Anxiety – any tips for coping?

Weird thing is most of the PTSD type stuff has gone – the flashbacks and the nightmares.   I sleep fine.

The ” I’m proud of what I did” repeated during every flashback has shifted that emotion from pain to pride and the flashbacks have pretty much gone and are much less painful when they do come.  That simplistic thing in a CBT style has helped hugely.  I guess I was hoping somone had something similar to help with the anxiety.

I hate brains.  They let you down all the time.  I think I shall go and be a tree and just stand on the hillside for a couple of hundred years.  You never hear of trees being full of angst  🙂

You never hear of trees being full of angst 🙂

Full of ants though, perhaps! Which would you prefer? Swings and roundabouts 🤷‍♂️😉

I agree with most of the above, but I will also say, allow yourself breath a bit.

You don’t need to always be on the go and doing self improvement, days here and there watching rom-coms, or playing your favorite computer game, or whatever.. whilst eating a bucket of hot wings with an ice cream desert is nice too.

Don’t be too hard on yourself, you’re your own harshest judge, trust me, no one else will judge you harder, they are too busy judging themselves!

There seems to be a thing in society where everyone must be super succsesfsul and on the up at all times… and demonstrate it to others.

I think we all need to realise that it’s ok to be upset and ok to take time out to chill, reflect, gather your thoughts etc.

don’t see how that helps. Fear of loss? Fear of pain? Fear of losing your sanity? Fear of shitting your pants on the way to the pub? Fear of getting trolled?

I don’t think anyone had said they’re afraid of dying.

All those fears mentioned will lead to various degree of stress/anxiety/fear etc but deep down it is a fear of a bad death, like leaving the material world behind unfulfilled. i.e. I have not done that or this etc, I haven’t met or told my friends or I wish I could have done that or this etc.

If a person is not fearful or afraid of dying then that person would not get severe stress etc.
The person will just let it be and live a day at a time burden free.

Chewkw – really?  My partner died.  I have seen hundreds of people die as a paliative care nurse..  I know deep in my gut what a good death is. I am lobbying hard for the scottish bill on assisted dying.  I doubt there are many on here who know as much about death as me.  Death holds no fear for me

gies a break

If a person is not fearful or afraid of dying then that person would not get severe stress etc.
The person will just let it be and live a day at a time burden free.

You live by that theory if you wish but I don’t agree in the slightest. Lots of people struggling with stress who likely haven’t given much thought to their death. I’m one! Or rather, I was.

Chewkw – really? My partner died. I have seen hundreds of people die as a paliative care nurse.. I know deep in my gut what a good death is. I am lobbying hard for the scottish bill on assisted dying. I doubt there are many on here who know as much about death as me. Death holds no fear for me

gies a break

Before anyone tries to accuse me of trolling in any form, which I am not may need to consider that I view it from the perspective of death. i.e. it was my own technique of coping that I thought might share with you (plural). It is not a matter of “joke” when someone suffers.

It works for me, take what works and leave that doesn’t. Agree or disagree that’s fine but I ain’t making lite of the situation.

What I said might not help you but it might for others.

As much as what I have said might not sound like normal English, I see it from the point of death.

No bad intention from my part other than perhaps my own technique that works for me.

I will stop now.

We all walk our own path alone.

You live by that theory if you wish but I don’t agree in the slightest. Lots of people struggling with stress who likely haven’t given much thought to their death. I’m one! Or rather, I was.

I shall ask this same question that I was once asked. (took me 5 to 6 years to simply understand the meaning of this question)

What/why are you afraid / fearful of?
(I don’t think I can translate the question properly nor the condition/situation in which this question was asked because the question is both what and why but spoken in a different language)

Answer that question from deep inside you and you might solve or find the right solution yourself to your anxiety etc. The process is very slow. Not something that can be done in an instant, but when you find the answer you will know it.

jesus, let the guy greive, it’s a process. It might take a few months, it might take a few years, it doesn’t matter to you.

@TJ… you’ve probably seen a lot more death than most, so don’t think yourself less than anyone.

If anything, you are stronger than most. But don’t be deluded that it affects you in ways you don’t realise.
Take some time out, to think. That’s healthy and normal.

Tj, how about you let us know when you are going out to eat and you can have your back up team (us!) just a key board away.
Talk to us ,as you would a real live person.
How about a virtual lunch tomorrow?

Tj, how about you let us know when you are going out to eat and you can have your back up team (us!) just a key board away.

I’m going to have a go next week.  Weekdays reservations are rarely needed so maybe thats easier.  I will let you know.

Why not pop along to the Doctor chap and get a referral to chat to some educated bloke on how you feel. I’d think as mentioned above, that maybe an emphasis on ptsd and probably complex.

