Allay Anxiety

Taking Anxiety Medications for Anxiety Symptoms

Alex — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 08:34:56 +0000

At some point I need to start addressing anxiety medications because this is a subject that I am an expert on. I want to get out the disclaimer right at the top however that I am not a doctor and I do not take any personal responsibility for an decisions that you choose to make regarding your treatment. What I will do is to tell you what has happened to me and you will hopefully be able to learn from my story.

The first thing that you need to be aware of when talking to medical professionals is that, in the vast majority cases, they will not have had any personal experience with the medications that they prescribe. I would say that this is true in the vast majority of cases regarding psychiatrists and even more the case when dealing with your family doctor. Furthermore, doctors regard personal anecdotes from mental health consumers with suspicion and often your claims, if they fly in the face of the doctor’s convictions, will be entirely disregarded.

Also, it is pretty important that you remember that doctors make their living dispensing medications — certainly psychiatrists do. Most doctors will diagnose you with a mental illness with the expectation that you will then need to visit them on a regular basis (for the rest of your life) to manage the medications that you will need to take for life to avoid relapse. I do not say this to insinuate that doctors will not try to do what is in your best interest — they will. However they will predominantly pursue a course of treatment that is in BOTH your best interest (as they see it) and in their best interest. It is important that you be aware of this fact.

The main point that I discovered in being treated by more than a dozen doctors, psychiatrists and therapists — I have been seen by some of the top psychiatrists in several cities as well as been a patient in one of the most prestigious mental health clinics in the world — is that the professionals know a lot less about the medications than I do. The reason for this is that I have been prescribed more than a dozen psychiatric medications of many varieties. And I have made friendly with countless people who also take such medications. What I experienced myself and what I heard from others who have been prescribed psych meds does not fit with what I have been told by psychiatrists. This is because the doctors have NEVER taken the medications. They go on the reports from the manufacturers and clinical studies. At this point, I quite certain that I trust my own lying eyes more than I trust what comes out of Pfizer’s mouth or the mouth of a drug study.

I can not stress how important this fact is. Why would you take an anxiety cure from a person who has NOT used it to cure their own anxiety? In this way the mental health establishment is horribly flawed. In fact, I have always thought that AA (alcoholics anonymous) used a much better model whereby people who actually had personal experience in solving my problem could give me advice. Instead I pay a psychiatrist $200 an hour to have him explain to me how to cure a problem that he has never faced. At the end of the day I am not any better and he drives home in his Lexus. Clearly this is a good deal for both of us?!

I do actually want to talk a little bit about my experience with anxiety medications. When I was seventeen I started to have some serious social anxiety. I ended up being brought to my first shrink who explained that this was treatable with medication and that I should start taking a benzodiazepine daily. He started me on klonopin. This really helped for the first few months but after a while it stopped working. I mean I could not tell any difference in my anxiety levels when I took it. So I decided that I should get off it. However, this proved extremely difficult. I could not get off of it without having horrible withdrawal effects. I late learned that benzos have a horrible withdrawal syndrome associated with them. I actually had to be medically detoxed off of them with a course of barbituates. This was entirely unpleasant I can assure. Today, I do not take any benzos and my level of anxiety is certainly not any worse. In short I had to go through a very unpleasant withdrawal syndrome that lasted months (months and months of suffering) because… I am not sure why? Because my expensive doctor thought that they would help. He was entirely wrong.

I was also put on an SSRI to help with generalized anxiety. I have been on countless SSRIs and SNRIs. This turned out to be disastrous. Today, I am no longer on the SRNI (I was on effexor until recently) and I am grateful. However the process of getting off of these medications has been hellacious. I can not in good conscious recommend anyone get on anxiety medications at any time. There are ways to manage to anxiety without medication. There are countless techniques that you can use that will WORK better than anxiety meds.

The thing about anxiety medications is that they do NOT work. Not only do they not work, they come with horrific side effects that are, in most cases, far WORSE than the anxiety disorder themselves. Finally, the fact of the matter is that once you develop a dependence to any of these medications, you will need to continue to take them until you die or develop diabetes or go blind. And expect to weight 300 pounds when that happens.

If there is one thing that I would preach is that develop a sense of personal responsibility and begin to learn acceptance. Sometimes the best thing to do is to just stop making your situation worse. I know that in my case, there has been untold damage that has been the direct result of my taking anti anxiety medications. I hope that no one has to go through all of the pain and suffering that I have gone through — so needlessly — so that I could be a luxury consumer of mental health services.

Because of the fact that I was born into an affluent family, I have been able to consume mental health services that most people might not be able to do. I have been to clinics for many weeks that cost more than $1000 a day. I have spent more than $500,000 in my life on mental health services. All I can say is that I AM NO BETTER FOR IT. If you have not been able to afford such luxuries you may think yourself at a disadvantage. I would beg to differ. Because, the fact is, when you are at a renown mental health institution you naturally proceed under the illusion that the doctors there KNOW HOW TO TREAT ANXIETY. Because of this you are willing to try their prescription cures, despite the horror stories you may have heard from others, because you want to get better and you think that they can help you. The fact is that they CAN NOT HELP YOU. They do not know how.

I want to repeat what I have said. I have spent more than $500,000 in my life on mental health services and I honestly believe that I would be in better shape today had I never spent $1. Without exception all of the advice that I have been given has been wrong and all of the claims that were sold to me have been false. The worst part about it was that I desperately wanted to believe because in some cases I was hopeless. I wanted to ignore the fact that their promises were not coming true. But after ten years being passed around by doctors I simply have come to see the truth.

If you are struggling with anxiety, I can save you a lot of time and money with the following word: Acceptance. Accept that you have an anxiety disorder and take steps to treat it. However, if you get involved with anti anxiety meds just be prepared for your life to get a whole lot worse.

