted elsewhere that I think I used to have anxiety but not even know it because I didn't know what anxiety was -- I still think that is true. But for the last year or so, I haven't felt much anxiety on an ongoing, daily basis (like I think I used to have big time!). I used to fret and worry on an ongoing, daily basis. I used to get upset - a lot, often (I mean inside, not that I screamed and cried), about a lot of things. Now I am unconcerned about most of the things that used to upset me. I have purposefully tried to overcome my dismay, upset, etc.; over the last few years I started taking better care of myself physically; I changed to a different career; I started standing up to some abuse I was getting; when I would have unhappy thoughts I would give myself permission to stop thinking that way and to concentrate instead on something happier in nature; I started doing some fun things just because I wanted to. I started to pray consciously for strength and patience and courage; I asked God specifically to help me; I've sought out people who were nice and talk to them and purposefully avoid people who make me unhappy. In addition to all of this I'm on the other side of menopause; I'm more forgetful but I don't think it's extreme; mainly I seem to have forgotten all my cares and woe, if you know what I mean. On the one hand I say 'that's a good thing' but on the other I think I should at least question 'due to God and lifestyle changes' or 'brain tumor/hardening of the arteries'? Can anyone relate? Like I wrote above, I am going to ask my (gyn.) doctor if this is likely hormone-related, and I plan to ask my family doctor for a physical. But as I have posted elsewhere, she is so non-communicative as to be almost worthless. So, thoughts, anyone?

[lizardlady]

Originally Posted by IceCreamKid

I'm going to ask one of my doctors on Monday during an appt I have for a checkup, but considering how little time I have spent with him, I don't expect a complete answer (because he doesn't really know me personally), and I thought I would place this here for practical replies that aren't 'medical' in nature (He can answer that end of it on Monday). So here goes: at what point should a person become alarmed about a rather radical personality change -- even if the changes are good? I posted elsewhere that I think I used to have anxiety but not even know it because I didn't know what anxiety was -- I still think that is true. But for the last year or so, I haven't felt much anxiety on an ongoing, daily basis (like I think I used to have big time!). I used to fret and worry on an ongoing, daily basis. I used to get upset - a lot, often (I mean inside, not that I screamed and cried), about a lot of things. Now I am unconcerned about most of the things that used to upset me. I have purposefully tried to overcome my dismay, upset, etc.; over the last few years I started taking better care of myself physically; I changed to a different career; I started standing up to some abuse I was getting; when I would have unhappy thoughts I would give myself permission to stop thinking that way and to concentrate instead on something happier in nature; I started doing some fun things just because I wanted to. I started to pray consciously for strength and patience and courage; I asked God specifically to help me; I've sought out people who were nice and talk to them and purposefully avoid people who make me unhappy. In addition to all of this I'm on the other side of menopause; I'm more forgetful but I don't think it's extreme; mainly I seem to have forgotten all my cares and woe, if you know what I mean. On the one hand I say 'that's a good thing' but on the other I think I should at least question 'due to God and lifestyle changes' or 'brain tumor/hardening of the arteries'? Can anyone relate? Like I wrote above, I am going to ask my (gyn.) doctor if this is likely hormone-related, and I plan to ask my family doctor for a physical. But as I have posted elsewhere, she is so non-communicative as to be almost worthless. So, thoughts, anyone?

Icecreamkid, it sounds from your post like you actively made this change in yourself. It sounds like a conscious decision on your part. If this is a change you made by choice, what about it concerns you?

[Perna]

It sounds like you have worked hard to recognize and deal with your emotions as they come up. I think that is all we can do; whether they are unconscious, limbic/hormonal responses or based on patterns we learned in our childhood and later find not useful. I don't see anything alarming at all in your story; but rather feel you are due congratulations for figuring out what you wanted/needed for yourself and going to get it. It took me many years of therapy and outside help to figure those things out.

[IceCreamKid]

Originally Posted by lizardlady

Icecreamkid, it sounds from your post like you actively made this change in yourself. It sounds like a conscious decision on your part. If this is a change you made by choice, what about it concerns you?

I think what concerns me is that I don't/didn't feel a 'click' like, hey, I made changes, and 'click' they worked, (welcome to the machine age, huh, where our expectations are instantaneous) and that there is a family history of arteriosclerosis (hardening of the arteries) and I'm concerned that could be part of it -- which is why I am going to get a checkup. In the meantime, I just wondered if anyone else had ever experienced what I have. I don't miss the upset and anxiety at all, for sure. Thanks for replying.