They’ll know what coping mechanisms will work best.

I’ll wager the first thing they recommend is cycling 😆

Im on a waiting list for counseling via CRUSE  should be soon.  I didn’t realise they had such a long waiting list or I would have applied sooner

Unfortunately my GP practice have their own nurse counselor who I met once and who gave me bad advice so I cannot work with him and because they have their own they are unlikely to refer me on.

I might get some private counseling while waiting for the CRUSE lot – but they probably are experts in the area I need help in unlike a generalist

Ta for the thoughts tho

TJ maybe a change of situation- go for lunches rather than dinners. Do something different to what you and your partner did.
Lunches are much more relaxed IMO, and single diners are also common.
Could you ride first, get a little cycling buzz?
I’m no expert, but suffer a lot lately.

What/why are you afraid / fearful of?

”Who” is afraid?

When you ask this question, you see two elements within you, your subconscious programming (which works by itself, anxiety, fear…..) and your awareness of it. Sometimes it is very difficult to distinguish between the two, but it’s there.

By not engaging with your subsonscious programming, they get less and less and eventually dissappear, thus removing any inappropriate fear, anxiety etc.

You won’t get rid of normal fear (ie if someone pulled a knife on you – that is a life or death situation). But it will erase things like anxiety at resteraunts etc.

TJ maybe a change of situation- go for lunches rather than dinners

Nice idea,even if that is just a start to get used to it again.  For some reasons lunches are almost always more relaxed feeling and often the choice is simpler. Likes

I do go out for brunch on my own reasonably regularly tho I will try to do so more.  Can’t spend my entire pension on eggs benedict tho 🙂

Some fine advice her and some nice sharing of stories.  Ta

One thing I have picked up from this is I am going to start juggling again.  I used to do it a lot and its a great exercise for clearing your mind as once you start with extraneous thoughts you just drop the balls.  Its a sort of meditative exercise.  I’ve done 10 mins already this morning.

I’m also going to see if I can get some counseling while waiting for CRUSE to come thru

Ta folks – its been useful

No ideas to help but hang in there and be kind to yourself, take care….

No actually I do have an idea, go to a restaurant and when you start to feel anxious imagine how much worse it would be if ai was there with you talking about Welsh rugby!!!

…while waiting for the CRUSE lot – but they probably are experts in the area I need help in unlike a generalist

CRUSE is a fantastic organisation but, “You don’t need to be a trained counsellor or have previous experience to become a Bereavement Volunteer” https://www.cruse.org.uk/get-involved/volunteer/local-volunteering-opportunities/

You’ll find that some trained counsellors started as CRUSE volunteers and are actually better trained, qualified and at least as experienced, plus they’ll be more knowledgeable in other areas, e.g. depression, that often travel with grief

Look at a prospective counsellors bio on their website
Best wishes

In case anyone is interested I have made an appointment with a counsellor for monday – and then CRUSE phoned me up to do an initial assessment later in the week.  Feast or famine 🙂

Good, can always drop what doesn’t work later. Any step forward is a good thing!

Did have a big reply typed up as I’ve been living with anxiety for nearly 30 years now (only realised about 7 years ago what it was) but I thought it might do more damage than good. Was sat there to post for nearly a day but decided against it. Will try and relate some stuff this evening if I can make it into a form that would possibly help.

Dinnae wiorry about causing damage unless yo want to relay loads of trauma 🙂  I was looking for tips to help cope

My girlfriend suffers from anxiety (which pre-dates our relationship, before the smart arse replies come in 🙂) .She finds regular meditation helpful. Best wishes to you Tja

Well caffeine is a bugger, Lavazza decaf ground FTW.

As well as the Steve Peters famous “chimp” book, I learned a lot from Bessel van der Kok’s book “The body keeps the score” about the neurology of stress, memory, cognition and reaction (it is very clear and accessible and is neither the hippy woo that the title suggests, nor the dry science that “neurology” implies! Helpful stuff about why and how the brain pulls this shit on us.

I sometimes break a situation down into small chunks. Could you do this? e.g. instead of going into the restaurant to eat, how would you feel if you popped in to ask to see their menus and specials for a hypothetical later meal? What if you make back up plans for when the heart rate shoots up and you find your brain sprinting around like a fox trapped in a garage? Pretend your phone just vibrated and toddle off to a quiet corner to “check your messages” to see if your panicking brain will settle down.

I sometimes find that visualizing a low stress activity such as yoga, knitting, digging, even scrubbing, helps everything calm down. A version of the old “count to 100, deep breaths” I guess.