Anxiety Treatment – How to Help Yourself

Alex — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 00:55:49 +0000

I find that there are a lot of blogs about anxiety on the internet. So, the question becomes, why do I want to write my own. Well, it’s a good question but I believe that I have the answer. I believe that it actually does me some therapeutic good to write about my own personal struggles and the things that I have been through. So I do it.

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.

Physical Symptoms of Anxiety | Anxiety Physical Symptoms

Alex — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 02:57:27 +0000

There are several characteristics physical symptoms of anxiety. These physical symptoms tend to be pretty pronounced so if you are not sure if you are experiencing a symptom it is likely that you are experiencing it. As, most of you, I suffered from anxiety for years before finally overcoming it and I suffered from all the physical symptoms that I have listed below. If you think I have forgotten anything significant please leave a comment and I will be sure to add it.

So, back to the matter at hand, what are the physical symptoms of anxiety? There are many and I will start with the ones that tend to be the most profound.

Rapid Heartbeat – This is the anxiety symptom that is often the easiest to notice. Is your heart racing whenever you have to think about a particular subject or complete a certain activity? This will feel somewhat like the elevated the heart rate that exercising can give you, but it has an element of terror in it as well. You will probably feel as if you have just ran a mile and are terribly afraid of the thing you have to do next. Rapid heartbeat is a very common physical symptom of anxiety.

Shaking – Do you have difficulty keeping your body from trembling. Your hands and lips tend to be the worst offenders hear. But you can have instances where your whole torso just can not sit still. I have even experienced a sensation where my entire body from head to foot was trembling violently. So there is quite a bit of range here.

Perspiration – Your body is sweating and you feel warm. Frankly this tends to be more common in males than females for some reason though it can occur in members of either gender.

Difficulty Swallowing – When I got very anxious I always had trouble swallowing. I would gulp dramatically and it would be quite embarrassing if I was with people and it was quiet. Difficulty swallowing is a very common physical sign of anxiety.

Flushed Face – I used to go red all the time. This would often arrive in conjunction with the perspiration but it was not always the case. Anyway, this one is pretty self explanatory.

Difficulty Concentrating, Feeling a Rush – In a moment of heightened anxiety you will have difficulty thinking things as thoroughly as you normally do. It feels as if your brain has been flooded with chemicals and your mind can barely focus.

Nausea and Vomiting – This is somewhat person specific as I never suffered from nausea or had to vomit. Though there were times where I felt like I had to vomit to feel better.

Feeling Like You Might Die – This is one of the defining characteristics of the panic attack and if you get overtaken by one this can be one of the strongest anxiety symptoms along with…

Feeling Like You Are Losing Your Mind – Anxiety causes such a toll on the body emotionally that you often begin to question your sanity. In the midst of a strong anxiety attack you may feel as if you have gone insane or are slowly going insane.

In a nutshell those are the key physical symptoms of anxiety.

How to Cure Anxiety Attacks

Alex — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 01:54:50 +0000

There are many individuals who suffer from anxiety that want to know how to cure anxiety attacks. I do believe that as a person who suffered from anxiety for years that I can be of some use in this area. Today I am generally free from anxiety and have not had an anxiety attack in more than a decade. So how did I overcome anxiety? Believe me it is neither as complicated or simple as some may lead you to believe. I did it slowly and gradually and in time I was free from anxiety entirely.

I started Allay Anxiety to teach other people how to cure anxiety attacks as I taught myself. So, let’s get right to the matter at hand and begin to go over some basic anxiety reduction techniques that may strike you as a little unusual.

First, a bit of disclaimer, I am not a professional therapist (though this frankly may be to my advantage) and I do not write books or lecture on this topic. I used to suffer from anxiety and do not anymore and all I do on Allay Anxiety is tell you how I did it. If what I describe sounds like it won’t work for you then don’t try it. There are millions of websites out there and thousands of blogs about anxiety so there is a good chance that you can find an anxiety reduction technique that works for you somewhere else. Remember, I just tell you what I know for a fact worked for me.

So, disclaimer out of the way, let’s get back to how to cure anxiety attacks. Now, when I suffered from panic attacks there was a definite escalation that took place as I became overtaken with anxiety. I started to think about a topic that was distressing and began to get worked up and soon I had realized that I had reached a place where a panic attack (the escalating heart beat, difficulty breathing and seeing clearly, inability to calm down, etc.) would completely overwhelm me. This was not just distressing to me. It was humiliating. I felt like I could not even function as an adult in the world without completely breaking down. It was a source of a tremendous amount of shame for me.

It was the shame and humiliation that I felt after a panic attack that was worse than the panic attack itself. When I was caught up in the moment of an anxiety attack I just wanted to survive. I was living second-to-second. But, after I had retreated to a safe place and was alone to reflect, I became terribly embarrassed. I didn’t want to suffer from panic attacks anymore however I did not know how to overcome them. I mean, one minute I would be fine and a stimulus would present itself and the next thing I know I was on a rollercoaster that would only stop once I had eliminated all stimuli from my environment. Basically, I had to retreat to a dark, quiet place and re-gather myself.

Each time I had an anxiety attack I thought that I might die from lack of oxygen or possibly a heart attack. Since it was the fear of death which would so often trigger my anxiety attacks I thought what a terrible irony that it might be the fear of death itself which actually causes me to have a panic attack and die. I thought this is just my lot in life. Death by self-fulfilling prophecy.

After my anxiety disorder got a good bit worse in my early twenties, I simply came to the conclusion that I could not live this way any longer — which was all well and good but I did not know how to go about finding a cure for my anxiety. I had no idea which steps to take. I just knew I needed to do something even if that meant I would have to commit suicide, an idea that filled me with both terror and hope. I was a nervous wreck.

