Overmagnification of the negative and minimalization of the positive

It’s a dreary, rainy Thursday, but I feel like I’m holding up pretty well. Staying positive and keeping worry and anxiety at bay. Then in comes a co-worker who is herself an anxiety ball. She proceeds to tell me about 2 people close to her who have serious illnesses and about the parent of a child she is servicing who has mental illness. I am about to spiral into an anxiety attack. But then I remind myself that:

• Between the time that she told me what she did and the present moment, nothing has changed for me so there is no reason for anxiety.

• What I can’t control is what she told me and the tragic circumstances the people she was talking about find themselves in, but what I can control is how that information affects me.

• Although she told me about three tragic situations, what she did not tell me was about the hundreds of non-tragic situations that she encountered within the same time period – the number of people who were healthy and sane and enjoying happy, healthy, successful lives. Unfortunately, it is only the relative few tragedies that are news while the countless non-tragedies are taken for granted and fall by the wayside. For every person suffering there are countless who are not, or whose suffering is relatively minimal. And within those people, there are countless unrecognized blessings that occur every single second of every day: each breath is a miracle, each time a person is able to use the bathroom is a miracle. When you stop for a second to think about the processes that take place from the moment a person takes a drink until the person urinates, it would be apparent that is a miracle each time a person urinates naturally and painlessly. The same goes for breath, digestion, and even the passive functions like a liver, pancreas, kidneys, etc. all operating painlessly and seamlessly with balance, harmony and perfection.

So instead of focusing on the few tragedies, I choose to focus on the countless blessings and the miracles I experience every moment that my body is functioning well and that my wife and children are healthy.

Having had the negative outlook on life that I am currently working and making progress on, I once asked the receptionist at my children’s pediatrician’s office how she was able to work there given the constant stream of tragic diagnoses and terrible stories that she must come across while working there. She answered that in all of her years working there most children have nothing more serious, than colds, the flu, strep, or other basic infections or viruses, and that anything more serious is rare and far between.

A negative outlook on life is a result of the overmagnification of the bad things in life and the minimalization of the good things. Of course this is an inaccurate outlook because it hyperfocuses on the relatively insignificant negative in the world and in life in general and practically ignores the abundant good.

A more accurate and realistic outlook would involve seeing things as they actually are and keeping things in perspective: Most people and most things in life are mostly good or excellent most or all of the time. Sure, there are bad things in life, but it is rare, and when it does occur it is usually minor or treatable or manageable. And the extremely significant problems are even more rare and in many cases are inapplicable since they are not genetically likely, I do not smoke, I am of a healthy weight, and I do not abuse drugs or alcohol. Past that, it’s all in God’s hands. Sure there will be aches, pains and discomforts from time to time, but that’s part of being human. They are usually a result of anxiety, lack of sleep, bad diet etc.

So the key is to look at the good that’s happening at every moment, keep the bad news in perspective to all the untold miracles, see any aches and pains for what they are and be thankful they are not more serious or indicative of any serious underlying condition, and take whatever steps I can to try to alleviate even those.

Also, again, let’s look at patterns: Anything I’ve heard or am experiencing now are things that I’ve already heard before or experienced in the past, and what happened?? Nothing! Again and again, I’ve experienced this and that, read about this and that, or heard about this and that bad thing…spiraled into anxiety…thought this and that negative thought….but based on the consistent pattern, what ended up happening? Nothing. The condition resolved itself. Or just nothing happened to me based on it. Or even the person who the bad news was about is okay now themselves. So looking at patterns, there is no reason to have any anxious reaction to anything negative, knowing for a proven fact that what I read or heard about is in no way associated with me, is rare in the big picture, and anxiety is unhelpful anyway and is just circular and prevents me from seeing what is happening that is good in my life: no serious illnesses, no major debilitating pains, my wife and children are healthy and happy, etc., not to mention the moment-by-moment miracles that come with every breath and every moment without pain or discomfort and in which all internal organs are working seamlessly. I choose to see things for what they are and realistically: bad news is just that – bad news – nothing happened or is more likely to happen to me personally because I heard or read about something bad. Whatever I do feel that is painful or bad is already established as not being serious and history has shown it will resolve itself with time and subsiding of anxiety, and there are countless people who are healthy and happy at every moment and whose problems are minor in the big picture, and there are miracles each moment – including this one, as I type, my fingers are working well, my wrists and fingers are pain-free, my entire body is generally pain free, I can walk, talk, see , smell, taste, touch, digest, purify toxins, fight infection and illness, and the list goes on and on. Again, it comes down to one simple thing: not imagination or pretend, rather seeing things AS THEY REALLY ARE! Being present and aware of what is going on and enjoying it. And when something bad does happen, seeing it for what it is: rare and not associated with me as an independent person, and that hearing about it does not increase the likelihood of it happening to me, and that most things, even painful, are not serious or anxiety-worthy – in fact, decreasing anxiety levels is what will most likely help.