[lizardlady]

Originally Posted by IceCreamKid

I think what concerns me is that I don't/didn't feel a 'click' like, hey, I made changes, and 'click' they worked, (welcome to the machine age, huh, where our expectations are instantaneous)

LOL! Oh if there was such a click to let us know when we've made a change. Sure would be nice! The kind of changes you talked about happen in baby steps. Then one day we look around and wonder how we got where we are. You'll hear lots of talk about baby steps here at PC.

and that there is a family history of arteriosclerosis (hardening of the arteries) and I'm concerned that could be part of it -- which is why I am going to get a checkup. In the meantime, I just wondered if anyone else had ever experienced what I have. I don't miss the upset and anxiety at all, for sure. Thanks for replying.

If you have physical concerns it's always a good idea to talk to your doc.
You're welcome for the reply. Welcome to PsychCentral!

[IceCreamKid]

Originally Posted by Perna

It sounds like you have worked hard to recognize and deal with your emotions as they come up. I think that is all we can do; whether they are unconscious, limbic/hormonal responses or based on patterns we learned in our childhood and later find not useful. I don't see anything alarming at all in your story; but rather feel you are due congratulations for figuring out what you wanted/needed for yourself and going to get it. It took me many years of therapy and outside help to figure those things out.

I wanted to reply to you, Perna because of your tagline. I wanted to tell you that one of the things I have done is give myself permission not to act on everything I worry about (and instead to say, okay, I've worried about this and now I will stop and go do something else) and further, not to worry about a lot of things I used to be inclined to worry about (which was almost everything), so, since I don't worry about some things anymore, I no longer feel that pressure to act on them either. One of the things I have experienced and internalized over time is the societal notion (strongly directed at women, in my opinion) that we must be happy all the time, that our happiness is totally within our control, that it is a personal failing if we are not happy 24/7, and all people who aren't aggressively upbeat, positive, cheerful and successful are to be summarily thrown aside like so much garbage--if not verbally abused and then obviously shunned so as to feel the punishment before being cast aside first. I had no positive role model growing up and consequently encountered a lot of negative feedback because I literally did not know how to behave around other people. Stir that into my tendency to be a worrier and I was an anxiety-riddled mess convinced I wasn't even entitled to live, let alone be happy. But God kept me living, and when I worked from that--that I was supposed to live, as a starting point, I started actively trying to figure out how to be happy, and I started trying to figure that out by first trying to get rid of what made me unhappy. I think now I am in a stage of evaluation. I'm still going to mention it to my doctor(s). Thanks for replying.

[Perna]

I feel you did act on what worried you, IceCreamKid, by ignoring the things that weren't important; you actually looked at whether what you worried about was worth acting on or not. I like my tag line because it reminds me to "do" something, not just think, and you did something by distracting or deciding not to think about what worried you because you didn't find it important enough to think about. You "let go" and that is as much an action, and often as hard as, deciding to change jobs for less stress or more happiness, etc.

[IceCreamKid]

Originally Posted by Perna

I feel you did act on what worried you, IceCreamKid, by ignoring the things that weren't important; you actually looked at whether what you worried about was worth acting on or not. I like my tag line because it reminds me to "do" something, not just think, and you did something by distracting or deciding not to think about what worried you because you didn't find it important enough to think about. You "let go" and that is as much an action, and often as hard as, deciding to change jobs for less stress or more happiness, etc.

I meant no criticism of your tagline, and in looking over my other posts here I realize that I still have emotional work to do because there are a couple of triggers that make me extremely sad, from zero to 60, just about. I feel I should qualify what I said because while some things I was stressing over weren't and aren't important (I used to stress over whether my hair was perfect, for example, and since I am not a shampoo commercial model, c'mon, whether my hair is perfect is a dumb thing for me to worry about) many of the other things I worried about (particularly after September 11) are indeed important enough to think about, but my thinking about them was not productive and in fact was harmful to myself and to my family who has to live with me. So I let go and decided to trust God is in control. God knows the hour and the day, and I can quit worrying about that. Instead of that vicious, circular worrying I used to do just about 24/7 I have tried to do and think what was in my realm of possibility with an eye out for good results. Of course, being alive, I'm still a work in progress, huh? Have a nice weekend and thanks for replying.

[Perna]

I didn't take your comments as criticism; I just feel very complementary toward you for what you have done with your worries. I don't believe any worries are worth thinking about because a worry is about something that hasn't happened, an imagined, possible future event and we cannot know the future and our imagination is notoriously limited in its ability to predict future events well.

The only "thinking" I think one should do about one's own worries is to identify them and then how to put them "at rest." Some can be ignored easily, using logical countering thoughts and others one has to figure out an action that will make their point moot, such as worrying about a co-worker so you decide to change jobs which takes that co-worker and worrying about them out of the picture.

I wish you well, IceCreamKid.