What made things so much more embarrassing was the fact that my panic attacks often occurred at very inopportune moments. I can’t stress how screwed up I thought that I was. And this made me feel very much like I was defective. Basically, I spent quite a bit of time, trying to avoid anxiety attacks and then trying to get over one and then trying to forget that it ever happened. I lived in constant fear.

Because, let’s face it: Anxiety isn’t fun. It is physically uncomfortable and is mentally exhausting. So how did I cure my anxiety attacks? Here is the big reveal! I stopped trying to cure them. I gave up. I stopped caring. I decided that I was just such a mental defective that I would never cure my panic attacks and I would always be socially awkward and that I would never have a fulfilling life and that I should just kill myself. Maybe tomorrow. I stopped caring.

It was a terrible time for me psychologically. I had come to the conclusion that I just couldn’t cut it as a human being on planet earth. I couldn’t interact socially and because of this I was well into my twenties and still dependent on my parents for financial support. I simply would never be able to function well enough and I might as well just kill myself and get the whole thing over with.

So, for a while, I just continued to exist. I continued to have panic attacks but when the anxiety wave would come over me I would mostly just ride it out. I would still try to get the panic attack over as quickly as possible when I would have one, however I didn’t have nearly the shame afterward. Why should I feel embarrassed. I am not a functioning human and everyone should just realize it. It was too difficult to try to keep up appearances.

So, as you are following on, you may be thinking, “So what?” Where is the cure for anxiety that I was promised!?! Well, all I can say is that I invite you to keep reading.

Anyway, so I am miserable and have just given up and nothing is going my way. Worse yet I am still suffering from panic and anxiety including horrible social anxiety. Things were pretty bleak. But, just then, things started to improve. I realized (slowly at first) that the people around me were not beginning to judge me. They had been judging me for years!!! They knew about that little secret that I carried around, the fact that I had anxiety. They had known for years. Most of the people in my life had some sympathy for me. But they all knew that I had anxiety. They knew it and saw it and because of this they simply thought that I suffered from mental illness. They could see me struggle with anxiety and most of them felt superior to me. I came to this realization shortly after my decision to give up on life. And I felt just terribly ashamed. I felt that everyone could see my shortcomings and they all saw me as a defective person. Was I just being paranoid? No they (in a non-malicious way) saw me as someone with severe mental illness and most of them didn’t want very much to do with me. Generally they viewed me as screwed up. When I came to realize this was how others viewed me, I felt terrible. I probably had a panic attack just thinking about it. But then something interesting happened.

I realized I did not care. Every one can see me as screwed up. I don’t really care. I am just one person on the planet earth and they are just one person on the planet earth. If they want to think that I am mentally defective that’s okay with me. I just don’t care.

Now, right here we are beginning to touch on the key principle of my method to overcome anxiety. I call it the mind shift technique and you probably want to take a minute to familiarize yourself with it. You see, slowly it started to dawn on me that it doesn’t matter what others think of me. It doesn’t really matter what I think of myself. The whole exercise is really pretty trivial when you get right down to it. Anyway, let’s get back to the story.

So, I have dropped out of society and come to the realization that most people I know thought of me as disabled and was still having anxiety. But the light at the end of the tunnel was starting to emerge by now. What if I stopped caring that I had anxiety like I had stopped caring about what others thought of me? What if it did not matter that I had anxiety? What if I simply accepted that I had anxiety and was going to have panic attacks and be a complete defective for the rest of my life? What if I just accepted that that was my destiny? And in essence that’s what I did!

Everyone already knows I have mental illness, I know I have mental illness, who are me trying to fool here! So, I did. I accepted it fully. I decided that I would not care when I had a panic attack. I simply would not care. I wouldn’t feel ashamed. I wouldn’t do anything. I would just let it wash over my body and when it was over I would go back to what I was doing. There was no use fighting it anymore.

And what happened was that I started to live my life by this principle. I started to live as if it didn’t matter, as if I didn’t care, that I had anxiety. If I had a panic attack that was okay. If I didn’t that was okay. It didn’t matter because, let’s face, nobody really cared either way!

So, that’s the answer. If you simply stop caring. If you stop believing that you are so significant, if you stop with the unrelenting narcissism that places you and your small struggles at the center of the galaxy you will come to the same place that I am at. You will simply cease having anxiety symptoms because you will not be giving the disease the fuel it needs to plague you. You will achieve freedom.

Now, this may sound confusing or unrealistic but I invite you to take a look around the site and do a bit of reading before you come to any conclusion. Now, I admit, I am not the best writer, but if you take these ideas to heart your anxiety will simply become a thing of the past. And that, my friends, is how to cure anxiety attacks.

Dealing with Anxiety

Alex — Sat, 16 May 2009 03:06:28 +0000

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.

Social Anxiety Disorder Treatment Options

Alex — Fri, 08 May 2009 17:20:25 +0000

For a long time I suffured from anxiety and did not realize that there were many social anxiety disorder treatment options. And that although there were many options for me to try, and I did try everything to treat my anxiety disorder, I realized after a while that there were many treatment options that simply were not that effective. But, before I get into all of that, let me tell you that I realize what it is like to suffer from a social anxiety disorder. I know how much you can find yourself dreading and panicking about social situations well in advance of when you have to go to them and participate socially. You start to worry about the social situation weeks, even months, in advance and by the time the social occasion arrives you are so panicked that sometimes you don’t even bother attending. I know this feeling. I suffered from social anxiety for years, from when I was 15 until I was 25 and I can tell you that it is a terrible feeling. It produces a feeling of shame that there is something wrong with you. I get it. I have been there. And, as readers of my blog know, I have been free from social anxiety for many years. I simply do not have anxiety symptoms anymore. I do not panic before social events and I don’t get sweaty palms or nervousness and have difficulty making proper social interaction anymore. I would not say that I am cured of my social anxiety disorder, it is more like I can’t believe that I ever had one. Now, I have explained numerous times, the steps I took in overcoming anxiety once and for all in my life. And since you can read about that all over the place in this blog, I am not going to go ahead and retell the steps that I took to find the anxiety cure though I invite you to look through the articles that I have written on those topics. Instead, today I am going to write about Social Anxiety Disorder Treatment Options. Because, let’s face it, if you found my blog by typing in Social Anxiety Disorder Treatment into a search engine then you probably want to know what I have to say about anxiety treatment options and, luckily I have a lot to say.