My life is only as good as my worst fear

Since it all comes down to beliefs and resulting emotional and behavioral reactions and responses, I have been trying to determine what belief or beliefs I am holding onto that is/are resulting in the never-ending barrage of triggers and resulting worry. There is the obvious belief system that I’ve described in which the brain believes that worry is helpful, harmful and unstoppable. But I believe (no pun intended) that I have an additional belief that causes the continual behavior of fear, concern, worry and anxiety. That is because my pattern over the years clearly shows that as soon as one thing ends the next worry begins. After contemplating this for some time, I came up with the following: (This is why a therapist is not what I need, because only I myself would be able to reach these conclusions, no one else).

• I found that I only worried about my worst concern at the time. Meaning that as valid as all my worries always seemed, I only focused on the single, most serious one. And that’s when I realized that “my life is only as bad as my worst fear at the time”. For example, when I would worry about a certain pain being indicative of a certain illness, then nothing else would seem important to me enough to upset or frustrate me. I was creating a protective barrier against daily life and normal problems by creating one major concern which would result in making all other concerns relatively insignificant. But that’s not healthy as I clearly know, and it’s not productive, because life is messy and unpleasant at times, and avoidance is not the way to go. So creating a false issue to avoid the real issues does not help anyone and only makes me more distressed about the serious issue that I conjured up at the time. In fact, as my anxiety goes down, I noticed the real issues of life becoming more into focus and prominent. And that’s the way it should be. Standing in the rain and getting soaked because the kids’ bus is late should be frustrating and annoying. The stress of planning the kids’ birthdays and other events should be acutely felt and addressed. Life is real and it isn’t always smooth, but it can’t definitely not be pushed under the rug and avoided. That’s why I have an aversion to drugs and alcohol, because I see them as attempts to avoid dealing with what is really happening and that’s something I would never do, because avoiding the truth does not make it go away. It may make you numb to the reality, but it does not make it any better. In fact it makes the unaddressed reality worse and the drugs and alcohol comes with the side effects related to health, family, careers and relationships.

• I discovered that I have a belief, perhaps based on patterns during childhood and adolescents, that there has to always be a problem at all times, and that once one problem is resolved, the next one needs to start right away. Like a person with an anger problem who is always angry at someone without interruption, possibly due to a belief that there is always someone who is doing something to upset them, I have a belief that there has to always be something bad happening or about to happen. But the reality is the opposite as the insurance industry will confirm and as I saw in a news report just yesterday: Most people are okay most of the time, and when things are not okay they are usually minor. And when things are more serious which is statistically extremely rare (despite as it may appear as will be addressed in the next entry) they are usually resolvable or manageable. That is why insurance companies are willing to stake their entire companies on the statistical likelihood that most young people won’t die or get sick, and that if they do become sick it will be rare and when it does happen it will most likely be a non-serious event. The entire industry is based on that and billions of dollars are staked on that fact.

So my brain needs to change its beliefs to be more in line with reality as known from the extensive and exhaustive research conducted over years and being conducted daily by the insurance industry the world over, that:

• Bad things do not happen on a continual basis

• Bad things happen rarely

• Bad things are usually not serious even when they do occur

• Most people are mostly healthy most of the time

Additionally:

• Worrying about the unlikely, rare scenario where something bad does happen is not going to help in any way to avoid, prevent, minimize or cope with it

• Since most things we worry about never happen, worrying ends up being a waste of time and mental energy since what was being worried about doesn’t end up happening anyway

• Worrying about what could (and most likely won’t) happen, keeps you from enjoying what is truly happening, and that’s not good at all. So it’s time to see what is happening, enjoy that, because that is an action that could be practically taken, and stop worrying about things that are not happening and which are unlikely to happen, since there is nothing to do now because it’s not happening right now, and there is nothing to be done to prevent it from happening anyway in the rare event that it would happen.

Cognitive modification is a gradual evolutionary process

What’s amazing though, is that one can ask why I couldn’t just do this from day 1? Or why can’t the self-help books simply say to do this? But the fact is that the process is an evolution. What works today would not work without all of the preceding exercises that led to it. It’s a gradual process of chipping away at the big issue, hitting plateaus, having setbacks, fighting on, trying different techniques, discovering new methods and avenues of approach, and eventually using all of the knowledge and tools to correct or manage the condition. Like when climbing a ladder, you’ve got to climb the first rung and each rung in between before reaching the top. Trying to skip to the end without going through the middle just does not work. It’s what I call a meat grinder, slowly grinding away at the issues until a final resolution.

