3 May – Still fearful but we uncovered the reason behind all the anxiety

Hi

I have answered in between your text

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I’m doing my homework and I’m doing plenty of practice

When you say doing your homework – can you explain exactly what that entails – can you send me any completed worksheets or thought/panic diaries – can you send me any flashcards you have created and and planned exposures you have created

but my mental panic has become so frightening and appears to be worse and more frequent.  I set myself a project to redesign my garden, but some mornings I find it SO DIFFICULT to get dressed and go outside (did you ever go through this battle to get up and get dressed?) and these last few days, whilst I am in the garden, my mind and thoughts keep drawing me in to FEELING FRIGHTENED.  I used to love gardening and being outside and I want this happiness to come back but, although I stay in the garden for most of the day (I have a large garden!) I am almost relieved when teatime comes round and I can come inside where I begin to calm down and feel safe.  Today for example, I was about to go outside and I suddenly felt frightened of not only the sky, but the trees, the wind, the bright yellow colour of the rape field opposite my house, you name it, I felt this huge wave of fear!

If you are relieved when you come inside then you are probably not practicing exposure in a productive way. Sounds like you are just grinning and bearing it which is brave but never really works. It needs to be carefully planned

Oh Robin, this is NOT normal behaviour or thoughts for a sensible woman. 

Of course it’s not ’normal’ – you have severe anxiety – but when you say ‘this is NOT normal’ you are again denying that its anxiety and that you must be mad or ill or whatever – which fills you full of fear which fuels the anxiety – you need to try to change that way of describing it to yourself

I’ve read through your workbooks again and the obsessive thoughts workbook and some of your past emails to me and my question is:  am I having these stupid, bizarre FRIGHTENING thoughts because my anxious mind is trying to find a reason as to why I feel frightened so it latches onto the sky, or the trees, or anything it likes?  I don’t know which is worse, the physical symptoms or the mental fears.  I have very few physical symptoms now other than a churning stomach when the thoughts really get a hold, but the physical symptoms seem to have been replaced with mental fears which almost make me want to put my head in my hands and scream.  Is this normal UNDER THE CIRCUMSTANCES?  Through you teachings I have been able to understand that fears are false fears and as such, in order to overcome them I must not listen to them. I must carry on as I would have done had I not been anxious and I AM DOING THIS now but I’m feeling worse and I’m reluctant now to keep going with this approach. 

There is the possibility that you are not fully understanding what I am saying. ALL of us can mistake this advice and practice ‘carrying on with life’ as a form of safety behaviour. We think ‘If I do this then the horrible thoughts will go away’ – which is the OPPOSITE of what we need to do because the more we deep down desperately want the thoughts to be GONE we give them tremendous importance and the fear increases. So if you go out in the garden all day with that attitude then you will be just making yourself worse – its not easy and its very subtle – everyone makes this mistake – its natural

Lets look at the scary movie analogy again

Let say you are watching a scary movie and you are SO engrossed in it you are TERRIFIED and feeling like screaming

The quickest way to lose the fear is to realise that your are safe in a cinema and that movie is just ‘a movie’ and can’t harm you

But lets say instead of realising that you just got out your handbag and started rearranging it to distract yourself from the movie but you STILL felt that the movie was REAL but you were trying not to look at it

Can you see that that wouldn’t work very well because you haven’t lost your fear of the movie really

The only way to TOTALLY lose the fear of the movie is to FULLY realise its JUST a movie

and rather than just trying to avoid looking at it you ALLOWED it to be because you kept remembering that its just a movie – I’m in no danger and I can even LOOK at it if I want to!! because it can’t harm me

I know you are trying your best to see it this way but I also know from experience that until you REALLY know the truth – the scary movie (thoughts) can still trigger your fear and forgetfulness VERY quickly

Thats why you need more EVIDENCE and PROOF

You really DO need to start writing stuff down – and you need to send me it so I can see where you are at

So – this is your homework

Go through the books again – plus the Obsessional thoughts book

Read book 3 carefully

and read the exposure and behavioural experiments section of the obsessional thoughts book

Come up with some PLANNED exposure – you need to come up with your OWN ideas based on what I suggest in the books

Planned exposure is very exact – staying out in the garden all day grinning and bearing the thoughts is NOT planned exposure so you aren’t really doing proper homework

You also need to keep thought diaries – write down the thoughts – when they occur – what safety behaviour you try to employ – what symptoms you feel and so on

Honestly Robin, I still have so much fear (a TON of fear)  how can I have a hope of coming through this if I can’t lose my fear?  I know fear is driving my anxiety, but I don’t seem to be able to convince myself that I HAVE NOTHING TO FEAR.  (I wish you lived next door!).