There are many social anxiety disorder treatment options available to you these days. I personally have been through every social anxiety treatment form that there is so I have some perspective on the things that you can do to try an control your anxiety. Before I discuss the several main options I want to tell you that I simply do not believe that any of these options can really eliminate your social anxiety. These things can help but, honestly, they are not terribly sophisticated and if you ever are able to eliminate your social anxiety disorder it will probably be because of breakthroughs that you have had and will probably have very little to do with the standard social anxiety disorder treatment options. However, that does not mean that social anxiety treatments do not work entirely. I believe that many of the people who work in social anxiety fields are truly well-intentioned people and some of their methods will help you with your social anxiety some. It’s just that some people think that if they pay a bunch of money or hire a bunch of experts that they will be able to cure their anxiety easily and permanently. I have to tell you that I think you are putting too much faith in these experts. Anyway, back to the matter at hand, let’s look at some social anxiety disorder treatment options.

1. Take medication. There are many anti-anxiety medications out there and I have tried just about all of them. I do believe that some anxiety medications can help, but only in very specific situations. For instance, take the benzos. If you have a severe panic or anxiety attack and you need immediate relief because you are hyper ventilating then a benzo like Xanax or Klonopin can be very effective. However, if you suffer from daily, chronic anxiety then a benzo is probably the worst thing for you. These classes of medication are terribly addicting and have an awful withdrawal syndrome when you are forced to come off of them, and quite simply they don’t work very well for chronic anxiety. If you have a chronic anxiety disorder and you take a Xanax everyday within a few months you will get no relief for your anxiety from the medication and you will be addicted to xanax and still having anxiety. Does that sound like fun? And while there are other anxiety medications not benzos they are not that effective in treating severe anxiety I have found. And believe me, I have tried them all. So, if you think that you need an anxiety medication try buspar or something like that. Don’t expect much and stay away from the benzos if you are smart.

2. Another social anxiety disorder treatment option is therapy. Now, I do believe that therapy can be helpful for anxiety, however not one on one therapy with a therapist. That simply doesn’t really work for a number reasons. While therapists tend to be caring people they are not really anxiety sufferers themselves usually. Because of this they don’t really know how to cure anxiety or treat anxiety from any first hand experience. They usually just know what they read in a textbook twenty years before. Really, I think one on one therapy for anxiety is a complete waste of time and money. If you want someone to talk to because you are stressed or need a mediator for a relationship or what have you then fine go see a therapist but one on one therapy will not help with anxiety. However, there is another social anxiety disorder treatment that I believe can help and it involves therapy. Find yourself a good therapy group. With group therapy you get to experience situations that will arouse your social anxiety and force you to confront it in a supportive environment. You will actually get better at dealing with social anxiety if you do group therapy. It will take a long time, probably years and you will need a good facilitator/group leader but if you find this then you will be able to actually see some results. However, realize that you will do most of the work on your own, the group therapist won’t actually help you much if at all. But the environment does help quite a bit and because of this I wholeheartedly recommend group therapy.

3. Another social anxiety disorder treatment option is to check into an inpatient treatment center. This is the most expensive method you can take and it is also the most intense. However, it is among the least effective options for treating social anxiety disorder mainly because you are working with a bunch of highly trained individuals that have never dealt with social anxiety, have only read about it in books and simply think all the text book things about curing anxiety. They are simply not that helpful. Also, be advised you spend a lot (and I mean a lot) of time working on DBT (Dialectical Behavioral Therapy) training which I don’t believe is very helpful unless you are a very low functioning human being. If you have trouble, like extreme trouble, with very basic tasks then you might find DBT useful, but if you have higher level difficulties you will simply be annoyed with this type of stuff. Though the experts (who read the textbooks) will tell you how great it is. So, as a social anxiety disorder treatment I don’t think inpatient treatment centers are as effective as they would need to be to justify spending that kind of time and money.

So, that’s my wrap up of the three main social anxiety disorder treatment options and, as always, feel free to leave comments below.

Overcoming Anxiety Once and For All

Alex — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 15:51:06 +0000

Some people think that I am some sort of guru or something because I tell people that there is nothing stopping them from overcoming their anxiety once and for all. Some people have even said that they think I am conceited or full of my self. Look I am not a guru and I am not selling the cure for anxiety. All I am doing is sharing my story of the steps I took in overcoming anxiety. If you don’t think that what I am describing will work for you, that’s okay. You don’t have to try any of my anxiety reducing techniques. I am not trying to twist your arm into trying anything. So, just remember that before you send me hate email. Ok, thank you. So let’s get onto the topic of today’s post which is overcoming anxiety once and for all.

When I struggled with anxiety I struggled with outcomes. I believed that certain things would embarrass me or humiliate me and I was terrified that I would look like a fool or be made fun of. This was one way that my anxiety manifested itself. Another way was that I had disturbing thoughts about hurting someone else and I also got anxious thinking about death and finally I thought that something bad might happen to me. I would think about these things and I would become anxious to the point of having panic attacks. And I would deal with anxiety by retreating to my apartment where I would sit by myself sometimes drinking alcohol. Does this sound familiar to any of you? I struggled with social anxiety and every other form and it was absolutely crippling. However I did some research on how to deal with anxiety and started to take advice. What I learned was very disappointing. I did not overcome my anxiety by following the so-called experts advice. It simply didn’t help and I believe it is a complete sham of an industry the so-called anxiety cure industry. The anxiety experts recommend that you overcome anxiety by correcting your thinking errors and using DBT techniques like distraction or relaxation to diminish distress. In my opinion these techniques are a complete joke and not only do they not work but they are dangerous because they are so ineffective.

