Now, even if this blog is never read by anyone, though I am hoping that that won’t be the case, I can honestly say that I would not be discouraged. Because, and I don’t want this to sound self-centered, I write this blog for me. Because when I can vent about my own frustrations with anxiety, my own struggles suffering from it, then I get a cathartic release. Quite simply it benefits me quite a bit and that is a good reason to do it.

However, I hope that this blog becomes much more than that. I hope that I am able to share my strategies for coping with anxiety with others and that they may actually help others as well. I know I may sound like a bleeding-heart but I believe that when one has quality information to share it becomes their duty to share that information with humanity. And not everyone believes that. I hope you do.

Now, I research anxiety and mental health a lot. (I also, as a sufferer of social anxiety and panic attacks, have a lot of first hand knowledge on the matter.) What I have found in doing the research is that there are not a lot of people with first hand knowledge, ie they have lived with anxiety disorder, providing much quality information. The information usually comes from a couple of sources. First, there are clinicians and therapists who make their money working with people who need help. I don’t begrudge them for that as most are genuinely caring individuals who want to help. The problem comes from the fact that at the same they face a monetary reality. They need to make money to eat so they often take on all sorts of clients whether they can help them or not.

Now, I have seen countless therapists in both an inpatient and out patient setting and I can tell you that very few of them actually were anxiety sufferers themselves. In large part they were highly educated in the theories of psychology but most of what they knew came from a college seminar or a workshop. And, despite their best intentions, most of them were not able to be particularly helpful.

Like I said, I don’t begrudge them this fact. I just know that I was often quite disappointed when it turned out that the golden counsel my insurance had been paying $150 an hour to receive was essentially useless. I don’t care what your CBT therapist’s manual says… Your interventions are not helping!

Eventually, I parted ways with all of the advice-doctors that I had ever seen. I don’t mean to say that they are bad people, but, first and foremost, they are trying to put food on the table… And they put the food on the table by keeping you coming in to see them week after week. Currently, I see a shrink for medication management and that is it. And, honestly, I have never felt better. So, I don’t think it is likely that I will be returning to “seeing someone” anytime soon. However, if you see someone and it is working out great then by all means keep doing it. Though I would challenge you with a question. Do you see your therapist because you genuinely believe that they are helping you or do you see your therapist because you genuinely like them as a person and they have such a rooting interest in your life?

I pose this question to get you to think about improving your current lot in life. I don’t ask it to criticize you. But, are things improving since you’ve been seeing your current therapist? Think about it.

Now, I don’t write this out of any malicious motive. I think that being a therapist is a noble endeavor in theory. And I believe that every single (or very nearly every single) therapist that I saw wanted to help me. But, wanting to help me is not the same thing at all as actually helping me. And, on reflection, I have to say that all the therapists, MDs, PhDs, and DDSs that I have ever seen haven’t really added one thing to the bottom line. Sure, I have gotten better. Is it because of their pricey counsel? I doubt it.

And that’s the issue. At what point do you want to take ownership over your own health and well being? For me, I came to the realization that all the gains (and I mean every single one of them) could have been achieved with a little hard work and research. I never needed to step foot one in a therapist’s office except to realize what a giant waste of resources (both money and time) was being committed. And, once I realized this, it wasn’t a hard decision to tell my therapist that I no longer needed his/her services.

What can blogs teach you about dealing with anxiety? On this question, the answer somewhat eludes me. Oh sure, I think that the methods that I promote can be effective but I am not a therapist (Thank God for both of us). I do not tell you how to live your life or how to conduct your own treatment. But I ask these questions because, I know for me, the status quo wasn’t working. I came to a point where I needed to change something. And, for me, I realized that I needed to take ownership over my own treatment and well being.

Thus we come back to this blog. You may be wondering, “Aren’t there enough anxiety blogs?” And for me the answer is simple: The world could use one more! Like I said, I’ve been doing a lot of reading online to check out the other sites on this topic and I have been woefully disappointed. While there are a great number of such sites in quantity the number of those with quality (and by quality I mean not selling you an ebook or their own therapeutic services) is severely lacking. So, I have come to believe that in time, Allay Anxiety can become a quality resource. And, believe me, I write this blog for myself as much as I do for my readers.

So, I suppose, I have lampooned the entire professional mental health establishment, but, hey, somebody had to say it. And, I’m sure I’ll get an email or two about how so-and-so’s therapist is the bee’s knees and they couldn’t live without them. However, I hope I have got the gray matter pumping because, frankly, it is your life. It’s time to take ownership of it.