The other thing is the old “count 5 things I can see…5 things I can hear…5 things I can touch…” jobbie. Again, the equivalent of going, “LOOK, A DUCKIE!!” at a tantrumming toddler, except the toddler is my own mind. Whether it will be ENOUGH I can’t say but it has helped me a bit at times.

I know that Mindfulness was/is a bit of a fad with the usual quack types banging on about it, but…

If you strip away a lot of the sales pitch, some of the disciplines are good if you can make them work. I found it frustrating as hell the first few times I tried to do it by the book, but I found one exercise in particular (the body scan) to feel very good in its own right. I can now use it and it often helps me to get to sleep if I’m struggling – so long as I haven’t got too worked up.

Is it mindfulness in the purest sense? Probably not. But it means more sleep (can’t be a bad thing with anxiety) and it is something I know I can do. In essence it is very basic meditation and deep breathing.

In case anyone is interested I have made an appointment with a counsellor for monday – and then CRUSE phoned me up to do an initial assessment later in the week. Feast or famine

Good luck with either or both, hopefully they’ll help you cope better!

NB Had horrendous anxiety many years ago, followed by complete nervous breakdown, quit my job (couldn’t cope with it), total isolation, 15 years on anti-depressants (amazing things, prob saved my life) and just been weening myself off them over the last few months as it’s probably about time (not had any symptoms for 14 years).

Will try and relate some stuff this evening if I can make it into a form that would possibly help.

Haven’t forgotten, just struggling to put things into words. If I can do so I will as I fully relate to the whole eating out alone thing.

Don’t worry about it mate.

This is west I learnt from mindfulness

We have thoughts and as you discovered through CBT these can be controlled

But we again have emotions and feelings. These respond less well to direct control

The problem is our brains respond to feelings we don’t like or want by trying to solve the problem. This problem solving mode envolves comparing how we feel to how we want to feel. But this generally makes things worse. We see the gap from where we are to where we want to be and that makes us feel worse. So we go round the loop again but the gap widens and each time we feel a little worse

So mindfulness asks us just to accept the feeling. Because not trying to solve it will stop it getting worse. Now that’s not easy. So we have mindfulness practice. We just sit and try see how we feel. We ask ourselves “how does it feel to be in this moment?”. In my experience the practice works best when life is going ok so we are ready for when it serves us lemons.

But this didn’t mean we are also not trying to avoid negative thought patterns

Might not work for everyone but it has helped me

I’ve had anxiety in one form or another for my whole life. I can normally cope with it by trying to rationalise the situation (eg a big one for me is flying, so I try and fixate on aviation’s great safety record) and concentrate on that. Not easy though.

What I’m finding interesting about this thread though, is that some people can go into a restaurant on their own and not feel anxious about it. 😳

Right, determined to at least get my experience with eating out alone typed out as it’s also something I really struggled with for years.

Eating out alone is not something to be feared or ashamed of, loads of people do it either through choice or due to working away from home or being on holiday alone. I used to avoid going to places to eat on a whim or a free time when friends couldn’t join me. I was always scared of everyone looking at me and judging me. A proper hang-up from being bullied most of my life that has led to anxiety, Imposter Syndrome and just plain fear becoming part of me. It was a real issue for years as I was perpetually single, worked different days to friends and the thought of going it alone absolutely terrified me. What started the change was talking to a friend-of-a-friend one day who was a manager at a restaurant somewhere in London. I mentioned the whole single diner thing and he said it’s one of the highlights of his job having those customers: they don’t cause any trouble, are easy to fit in at any time and are usually some of the most interesting people he gets to know. He gave me a few hints that I still use to this day:

Go at quieter times.
Ask for a table out of the way but where you can see others.
Make friends with the staff, they deal with single eaters all day so won’t judge you.
Remember that everyone that’s there in a group is only ever focussed on their group, no-one is paying any attention to those outside of their bubble.
Learn to People Watch. It’s hilarious noticing the odd ticks and mannerisms people have.
You don’t stand out as a loner, you actually disappear into the background.

I took that lot on board and forced myself out a few times, first to places like McDonald’s where I’d have done a Drive Thru but instead went inside then moved up to a quiet pub and so on. Took a few years but I can now go to a pub, restaurant and even the cinema on my own without any issue. The whole pandemic thing did knock me back quite a bit but I’ve slowly gained back some of my progress from previously but still have a way to go!

As for dealing with anxiety in general? Still haven’t figured that part out. I just muddle through somehow.

As I tried to go out the door I had a real anxiety attack and thus was unable to go to the restaurant.