Overcoming your anxiety requires that you regulate the release of chemicals in your brain. If you think you are going to be able to achieve this by reading the Feeling Good Handbook or some other such tripe, I have some bad news for you. You are never going to overcome your anxiety. Folks, things have to get worse before they will get better. Whatever you are afraid of, whatever it is that gives you anxiety, you are going to have to come around and face it if you ever want to get over it. How do you face it and start overcoming anxiety. It is not complicated but at the same time it is not easy. It will be among the most distressing things that you ever do because your anxiety (if it is like my anxiety which it probably is) is caused by fear of outcomes or consequences. Now, you don’t need to go and experience the outcome that you are terrified to get over your anxiety concerning it. That is simply a terrible idea. But what you do need to do is to get the point that you simply don’t care if that outcome does happen or not. How do you do that. This is very important and the most important thing I can ever tell you regarding overcoming anxiety.

You start overcoming anxiety by not caring!

Let me say that again in case you aren’t with me thus far.

You start overcoming anxiety by not caring!

So, let’s look at that statement and see what I mean. In my case I was afraid of many things. But let’s just take one. I had anxiety in social situations because I felt like other people were in some way superior to me and that in any interaction I would only embarrass myself which was simply terrifying so I had awful anxiety symptoms when being around people, especially strangers or people I did not know that well. Well, first let me say, that today I simply do not have the anxiety around people that I used to in those situations. I don’t have it all. Now, have I found some sort of anxiety cure? In a way yes, but it’s not a pill or anything like that. Let’s return to my example and I will show you what I did to overcome anxiety in that circumstance.

So, I’ve got to interact with someone socially and I’m terrified. I don’t want them to see that I am anxious. I want to do a good job in this interaction because let’s face it having social anxiety is embarrassing. But the problem is that by fearing the outcome or consequence my anxiety only gets worse. So, what I started to do, is simply not care about my anxiety. Now, what does that mean. I realized that life was short, the universe was large and by and large nobody really cared that I had anxiety. So, I came to conclusion that I wouldn’t care either. And when I would interact with that stranger I would still be anxious as hell but I just wouldn’t care. So what. I embarrassed myself, well life is too short to worry about that. I just realized that my anxiety is not that important. And the thing is I stopped caring about embarrassing myself. And do you know what happened? Nothing at first, I still had all the anxiety that I ever had. I still embarrassed myself in social situations but I just didn’t care. I didn’t see it as embarrassing. But, for a while, because I was still having anxiety, I didn’t see this as a breakthrough. However, as the months went by and I still did not care that I had anxiety, I noticed that my anxiety began to diminish. I realized that I was getting better, not caring was diminishing my anxiety. I suffered less and less anxiety each time, and I realized that I was overcoming anxiety. It was a remarkable feeling, that I was able to breathe free and easy for the first time.

I overcame anxiety by simply not caring that I had it. Now, I don’t know how clear this point is and I know I haven’t explained the exact technique that I used to overcome anxiety however I just really want to bang home the key point: I overcame anxiety by not caring that I had it.

We will be coming back to this point again and again because it is the key point in dealing with anxiety and I don’t care what the so-called experts who have never overcame anxiety (and I mean severe crippling anxiety) in their life. Well, I have overcome it and I am simply going to continue to tell you how I did it. So, things will become more clear in time, and I hope you will continue to visit this site while I develop these ideas. Just remember that even with my techniques you will not overcome anxiety quickly. It will take time I can assure you. However, in time, you can overcome your anxiety completely and never have to deal with it again.

How to Deal with Anxiety Effectively

Alex — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 23:01:22 +0000

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.

The Cure for Anxiety

Alex — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 19:48:08 +0000

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If you’re looking for anxiety cures, a cure for consistent anxiety, then I have some good news for you. An anxiety cure is totally attainable. You just have to be willing to make certain decisions and take certain actions and it can absolutely become a reality for you.

So, first what do you hope to find in an anxiety cure? Are you looking for a new anxiety pill to pop or a new therapy technique to experience? If you are looking for those kind of cures then I may have some bad news. I am not entirely certain that there are cures to be found in those two areas, but before we go further let us just address those two questions individually.

First, is there a pill that functions as a cure for anxiety? The answer to this question is simple, it is no, and the question also illustrates a lack of quality thinking on the subject. The type of pills and medications that are commonly marketed as anxiety cures are called benzodiazepines. There are nearly two dozen different benzo medications and some of the more common are sold under the trade names of ativan, zanax, klonopin, and valium. I have been on this class of medications and even went to a mental health treatment center as a result of being on them. Here’s what I know about them.

First, benzodiazepines are not a miracle cure for anxiety. What they are are extremely addicting medicines that cause horrible and profound side effects when you miss a dose and they have a terrible withdrawal syndrome. Now, on the plus side, they do relieve many of the most acute forms of anxiety symptoms, the sweating palms, the rapid heart beat, the cognitive disorientation and the flushing of the face. These meds will decrease such anxiety symptoms. However, they only work in the short term. If your problems persist you will have to keep taking the benzos, maybe indefinitely. And there is the problem.

If you start to take, let’s say Xanax or Klonopin, every day you will develop a certain dependency to that medicine and therefore if and when you are not feeling anxious you will not be able to stop taking them. Rather than cure your anxiety they only ameliorate your symptoms. It is like putting a blanket on when you’re cold, you might not be cold anymore but if you take the blanket off you are once again cold. It does not “cure” your coldness.