]]> http://allayanxiety.com/anxiety-treatment-how-to-help-yourself/feed/ 0 http://allayanxiety.com/dealing-with-anxiety/ http://allayanxiety.com/dealing-with-anxiety/#comments Sat, 16 May 2009 03:06:28 +0000 Alex http://allayanxiety.com/?p=73 Dealing with anxiety does not have to be a life altering type of situation. I talk to people all the time who think that they are going to wake up on day and be able to overcome anxiety because somebody says or does something magical. An example of this kind of thinking is believing that the right prescription pill is going to cure your anxiety. I know many people who shop from doctor to doctor, trying pill after pill and they are never satisfied with the results and they are going to keep trying new meds instead of thinking about other possible treatments that they could pursue. I know that meds do work. I have taken nearly all of them myself, but I have a secret to share with you: Medications do not work that well for anxiety. A medication is not going to by itself allow you to be dealing with anxiety in a healthy way. Sure that med will give you the baseline with which you can do something else with yourself to try to combat your anxiety. The med just allows you the clarity to attempt to use another technique to try to actually deal with your anxiety. A med by itself is just not going to do it for ya. Sorry to say.

However, I want you to realize that I am not anti anxiety medication, I believe that these pills do serve an important purpose, they get you in a clearer state of mind so that you can begin to take the steps that are truly necessary for you to begin dealing with anxiety in a healthy manner. Remember, as I have said again and again, the way that you think about your anxiety is far more likely to determine how you are able to cope about it. Now, in some cases, I do not think that my technique for overcoming anxiety can be effective even if you are willing to believe that a medicine is not going to magically cure you of your anxiety. I believe that deeply religious people will have a hard time accepting my method for reducing anxiety. I believe that in order to fully come to grips with your anxiety you have to endure a major paradigm shift regarding your state in the universe. As a result of this, you simply will not be able to continue to believe in the same things that you did while you were suffering from severe anxiety. If this means that you were a strong believer in God and you still had anxiety I think you have to question whether that means you should continue to believe in God going forward. If you believed in God and still could not get over debilitating anxiety, and I mean real anxiety, rather than anxiety about how to get rid of acne or how to get rid of blackheads or something like that. I mean if you suffer from severe troubling anxiety and do not know how you are going to make it through the day, and you still believe that you are going to heaven when you die, then I believe it is best if you just continue to suffer with anxiety and go to heaven when you die.

You can get rid of anxiety by using my method, but for it to work you will need to challenge your assumptions on every level. And for most people that means recalibrating their place in the universe and their own personal insignificance. If you believe that you are going to heaven when you die than you should continue to suffer with anxiety because the payoff for that mindset, eternal bliss in heaven, is better that the alternative payoff – a life free from anxiety. Because if you believe that if you stop believing in God that you will not get into heaven, then you must continue to struggle with panic and deal with anxiety. Why do I say this? In order to truly conquer anxiety and learn how to get rid of anxiety you need to accept the fact that nobody cares that you have anxiety, this will diminish the power of your anxiety disorder and in time you completely lose your anxiety symptoms. However, in order to truly grasp the nature of your insignificance, it can be difficult to do so if you think you are a perfect child the two just don’t go together. So, if you struggle with anxiety, then I believe you will have to make a decision if you want to be free from anxiety in this life or the next. It is a very personal decision, but if you believe you want to begin dealing with anxiety, I can help you.

]]> http://allayanxiety.com/dealing-with-anxiety/feed/ 0 http://allayanxiety.com/how-to-deal-with-anxiety-effectively/ http://allayanxiety.com/how-to-deal-with-anxiety-effectively/#comments Sun, 26 Apr 2009 23:01:22 +0000 Alex http://allayanxiety.com/?p=67 It took me a long time to learn how to deal with anxiety effectively. I started this blog to help others who are struggling with anxiety and/or panic attacks and I hope you use the tools that I am providing with you effectively. I also want to encourage feedback from my readers. If you enjoy something about this site or have a question please leave a comment, though at the moment I am dealing with some spam filter issues however those should be cleared up pretty quickly. I also would like feedback as to whether you (the reader) would like me to add a forum to this site. Like I said please let me know in the comments, which should be up about as promptly as I can get them up!

Anyway back to today’s post which is on dealing with anxiety. As I wrote last time in anxiety cures I believe that each of us have a decision to make if we want to deal with anxiety or want to just keep struggling on. What I mean by that is this, when you decide to take a stand against something, in this case overcoming anxiety, you may have some other issues that arise in your life and you have to decide if you want to make that tradeoff. What do I mean by this? Let me explain.

If you want to eliminate your anxiety I can show you exactly how to do it, and have been for some time on this blog. However once you learn strategies for dealing with anxiety you may have other issues that come up for you. In this instance I am talking about philosophical issues for my method for dealing with anxiety is different than most others. I advocate accepting your anxiety on the basis that nobody really cares that you struggle with anxiety. Once you realize that it simply does not matter then you overcome anxiety in a way that is probably hard for you to even comprehend at this point. However, when you do so then other problems creep up for you which can cause difficulties as well, and we better address those “side effects” as well.

