Anxiety Support Group
Anxiety is a physical condition marked by intense and persistent feelings of distress, fear, angst or dread. General anxiety caused by routine day-to-day stresses usually passes quickly and is experienced by almost everyone at one time or another. However, such feelings that linger over time and are very difficult to cope with, and which lack a clear cause, may indicate...
I was just reading this article on the inability to cry, now I have more questions than answers.
Is anxiety a symptom of beyond sadness? Does suppressing sadness lead to anxiety? I was always an anxious child but after my husband died I became very depressed, and then no feelings, all but anxiety, if you could call that a feeling.
Anyway, thoughts on this?
This poem from the article really spoke to me.
The English poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning captured this inability to cry In her 1844 poem “Grief,” She likened grief to:
“. . . a silence like death—
Most like a monumental statue set
In everlasting watch and moveless woe
Till itself crumble to the dust beneath.
Touch it; the marble eyelids are not wet:
If it could weep, it could arise and go.”
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/how-everyone-became-depressed/201404/the-inability-cry
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I haven't written in my diary on my computer since May because I thought that my computer was dying. I got away from writing but my computer is hanging in there. I think that I will start writing in it again. It's so therapeutic.
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First, I hope everyone is doing well, and continuing to fight that good fight! Keep up the great work on yourselves; I'm rooting for all of you!So, I started doing therapy at the beginning of the year, when I was in my most depressed state, but with my therapist, I made big changes and steps in the right direction. But, over a month ago, she couldn't take my insurance anymore, and I had to stop...
I am sorry for your loss which can be a big contributor or at least that is true for me back when my brother died unexpectedly 43 years ago.
When I finally had my breakdown 15 years after his death and was hospitalized, I had no feelings.
I met the most wonderful art therapist who helped me draw, paint, sculpt......and do sand tray play to help bring out my unspoken and buried feelings. I also did drama therapy in which you act out different scenarios which also helps feelings to surface and be dealt with.
You don't have to be an artist or actress to do either therapies....you just have to want to feel again.
Once I started feeling again, it kinda came in floods.....like a dam breaking. It was such a welcome relief.
You might experience events and feelings not being in sync for awhile. For instance, you may go to a gathering and someone may say something unkind to you. Instead of being upset right away, a few hours or days later, you may feel upset or angry about what was said. That is normal and will eventually self correct.
Be patient with yourself. Don't try to figure out why or how this is or which was the cause, just go with the wanting to feel better.
Sending gentle ((((((((hugs)))))))))
I am not sure I am getting your drift to "beyond sadness," but in my own healing journey, repression can lead to just about any and/or all the emotions in the human repertoire. Whatever feelings/memories I am repressing don't go away. I *simply* bury them. I put asteriks on "simply" because there is nothing simple about keeping those emotions repressed for the long term. In my own strictly personals, they bubble out in the most distressing of ways, from randomly projected rage to self-defeating anxiety to memory problems. I never noticed just how much of an impact repression had on my life until I turned ". . .the progression into the nothingness" around, with much help with my therapy support network.
As for the ability to cry, I don't seem able produce those dramatic waterworks, either, even when I am feeling extreme pain. One theory has it that something is up with the tear ducts in my eyes. The general consensus among my med pros is that the inconvenience isn't big enough to be worth testing for.
Thank you for sharing your experience with me, I was afraid that I had caused some sort of permanent deadened state for myself. Great advice for the type of therapy that might help with this mess. I have been doing what I can with hiking and photography but acting out sounds like it would be very therapeutic.
Yes, I guess what I meant by it is to have suppressed sadness to the point of not being able to have any feelings at all.
I see you have experience with the nothingness. I really do need to get myself back into therapy.
Yes, time to take a bit of control back. The physical symptoms which include fibromyalgia were brought on by the anxiety.
If yours started with your husband's passing, I wonder if you could start by taking a grief workshop and/or joining a grief support group. The not-so-funny part of repressed emotion is that, once you allow yourself to feel again, it will feel as hard and fresh as the day you began suppressing,
Just wondering. . . I'm just a patient. . . Don't accuse me of experting.
Yes, I was taking care of my mental health years ago, then I just stopped since I felt that was where I was doomed to dwell.
I really love your disclaimer btw.
Arfie~your disclaimer is a hoot! You are a help to so many that you should have a PhD by now....lol.
I myself have a huge background of dysfunction and abuse. Sad that it seems that ppl think that only doctors know best or have all the answers.
Best to everyone and know that healing is possible.
Interesting topic.
Just yesterday, I was having really bad anxiety and panic and just couldn't get it to stop, so I cried a little and asked my Dad to help me (my Dad passed away suddenly 4 years ago), asked him for strength (in Heaven). The crying did help my anxiety to lessen in that moment.
You got me googling the chemical process that might be taking place when we cry and came up with this, I better get the tears working again.
Emotional tears, for instance, have been found to contain protein-based hormones including the neurotransmitter leucine enkephalin, a natural painkiller that is released when the body is under stress.
Read more: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-microscopic-structures-of-dried-human-tears-180947766/#D5Zsys8DBWhi4Wbd.99
That is interesting what you wrote. I do think tears serve a purpose to our physical and mental health, otherwise we wouldn't have a biological reason to cry.
Thanks for bringing up this interesting topic.
I believe that everyone grieves in their own way, and there isn't a set way of things. The poem you shared makes a lot of sense. I don't know if you have heard of C.S. Lewis, but he has a great quote in which he says, "No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear." It sounds like that might be how you're feeling. I know I have felt like this so many times.
One of my other favorite quotes from him says,
"God has not been trying an experiment on my faith or love in order to find out their quality. He knew it already. It was I who didn't." I want to encourage you because even though grief is horrible and it causes so much sadness and anxiety, the pain is not in vain. When I lost my loved one, that is when my faith became so real. I pray that this encourages you.
Is there someone you trust who you could talk to about your experience? Maybe a family member, friend or doctor? I have found in my experience that it is so incredibly helpful to talk with others.
Praying for you, dear friend.