This happens a lot, even for trivial things like going to the supermarket. Currently trying to get over being anxious about going out on the bike as it’s a major issue right now. I know what has caused it to appear (lifestyle changes have caused me to lose nearly all of my fitness and riding skills), meaning I’m now massively self-conscious about going out and only managing a few miles. Pre-pandemic I was out almost every free day I had (worked a 4 day week) and rode to work and back as much as possible. Cycling was normal and the routines around it were second-nature. Now it’s a massive effort to get out the door as I worry about the time pressures, how others will view me struggling up hills I used to fly up, having expensive kit and plodding along the trail, whether I’ll enjoy it, whether my time would be better spent on the other hobbies I picked up over lockdowns etc, the list is almost endless. What’s crazy is that I get all pent up and distressed over going for a bike ride, something that is most definitely a mainstream activity now, but won’t think anything of taking one of my RC Crawlers out somewhere and playing with it on some rocks, a beach or in the woods. RC cars are definitely still a fringe activity and you look way more weird playing with a toy on your own than riding a bike! But then that would be applying logic to something that isn’t really logical. I’m generally a really antisocial person (blame the bullying again) but if I’m out on the bike, with the RC cars or in my Mini I can for some reason hide behind those and converse with strangers absolutely fine. Take them away and I just want to escape any social interaction.

Putting this post up just triggered another attack! 🙂 Again reasonable to be a bit apprehensive of the answers I might get, unreasonable to be in a trembling panic about it 🙂

Have tried 3 times now to type and post something and that has been my reaction every time! Even though you’ve asked for people’s experiences and advice I’m petrified I’ll write something offensive, plainly wrong, unhelpful or even make you worse. Doesn’t help that my personal life is a bit screwed up right now and I’m constantly on edge, living with anxiety-induced chest and jaw pains is really not fun.

Just remember you’re most definitely not alone. Still annoyed I couldn’t meet you in person when you were down here on your travels! Hopefully something in what I’ve typed above helps in some small way.

Ta

had an initial counseling session today which went well

the weird thing I really am not thinking “what if” or any other catastrophic thoughts and when I said this to the counselor she said – that I was having a physical reaction rather than an emotional one although obviously its related to my emotional state.  Its more to do with the fact that Julie and I used to eat out a fair amount so its triggering the grief leading to the anxiety.  If that makes any sense.

Anyway this thread has helped – often a bit of perspective is a great thing even if no one had any easy tricks to conquer it

Ta

I haven’t read the whole thread, sorry, but 2 things I found useful:

1. Calm app, specifically the anxiety episodes (obvs). Essentially they’re breathing exercises with a bit of not-so-subliminal messaging. This helped initially.

2. Dare: The New Way to End Anxiety and Stop Panic Attacks, by Barry McDonagh. I read the first couple of chapters only, but that was enough to see the anxiety in a very different way. In fact, I realised that the Calm app was kind of reinforcing the anxiety, by making me think about it more, whereas the book helped me to approach it differently.

Hope that helps.

https://amzn.eu/d/9Ha5kLS

^ not really clear from my post, but I really recommend the book.

Its more to do with the fact that Julie and I used to eat out a fair amount so its triggering the grief leading to the anxiety. If that makes any sense.

It makes a huge amount of sense to me. The eating out creates an immediate connection with Julie, which in turn triggers an immediate reminder of your devastating loss.

The loss of someone massively important in our lives will understandably cause great anxiety.

It’s good to hear that you are now able to discuss what are very normal human emotions with someone who is trained and qualified.

We can go through life without experiencing huge devastating loss like that so that if it does hit us we obviously lack the skills to cope.

Good luck and however slowly things seem to be moving it will get better, despite the bad days.

Ta

Its all a bit weird to me but I am healing and making progress. I had never realise ( but am told its fairly normal) that years after new symptoms would surface.

I still want to be a tree.  🙂

Well done tj.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ie.armour.dare2

I second the DARE response and found this app to be really accessible and massively changed my perception of anxiety. Got me through a very difficult patch for sure.

I’m glad you are starting to see there is a whole lot of other stuff to overcome TJ. (that sounds wrong & I will try to explain)

So far 2023 has been a right shit storm for me, going from the highs of a new relationship that promised so much to the lows of utter terror of Central Sleep Apnoea, passing through over treatment of an over active thyroid to turn it into under active along with huge swings in Warfarin treatment that are delaying my getting a Cardio-version on my AF heart condition.

All through this I have had a horrible background fear of dying from some form of breathing problem. I’m guessing this is a form of PTSD after watching Carolyn die from Aspiration Pneumonia?

Being a tree sounds like a good idea.

I’m guessing this is a form of PTSD after watching Carolyn die from Aspiration Pneumonia?

sounds like its trauma related for sure.  You have helped me you know.