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 got up feeling fine this morning... which lead to me starting my day without doing some of my normal "start the day" stuff. So, now here I am, mid-morning, about to head to the dentist and I'm feeling a little anxious. Not a lot... just a little. But even that "just a little" gets the anxiety feedback loop going. I'm anxious? Why am I anxious. I should probably be anxious about being anxious... and so on. As we've discussed in my IOP, there is no such thing as no anxiety. Everybody feels anxiety to some degree a fair amount of the time... it's what keeps us on time for appointments and paying attention while driving and on and on and on. So why is that me feeling a little anxious is cause for me to feel more anxious?
I guess this is borderline gentle rant. I know the answers, and this is stuff that I know I need to work on, but it felt like getting it out of my head would be helpful.
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I did the dumbest thing today. I charged my earbuds, unplugged the block and put the block in my little bag instead of the earbuds. I wasn't happy about that when I got to the gym. What a dummy!
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Ever since I stopped doing therapy because of insurance, I've been feeling that old tense and irritable sense of anxiety and stress. I hate that. I was making so many strides and changes during therapy, my therapist would acknowledge all of my progress and accomplishments, and I miss that reassurance. Today I thought about it, and I made those changes! She would always tell me that I chose to...
Good work!
Best wishes with the dentist!
And the venting helps. . . Vent freely. Vent often.
The anxiety definitely got worse as I was driving to the dentist, but I did a decent job of being able to observe how I was feeling rather than get too caught up in it. I did take a hydroxyzine earlier cause I thought freaking out the in dentist's chair might be a "bad thing" I got there early, so I was able to do a 10 minute meditation in the car with some deep breathing before I went in.
Once I got in and things got going though the anxiety started fading. Maybe it was the hydroxyzine, maybe it was cause I forced myself to make small talk and get out of my head. Either way, as things went along I became more and more relaxed, till I eventually felt fine again.
So, yay me for going through the anxiety and realizing that on the other side is just me.
Good job on recognizing and tackling your anxiety with the dentist today. Small talk definitely helps. Any sort of distraction like that is helpful.
My anxiety often fades as I face whatever demon I am anxious over. Not always, but often enough to offer hope. On the occasions the anxiety doesn't fade, those same anxiety management tools help me hold steady through stormy sees.
It's one of the big things I'm trying to work on... those associations are strong for me, so the neural pathways that go from "what are these strange thought/sensations" to "Oh my god, I'm totally anxious and freaking out" are like the 12-lane freeways I grew up driving in Houston. I quickly get caught up in the flow of the traffic, that's going like 80mph, because Texas, and I've got to fight my way across the lanes of traffic so I can get to an exit. Hopefully, with practice, I'll end up on these freeways less often and, when I do, I'll be better at saying "I don't want to be on this road" and working my way over to the exit ramp like an F1 driver.