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...
methinks the covidic isolation has set my help-seeking denial demon loose again. in the early 70's when i first started on my recovery road, i was quick to ask for help and even quicker to find fatal flaws in every scrap of help offered. in that era, that quirk was being called, "help seeking denial."
the help i so desperately needed in conjunction the domestic upheavels of 2019 was not available in coronaville. just mask it all and increase your social distance. we ain't asking. it has been mandated. hearing problems have excluded me from the resulting zoom boom. the same hearing issues make "just call" a less than justy affair, even if i has the social skills to ask if lip reading was an available option.
fast forward 3+ years and i have been struggling to find the trust to try again. two weeks ago i was rather proud of myself for having --at last-- found a live, mask free support group at a time which the demands of my second parenting career could accommodate. i resisted the urge to run from the young-at-heart spa "girls" who were the only attendees by reminding myself to trust the healing mysteries and dance with what life sends me.
i bolted and ran in full hypervigilant flight mode from the second meeting. it was a business meeting where the members were discussing the inner workings of keeping the group going. in retrospect, i probably should have excused myself from the meeting. i am too new to have plausible insights and too fragile to handle the pragmatism. but i stayed and held steady until one of the spiffiest of the spa girls started asking to have her personal triggers institutionalized. one person's trigger is another person's treasure. her request was coached entirely third person plural, carrying my heart back to the back of the station wagon i was raised in with 10 royal we siblings in eternal flight from the mean, evil, "THEY." it is possible i never heard use of the first person singular until high school grammar class. for sure, i never appreciated the meaning of first person singular until well into my recovery.
at least, i think that is what triggered my hysterical flight. it's hard to distinguish fact from delusion in a psychic fog. the theory has been resonating peacefully for two days now. i'm not quite sure what i am reaching for here. just trying to get ^it^ into words.
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Hey All...I hope that you have a lovely, peaceful beginning of your weekI have a bunch of chores that need doing but may put them off til tomorrow and just hang out with my landlord/roomie todayWhat about you?...Anything special going on?Have a great day and take good care of you!!..Xo
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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.
i think it can be a feeling of being safe or unsafe and accepted trigger
in that there may be a dynamic of judgement and power on me. Total judgment..
Like the other might want me to live in their judgement.
I don't know if that's applicable or makes sense. I just am in the frame of mind that is inspired by your thoughts to say 'we each have standards' and whether I fall short of the person i am with, who is judging me or my own is the question I am waking up to.
Being my own companion (since i mentioned it last night), I am feeling a sense of peace and calm in the face of social triggers.
Feeling like, 'I can handle this.'
You are strong Arfie. I hope you can have a place of peace from which you decide to react or not to these outside influences
though that's easier said than done. I do want the best for you - to find your ability to say 'look at one I've been through and built....I can do this!!" Peace arfie.
mark
very applicable, markus questionarius. i feel like i am watching a flower bloom with your participation in open forum.
more than the blanket judgements, etc., i believe the "us against them" philosophy is a dominant thread in my social anxiety. even if i could be one of THEM, why would i want to be one of those mean, evil creatures? how do you spell paranoia?
in my own quest for that ". . . place of peace from which you decide to react," it helps me to think in terms of reaction/action. my reactions are primal reflex. my hypervigilant flight from the meeting was a reaction i could no more stop than i can stop a sneeze. here, in the seeking of renewed peace, i am deciding the action. do i attend this week's group session? do i keep looking for a better fit? do i kick the therapy habit and declare myself cured?
it's what you do next that counts.
letting god lead the dance. . .
Proud of you for sharing, as it helps me to see what I do as 'Stepping back, more like running away quickly" from a different perspective. I'm fine with removing myself from those sticky situations and reaching a comfort zone in quiet right then.
Whatever you choose to do this week, I'm interested in the result. I have had to remove myself from three different social interactions this past week,
Here's to success.
summer is summing here on the southern great plains. less than 3 weeks left to the academic year. lots of weird social interacting going on here.
out of this woman's painted lips, accessorized by the royal we sounded like a control device. my trigger is everybody's trigger. agree or die, slut. give me a b. give me a u. give me a double l. give me an s. h. i. t. what's that spell?