But it is a whole lot worse than that. You see, benzodiazepines are effective in the short term but are nearly useless for chronic anxiety. Your body delivers a tolerance to them so even if you take 5mg of klonopin a day, within six months your anxiety symptoms will return as your body adjusts to the medication. You will only experience short term relief. For maybe six months or a year will be able to handle your symptoms but then what happens? I’ll tell you, your anxiety comes back. And then you have two options: You can increase the dosage of your medication or simply continue to suffer. Eventually, you will reach a point where no doctor will increase your medication any further. But, the really awful thing about these medications is that they are terrifically addicting. You will need to take them to avoid horrible withdrawal. And I don’t mean a little discomfort. I mean life-threatening withdrawal. Read that again if it is unclear. If you become addicted to benzos you will need to be medically detoxed off of them so that you avoid a life-threatening seizure. That’s a tough pill to swallow but it’s the truth.

So medicines are really not cures for anxiety.

So, just quickly, let me address curing anxiety through therapy as well. A good therapist can help you tremendously. They are an invaluable resource that shouldn’t be diminished. I believe that therapists can really get you thinking about ways to attack your anxiety and ways to decrease it. But, they will not be able to offer an anxiety cure. This is simple enough, for a psychologist treats the symptoms of the anxiety attacks.

He does not treat the underlying assumptions that are causing you to become anxious in the first place. So, a therapist can be very helpful in an ongoing treatment program for severe anxiety, but he is simply not going to be helpful in eliminating your anxiety. In many ways a therapist or psychiatrist is similar to an anxiety medication. They are helpful, in the moment, for alleviating anxiety symptoms, however as soon as the pill wears off, you leave his office, you are right back where you started off. It isn’t really the answer after all.

The other thing you need to think about is the fact that most psychologists want to work on something rational. They, in general, don’t do so well treating anxiety because anxiety is really not something that you can “talk” your way out of. When you are having an anxiety attack, and you have no doubt felt this, your brain is being flooded with tons of chemicals that are causing a powerful reaction in your mind. You are under the spell of the panic attack. You are not thinking logically and rationally and you can not simply think your way out of it. And remember what a therapist is going to do is try to teach you to think your way out of it. That isn’t an anxiety cure, it is an anxiety delusion.

So, while both anxiety medication and individual appointments with a therapist can be helpful, neither is a cure for anxiety. And what we are looking for are anxiety cures. If you’re like me you are sick of simply masking the unpleasantness or trying to suffer through an attack more quickly you want to eliminate the anxiety from you life. You want to cure your anxiety. I understand exactly where you are coming from. And I do believe there is such a thing as an anxiety cure. In fact, I am about to share the cure for anxiety with you.

First, and this is important, read my earlier article about the mind shift technique. Seriously, go read it. Ok, so you’re back. First, welcome back. I hope you were able to internalize the type of change in thinking I was talking about in that article because we are going to talk about it here. if you need to go ahead and reread it because we are going to be talking about it in depth here…

The key to an everlasting anxiety cure is your mind. You see, I know why you are having anxiety attacks in the first place because I was there myself. You’re having anxiety attacks because you are worried about some consequence. Now the consequence could be embarrassment or it could be pain or it could be death or it could be misfortune. Whatever, you are obsessing about some consequence and that is causing your panic attacks. Simply put you are afraid, afraid about this consequence. You are so deathly afraid of it that you are literally causing your brain to spasm with toxins and chemicals just by thinking about the possibility of this consequence coming to fruition. Terrifying isn’t it.

So, take a moment and think about the consequence that causes you the most extreme anxiety. It’s probably some pretty unpleasant consequence that scares you to death. Don’t worry that’s natural. It has to be a pretty scary consequence to cause the type of reaction that it does in your brain. And, naturally, as a result of this you get a terrible anxiety attack.

So, what do we need to do to cure you of this pattern of thinking? Well, we’ll get to that in a moment. Now, remember the consequence that you were thinking about just a moment ago. Well, you are going to have to confront it. Here’s how. You need to decide, however, which is more important to you, avoiding the consequence or eliminating your anxiety. Because sometimes the anxiety, however unpleasant, is actually more appealing than facing the consequence that you are dreading.

Do you follow. You need to decide. Which is worse, the anxiety or the consequence. If you would prefer not to face this consequence then you will remain in a panic ridden, anxious state — possibly forever. If you want the anxiety cure, you are going to need to face this consequence head on. But I do not mean “face the fear” as some describe it. For instance, if you are terrified about driving in the rain, I’m not recommending that you “face” that fear by driving in a monsoon. No, not at all. Because your fight or flight reflex is very real. Simply traumatizing yourself does NOT alleviate the fear.

So, what am I recommending? It’s simple. Acceptance. Whatever you fear might actually happen, but you know what, that will be okay. The earth will continue to rotate around the sun if you get caught behind the wheel during a hurricane. Life will go on.

So, the way to cure anxiety is to accept that that might happen. Overcoming anxiety depends on your ability to be OK with the nightmare that is your consequence. Whatever you fear… it might happen. I can’t tell you otherwise and naturally you fear this outcome terribly. But what if it did come true. Do you know what…

The universe would continue to go on. Life as we know it would probably not cease to exist. Sure, it would be terrible and that’s why you fear it, but ask yourself this: Is this fear, this overwhelming anxiety worth it? is it worth it to you to continue to live in this terrible fear?

Simply accept that whatever you fear will come true. Or it has already. It stinks. It’s terrible. But it’s a reality. Get over it. If you accept your fear will come true you will stop worrying, obsessing and agonizing over it. In order to cure anxiety you have to be willing to say to yourself, “I don’t care.” You must be willing to say to yourself that the anxiety caused by the fear is worse than the consequence that you fear. Regardless of what you are worried about, it is controlling your life already. It is making you miserable. It is winning. Turn the tides by deciding it will come true, it has come true, or it is coming true already and you simply do not care.