Here’s what will happen if you follow my method for dealing with anxiety. First, you will begin to struggle with anxiety less and less and when you do have moments of anxiety they will generally be far less severe. Sure you will still have symptoms but the thing about it is that they will not bother you and in time, after dealing with this stage of anxiety for a while, the symptoms themselves will start to disappear and you can live free from anxiety. You have essentially discovered how to deal with anxiety effectively. But the secondary, philosophical problem starts to rear its head.

Once you have accepted your own insignificance in the universe you can have difficulty dealing with life. I know I have experienced this unfortunate outcome and while I am anxiety free I still can not say I am completely satisfied (though I would never go back into the dark) and here’s why. I have fully internalized how meaningless my life is and as a result I have seen how meaningless a panic attack is which is a good thing. But other things like excelling in work or having children doesn’t hold the same appeal to me anymore because I have realized that there is very little worth doing. And this is the downside of this method of dealing with anxiety. While not a certainty, it is possible that you will begin to lose interest in some of the things you used to hold dear. This is somewhat unfortunate but it also just a fact of the matter so you learn how to cope.

I have learned new strategies for dealing with what I call anxiety free living in reality. I have to face certain adult realities in this new life that make my old anxiety and panic attack problem seem miniature in comparison. I felt like I had to take this leap to address my mental illness and anxiety issues however I wasn’t entirely prepared for the resultant change in philosophy. See, I hate to break the news to you, but the universe does not care that you suffer from anxiety. Actually, nobody cares about your anxiety problem accept you (and maybe your significant other, maybe) and that’s just the reality. As you come to accept this reality your anxiety will naturally diminish to the point that it itself disappears and then other questions come to the fore. For instance, what else that you thought people cared about (like your mental illness) do they simply care less about. Do you see where I am going with this? It is entirely possible that you will have to accept a whole new reality. But, and this is important, it is entirely worth it. Why? Because there is nothing like living in the darkness, having social anxiety, being afraid of anxiety, living a half life of misery. There is nothing like that kind of unhappiness. It stinks quite frankly. So you simply must deal with anxiety and not be a slave to it. But then you can start to realize that so little of what you do truly matters and this can cause depression though I haven’t actually seen it cause depression so much as disinterest which is quite different. So what are my strategies for continuing to prosper after you have effectively eliminated your anxiety?

Well, there will be another couple of posts on this subject however I just wanted to let my readers know that I am aware of the fact that these issues do come up. The first strategy to combat this effect is to build and maintain relationships. This is critical as well you isolate even if you aren’t dealing with anxiety you can struggle to stay motivated to fight the fight. This is simply a reality. So you need to stay close to others and nurture the relationships that help you feel a part of. The other thing that you will notice, once your anxiety disappears, is that you are must more able to function with other people, especially strangers. You won’t get those anxiety symptoms that you hate so much, sweaty palms, racing thoughts and heart, etc. You will simply be much more composed. Another strategy that helps you feel connected is to pursue major dreams. Once you learn how to deal with anxiety you will feel very large and some of your problems start to seem pretty darn small. You can’t believe how you used to stress over this stuff it just seems so trivial to you now. And that will happen which is great but because of this you simply realize that many of the old things you used to worry about and get anxious over simply melt away. They just sort of take care of themselves and suddenly you are not worrying about them at all. As a result of this, life starts to seem somewhat breezy. You don’t have the same struggles that you used to have. You will find yourself interacting with people more often and making more money and therefore your financial insecurity issues and social anxiety will melt away and suddenly you don’t have that much on your plate to really worry about and then you start to feel unchallenged. In order to combat this feeling, which will absolutely happen as you deal with anxiety and eliminate many of the petty things that you used to sweat, you will need to develop new, much more ambitious goals to keep you interested in life. On one hand it will be very satisfying to dream big and conquer big goals, however you will also realize that many of your simple pleasures will not give you the same thrill that they used to. When you are dealing with anxiety just being able to interact like a normal human being makes you feel good about yourself, however once your anxiety is gone you will get no rush from simply completely everyday tasks without embarrassing yourself. Those days are over my friends.

Because of this, you simply need to find some new goals for you to accomplish. You will find that once you deal with anxiety and put the panic behind you that there are a lot of things that you can accomplish in life that you may have thought were out of your reach before. And because of this, just to stay interested in life, you can’t be afraid to go after these things and challenge yourself with them. You need to stay interested to combat these philosophical issues I have been talking about, but I fully believe you can do. I hope all this has made sense, for I am not sure if it did. If I was unclear please leave a comment and let me know.

next time we’ll really get into the meat of dealing with anxiety on a day to day basis.

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