Don't leave me alone!

Ahhh, how I dread this post. That's exactly how I know it needs to be written! If I would rather walk over hot coals than write about something, then that's what I need to write about. And today, it's about being alone. I run an anxiety page on FB, and I have a website, yes...but I am in no way fully healed. I don't actually believe in "healing" per say...I believe in learning to live with anxiety and without fear of the fear. Nonetheless, it's all a journey and I'm still on mine.

Over the past year, thanks to hard work, my counselor, and a low dose of Lexapro, my world has opened up once again. I'm able to do things I couldn't have imagined a year ago, and it's so liberating and exhilarating! But I still have a problem with being alone, and sometimes it seems as if the fight will overtake me. I had my very first panic attack when I was home alone, so that is a huge trigger for me. I'm afraid that if I'm alone, no one will be there to save me if something happens. Remember my previous post on shapeshifting? Well it has reared its ugly head in this regard, too. Once I began to feel a little more comfortable with the thought of being alone and possibly having a panic attack, the fear shifted. I was beginning to think "hey, I can handle a panic attack! I don't need anyone to be with me!" As soon as that thought began to take root, a new fear took its place. "What if I pass out?!"

Passing out seems to be the new fear that permeates my thoughts all the time. Oh, isn't anxiety such a wicked little beast? I tried so hard to work through this new fear, and I was coming close! I was close to being able to say "well if I pass out, no big deal! I'll come to eventually!" Then my anxiety whispered in my ear once again..."yeah, but what if you pass out and hit your head? What if no one is there to help you, Tracy? What if no one is there to save you?" Like I said, it's a wicked little beast. What's even worse is that I actually know the truth! I know that I'm not going to pass out! I've had anxiety for a long time now, and I've done buckets of research. I've met thousands of people with anxiety. I've seen several counselors, all with experience in anxiety disorders. Never once, in all that time and through all my research and experience, have I ever heard of anyone passing out from anxiety. It just doesn't happen!

So why, of why, do I let the what-ifs convince me otherwise? It's almost like I'm at the point of healing, and my anxiety is fighting tooth and nail to keep its claws in me...almost like it knows how close I am. Some days I refuse to let it win, and other days I just don't seem to have it in me. But that's not really true, is it? If it's in me sometimes, it's in me all the time. I just may need to work harder some days to access it. What's more, I'm the one who dictates which days I need to fight harder, because it's my own choices that make it that way. Perhaps I've indulged in too much caffeine or junk food (which definitely irritates my system and provides a veritable playground in my brain for the anxiety to just go wild.) Maybe I didn't get to bed early enough (lack of sleep, for me at least, makes me vulnerable.) Or it could be that I'm allowing the negative and what-if thinking to take hold. Whatever it is, it's my own doing.

So on those days when I need to work harder, what's stopping me? I know what I need to do, and I even know how to do it. I'm a fairly intelligent woman. I'm certainly determined to live free from the boundaries that anxiety wants to place on my life. I'm definitely strong enough. Do you know why? Do you have a guess? My guess is: change. I hate it. I loathe it with a passion. I would rather eat rusty nails than to be exposed to change...sometimes even good change. But working on my anxiety on the hard days, well that's not exactly good change, is it? It's change that takes hard work, mental focus, and a tough it out attitude. I've been working on accepting change as natural and inevitable, because it is both. I'm working on allowing change to be something viewed as neutral instead of negative. Still, it's not so easy on the hard days.

What about you? What's difficult for you to accomplish on the hard days?

Shapeshifting

Have you ever heard of shapeshifting? According to Merriam-Webster, it means "a change of physical form brought about by, or as if by, supernatural means." Now personally, I don't get into the "supernatural" kind of stuff. I'm not a sci-fi kind of girl by any means...but shapeshifting certainly does have its place in my life. If you're dealing with anxiety, then it probably has a place in yours, too.

Next year will make a decade since my first panic attack, and I have watched my anxiety shift and take many different forms over the years. If I've learned anything, it's that anxiety rarely stays the same. It moves...it's fluid, and it has an eery ability to morph into different things at different times. Have you ever noticed that you "beat" one symptom, only to have another take its place? That's why I liken it to shapeshifting. For years, I was perplexed by the seemingly random onset of new symptoms after having conquered a previous one, and frustrated doesn't even begin to describe my state of mind at those times. What was I doing wrong? Why were new symptoms appearing? Was I destined to always live like that...constantly at the mercy of a never-ending stream of terrifying feelings? The thought was depressing; why bother working on something if it would just be replaced by something new?

Time, experience, and research gave me the answers that I wasn't sure I would ever have. To question why I have anxiety isn't the same as questioning how my anxiety works. I no longer ask why I have it or how long it will stay. I only concentrate on what it is, and how I can confront it. Here's what is happening when I conquer a symptoms only to have a new one take its place: I'm dealing with each symptom as it comes instead of dealing with the overall problem. Simple as that.

Think of this way: Your anxiety is the Godfather of the Mob. You keep taking out his hit men, but more keep coming. They're going to, of course, because the Godfather keeps ordering hits and finds new hit men to carry out his work. As long as you concentrate on the hit men as they come, you'll never be doing anything but spinning your wheels and living day to day. Sooner or later, you're going to have to start going after the Godfather himself; taking him down is the only way to stop the hit men from seeking you out.

Your symptoms are the hit men, of course. Your anxiety is sending the symptoms, and keeps changing them every time you master one. Oh, you mastered driving? Suddenly you can't go to the grocery store. So random, right? Not really...it's just your anxiety shapeshifting again. And no, you don't have to live like this forever. You just have to master the master...you have to take on anxiety and wrestle it to ground. So how do you do that? You stop fighting the symptoms. You stop trying to master them. You stop fearing them. YOU STOP OBEYING THEM. When you do that, you're sending a signal to your anxiety that it can send any symptom it wants...but you refuse to stop living your life when they come.

This isn't an "overnight" kind of thing, either, and I'm in no way implying that it is. It's a journey and a learning process...and I'm still on my own journey of learning how to master the master. The bottom line is that you become passionate enough to fight for your life! Fight for your right to live in peace! And always, always know that YOU have the power, not your anxiety.