Do you see now? The only anxiety cure that you need is in your mind. If you master your fear by accepting its inevitability, you will cure your anxiety. Stop worrying and just accept. That is the ultimate anxiety cure, my friends.

Mind Shift Technique

Alex — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 04:14:05 +0000

Anxiety affects the mind and body equally. It can shatter your confidence, damage your psyche and bring your body into a frenzied state. I know this from personal experience. And after battling a severe anxiety disorder for a number of years, I have come to a place in which I no longer suffer from anxiety. Oh sure on occasion I will get anxious in the face of a screaming boss or when presented with a particularly frightening scenario. But does anxiety rule my life? No. On the average day do I feel even a twinge of anxiety? Not at all.

I simply live my life and 99.9% of the time I am not anxious. Coming from a person who barely left his apartment for two years, this is a remarkable accomplishment and it is one that I take an extraordinary amount of pride in. It’s how I am able to live my life today, interacting with strangers and “important” people, driving and taking care of errands, doing everything that I once thought would be impossible for me.

So you may be wondering, “How did you do it?’

That is the utmost question and why I started this blog. I think the important thing to realize about overcoming anxiety is that it is something you are going to have to do on your own. No matter how much money you spend on advice-doctors or filling your latest prescription of klonopin, you are never going to find relief unless you begin to take matters into your own hands.

Let’s look at how many people attempt to begin dealing with their anxiety:

First they go to a therapist. Therapists are wonderfully well-meaning people who are suitably educated to discuss psychological matters with you. Unfortunately, they almost always have zero experience with anxiety disorders themselves. Every thing that they know about living with anxiety they learned in a workshop or college class. As a result, you don’t get much from a therapist that can actually help your anxiety, since they don’t know. What you will get is one of two things: You’ll get what their college textbook prescribes for treating anxiety or, and much worse, you’ll get their personal opinion on what causes anxiety.

You may think that a therapist’s opinion on the causes of anxiety must be pretty valid since they are a trained professional. Unfortunately, and this is from personal experience of dealing with over a dozen certified therapists, they don’t know the first thing about anxiety. Their concentration in graduate school could have been how spirituality soothes the soul for all you know — which is fine, but if you think they are going to help you with your anxiety disorder you have a rude awakening in the coming.

The simple fact is that most therapists make their living by having an active interest in their client’s lives. They meet with their clients, get to know them, express interest in their success, and give you advice based on their world view. As a result you end up with a person who absolutely has a rooting interest in your life. They will ask about your troubles and listen and give advice. And that is all well and good if that is how you want to spend your money.

But, you will never get better. Never. Because the dirty little secret of psychology is that they don’t know how to help you. And you will spend two years, or three or four or what have you, seeing your therapist, spending thousands of dollars, and not getting one bit better.

So, if you love your therapist, you may be feeling a bit angry at what I have just said. And, remember I think that therapists are lovely people who really want to help. So, you may love your therapist and think they are the bees knees. And that’s fine. All I would point out is there is a difference between wanting to help and actually being able to. And, in my vast experience, most therapists simply can not help you.

The reason for this is more simple than you might have guessed. Therapists don’t know how to treat anxiety because they have never dealt with it. It’s that simple. They don’t know what actually works, because they don’t know. It’s that simple. So, that said, all I would ask is that if you want to continue seeing your therapist because you like them, ask yourself, is it okay that they are not helping you? Is it worth it to pay for someone to listen? In some cases, I most confess, it is worth it.

So, what generally happens next is your therapist will recommend that you see a psychiatrist or check into a psychiatric hospital. Because your therapist does not know how to help you, they will refer you to another professional who makes their living “trying” to help. At the psychiatrist you will hear the recommendation of psychiatric medication. You may or not need them. I, for instance, have been on psychiatric medication for fifteen years. I am still on some medication to this day, mostly because the withdrawal effects of stopping them are worse than simply being on them. I continue to take them and see a psychiatrist because I basically have no choice. But that is neither here nor there.

So your doc will put you on some meds, because that is all they know to do. Like therapists, very few psychiatrists have any experience with severe anxiety disorders. They dispense medication because that is their job. That’s what they know. Know some shrinks will inform you of the addictive qualities of certain psychiatric medications, and believe me the anxiety meds are about the worst offenders here, but many times they won’t even mention it to you. Why? Because they see meds as life-changing and once you get on them you won’t have to worry about the withdrawal effects because, you won’t EVER be getting off of them. You will be on the meds for the rest of your life, and, even better for them, you will be cutting them a check every six weeks as you see them for medication management. Now, again, if meds have saved your life, I don’t begrudge you. But, meds did NOT save my life. They made it appreciably worse. And, not only was I left back at square one with my anxiety disorder, I was worse off because now I had to deal with the horrible discontinuation syndrome so typical with most of these drugs.

So, anyway, you’re now seeing a doctor and a therapist and spending hundreds of dollars a month. And you are only maybe 10% better, because drugs do help some, and you’re dependent on your “support network” to continue functioning. How’s that sound?

I’d like to propose another solution. And this is what I eventually had to do. The solution is simple. Stop looking to other people to “cure” your anxiety disorder. Start taking accountability for your own feelings and well being. And start solving problems yourself, with calling a professional every time that you encounter some diversity. Because, believe me, they need you a lot more than you need them. In fact, based on my personal experience, unless you have no friends and no family you do not need a them at all.

So, back to the issue, what can you do to address your anxiety disorder? Quite a lot actually. Because the disorder impairs the way that you think about yourself in relation to others it becomes paramount to re-align your personal paradigms. What you need to do is to start thinking about yourself and your environment much differently than you have been in the past. In my experience, the majority of anxiety results from uncertainty and fear — it can be fear or uncertainty about anything though it usually centers around your health, life, social status and safety — so to fight it you’ve got to neutralize it. How do you do this? That is the question.