When I finally went to the hospital to receive the results of my diagnosis after a wait of FOUR MONTHS following tests, I was naturally beside myself, especially as I had been told during these tests that they were struggling to identify what was wrong with me.  When I was told I did not have breast cancer but I had chronic leukaemia, I asked what this meant and the specialist said he DID NOT KNOW!!!  He said he was a breast man and as such knew nothing about leukaemia.  I then had a further 10 days to wait and worry and worry, only to be told I had a common condition.  Nothing to worry about.  Lots of people have this condition and don’t even know.  It is 100% treatable.  And everything looked good.  However, the point I am coming to is that as a result of all this waiting for a diagnosis This was when my anxiety started.  However, even though I know I have nothing to worry about I still constantly carry around with me that anxious scary apprehension and fear.  Sometimes now, when I go out of my front door, I feel the way I felt that day I was going for my results. 

Ok – so you have possibly the most clearest reason I have ever heard for why the fear started – great

But I know now there is nothing to fear.  That was over 2 years ago Robin.  Why is the anxiety still with me?  (And all this following a routine mammogram.  I wasn’t even ill!!! )

The thing is you DON’T KNOW there is nothing to fear – otherwise you wouldn’t be fearing the thoughts – you are AFRAID of the thoughts – you aren;t afraid of the CONTENT – you are afraid of HAVING the thoughts because they make you FEEL anxious and overwhelmed

Thats why you need to keep thought records / diaries – do the ‘Downward Arrow Technique to uncover what is REALLY scaring you

ie – the sky is so big

• why are you so afraid of that
• because when I have that thought I FEEL incredibly scared – or because I an terrified that I will ALWAYS have that thought and why is that so bad
• because it makes me FEEL so bad
• when you say ‘feel’ so bad what is so bad about it
• I dont feel normal – I feel that I am going mad – I worry I will never get better – I feel I shouldn’t be like this – I feel my life is being wasted – I feel I am unreal – I feel I am deranged – not normal
• and why is THAT so bad ……..

You just keep DIGGING into what the ACTUAL problem is

Come up with your OWN answers and we can work on them

But also the fact that you are still asking ‘why’ is a clear indication that you have to go over it all again – the books and ALL my replies

I’m sorry, Robin.  I feel I have rambled on too much here, but I just know that if I have all the facts, and my queries are answered, I have a hope of getting better.  I just want this constant “mental fear/panic” to ease up, even just a bit, and that would give me encouragement I am doing things right.  I still fear being mentally deranged.  I HAVE NEVER experienced anything like this.  It’s hard to understand isn’t it?

Isn’t it strange that you can write so clearly and lucidly and objectively about hating these thoughts and fearing you are mentally deranged – its the old saying – a mad person can’t question if they are mad or not – only a sane person can do that

Isn’t it strange that you feel so ‘deranged’ in the garden yet when you go indoors you are fine?? – OBVIOUSLY that shows its to do with being TRIGGERED – if you were ACTUALLY deranged you would be deranged INDOORS as well 🙂

When I had panic I used to try to walk to the shops 200 yards from my house – I would get half way and would feel incredible pain in my legs – I would feel I was going to collapse and I would hold onto a wall or fence – as SOON as I decided to go back to the safety of the house I could EASILY walk and even RUN back and then up the stairs to my bedroom – and it never even dawned on me that one minute I could barely move and the next I was skipping back to safety!

You absolutely 100% have pure – common – basic – garden variety anxiety – obsessional thoughts related to anxiety specifically

I have seen it a thousand times

its ALWAYS the same

It ALWAYS catches everyone out the same way

it ALWAYS takes time

everyone ALWAYS practices in their own unique way without really following the advice as it is written

Next thing you HAVE To do is do this homework and send it to me

If you were face to face therapy you would have HAD to complete homework from day one and we wouldn’t move on or even have a session if the homework isn’t completed

THAT is how important it is

Just reading all the information and the going out all day grinning and bearing the thoughts and vaguely repeating what I have been saying – while HOPING desperately that that will make it all ‘go away’ – is nowhere near enough

You need to KNOW it not just hope