Now, I use a method that absolutely works to re-frame your universe and eliminate anxiety. However, it does have some downsides. If you come to believe what I believe you will find your entire value structure altered and you may encounter new difficulties on the road of life. But anxiety will not be one of them.

So, what’s the secret?

You’ve got to come to accept your place and, to be terribly honest, your own insignificance in the universe.

We’ll come back to that in a moment. For now, just prepare to throw all of your old preconceptions out the window. In order to fully conquer anxiety you’re going to have to adopt some (maybe even radical) premises. But, I can assure you, this mind shift technique works.

I have dubbed my top technique for dealing with anxiety “Mind Shifting.” The goal of mind shifting is to “shift” your state of mind from concerned to indifferent. We want you to stop caring about your anxiety disorder or its effects because, let’s be frank, the universe does not care that you suffer from anxiety.

First a little background about my case: During the most intense grips of the disorder I was barely a functioning human being. Everyday situations and interactions terrified me to the point that I rarely left my house. I could not drive a car, hold a job or even shop for the items that I needed.

I was always terribly afraid. For me I was terrified that I would humiliate or endanger myself. And these fears were debilitating. Despite the irrationality of these fears, I couldn’t shake them. I would have an episode and it would leave me trembling and unable to “be myself” for hours, until I was safely back at my apartment, alone.

I reached a point where I could not take it anymore. Realizing that I needed a new radical course, I started dealing with anxiety differently. You see, for me and most people with anxiety, fear was based in some way on the importance I granted myself and the opinions of other people.

Think about that for a minute. When you are alone, in a safe place do you often have panic attacks. I did not. But if you surrounded me with people or a situation I was unfamiliar with there was no saying what might happen. The reason for this was my fear that I would embarrass myself or be incompetent or endanger myself. For you it may be a different fear, but it is almost certainly a fear of something.

For the most part, I was afraid that other people would endanger me or think poorly of me. With a little practice, I discovered that I could alleviate most of the anxiety if I just thought differently about the situation. I realized that I was entirely too concerned with outcomes and other things that I could not control. For instance, what if it didn’t matter what other people thought? What if it didn’t matter if some danger befell me?

If I truly believed that my anxiety did not matter, would it still matter?

I decided to do a mind shift. I convinced myself of a few new (radical) ideas. First, I decided that even if something terrible happened it me, the universe would still go on and function just fine. Second, I decided that what other people thought — about me, about anything — simply did not matter.

Therefore, I could diminish my anxiety (to the point of disappearance) if I could convince myself fully of these things. You see, if I reached a point of indifference about my anxiety, if I simply did not care that I suffered from it, it simply could not continue to exist. It needed my fear to feed it.

It was one thing to decide that I would disregard my anxiety, other’s opinions, and my own significance. It was quite another thing to actually convince myself that these things were true. Which is absolutely critical for the mind shift to work.

So I started doing exercises meant to downplay the importance of myself and others. In order to do this, I would do a mental exercise which I invented. I mentally pictured a floating spot in space right in front of my face. This little spot just hovers before me. Then, I imagined 6 lines, like laser beams, firing from this spot in all directions — up, down, left, right, forward and backward. These lines, from the second I imagined them, would fire out at the speed of light from the spot floating in space. Right through my face, right through the earth, right on to infinity. All from this one little imaginary dot.

Because the universe is infinite these lines will travel forever in all directions. Never stopping. They will cover millions of miles per minute and will go on for billions and billions of years into perpetuity.

The sheer size of the universe made me and others feel momentarily small. Suddenly it was easy to think of these lines, going on ad infinitum, and not worry so much about if another thought I was foolish or if I was in imminent danger. Whenever my fears started to creep up on me, I pictured the spot in space, and I pictured the lines firing out in all directions. Suddenly, I felt right-sized again. I wasn’t preoccupied with the trivial things that I used to obsess about. I felt freedom.

That’s how you implement a mind shift. You imagine the size of the universe, the nature of all things, and wonder what difference does it make in all this if I am nervous right now. What difference does it make if this person thinks poorly of me. What difference does it make if I die.

The universe will continue on, maybe forever, regardless of your level of anxiety. You can bank on it. The simple technique of visualizing the spot in space and the lines serves to demonstrate how little your present fear-inducing circumstance really matters.

And once you have mastered the little spot in space, the mind shift takes place. Every time the anxiety starts to emerge, you simply imagine that spot in space. Think about how little “they” matter. And remember, that life will go on.

You don’t actually have to subscribe to these ideas to make the technique work, you just need to convince your mind of it. And your anxiety will simply melt away. Believe me. I am living proof.

So next time the anxiety starts to spring up inside you, do the easiest hard thing you’ll ever do. Trick your brain into thinking it doesn’t matter. And, in a nutshell, that is my top tip for dealing with anxiety.

Now there will be much more on the mind shift technique on allay anxiety. But I did want to take a moment to introduce the concept to you. Now this, and variations of it, are the techniques that I use everyday to overcome my anxiety. It works. And, obviously I need to continue to explore elements of it so that the readers of this blog fully understand how to make it work for them. But…

I have had more success using these techniques of my own design that seeing so-called experts for hundreds of hours. For me, they did not work. And if you are looking for others who can help you overcome your anxiety without costly advice-doctors, I recommend you make a habit of reading this blog.

And, remember, all I talk about is what worked for me as a person with a severe anxiety disorder. If something I say doesn’t sound right to you, then don’t follow it. The key to this whole thing is taking ownership over your own life, so if something sounds fishy then disregard it. Go find another site. Try another method. I am not a therapist and do not give advice. There are plenty of people who can do that for you (and send a bill). All I do is shared what I know will work.

The rest is up to you.