And I must say that as hopeful as I am, I am not delusional, in that I don’t pretend to know for certain that this is the end of the battle or that there will ever be one. What I do know is that each tool is helpful and each victory is permanent and has an effect in the long run. I also know that I may have to work for the rest of my life to manage the condition.

However, on a more positive note, I do know that:

• If I will have to manage the condition for the rest of my life, it will get easier because practice, habit, repetition and routine makes things easier, and the tools are always there, so management should not be a struggle eternally, or at least not as big of a struggle as time goes on.

• It is something that I believe could really be corrected because, unlike many other physical or psychological conditions, this is a learned behavior, and anything learned could be relearned. Beliefs that trigger one reaction could be changed and modified and reinforced, resulting in changed behaviors. Granted, I believe that I am genetically predisposed to worry, but predisposed does not mean that I am helpless and hopeless. It simply means that I have the increased potential to, but that same potential can be harnessed and fed with the proper beliefs to enable it to be focused in the right direction. Unfortunately, that potential that I was born with was enhanced and enabled by my childhood (due to my father who had the same genetic predisposition and resulting behaviors), but it’s never too late to change. In fact, I see in my oldest son the same potential that I was born with, but I also see how, with the right upbringing, and by supplying him with the right mental tools to harness that nature, I can help him avoid the path that I went through and am currently struggling with.

Calling a spade a spade

So it’s the next day and I must say that I am really seeing improvement. I am getting control over the anxiety. The trick has been to call a spade a spade. What I mean by that, is that last night I went out to do some supplies shopping and it went great, but of course my brain looked for stupidities to make it look like I’m doing crazy things. Some of the things were typical and expected, and some were due to lack of focus.

So what would happen is, I would open a wrong drawer or bump into something, and it would try to trigger anxiety. I quickly nipped it in the bud by going through the following logic in my head:

• Haven’t you already done things like this and even worse things in the past? What came of it? Did it get worse? Better? Did you go crazy? Did you lose your mind? Look at the history and the pattern and try to predict what will happen this time. Isn’t it patterns you are looking for? The brain will never get the certainty it wants, but it can do what it does best which is to look at past patterns and try to predict what will happen next. And everything you are experiencing now are things that were experienced in the past, if not on a worse scale, and each time what was the outcome? Nothing. So again, as always, the outcome will be nothing! So no reason for anxiety now!

• Okay, let’s see what happened here: I did something absentmindedly and it’s trying to trigger anxiety. But haven’t we established already that it’s the anxiety that’s causing me to do these things and not the other way around where the action triggers the anxiety? So why become anxious about having done something as a result of anxiety? Let’s get to the root of it: I did what I did because I have some level of anxiety which is resulting in reduced focus and concentration on what I’m doing. So the solution would be to tackle the underlying anxiety that caused me to be unfocused in the first place. How do I tackle the anxiety? Calm down. Slow down. Breathe. Address any reasons for anxiety or worry. Get busy with other, real things. Look forward to lying in bed and meditating, relaxing, analyzing the day, my thoughts, etc. Take a slow, relaxing shower. Slow down, focus, and relax.

In short, letting the anxiety-caused actions to trigger additional anxiety is what causes the vicious cycle. To break the cycle, I need to focus, remember that it’s the anxiety itself that’s the issue, and tackle the anxiety by relaxing, addressing my concerns, and getting in touch with my thoughts. Addressing the cause – the anxiety – resolves the symptoms, which in turn removes any further need for anxiety.

And as an added bonus, the anxiety reflex is addressed to with these exercises, in that as time goes on and the anxiety is found to be more and more consciously addressed and is found to be more and more useless, the brain lets go of these behaviors and reactions since it no longer believes them to be useful.

The key, however, is to stop falling into the trap of thinking that the symptom is its own thing, and a reason for concern and a valid trigger for anxiety. It is very difficult in the moment but so crucial to stay focused and remember that it is not the action that is a reason for concern, rather that the action was triggered by anxiety and the resulting hyperfocus or lack of focus, and to take a step back, look at the past patterns, realize what the outcome has always been and is likely to be again, and to slow down and address the anxiety itself.

And this is what I’ve been working on because this is getting to the meat of the issue. Breaking the vicious cycle, and tackling the brain’s beliefs about the usefulness of anxiety and changing the automated worry impulse and reaction.

The world through the eyes of people

Here’s something that’s been going through my mind that is completely freaky and practically redefines life, people and the world in general:

In my journey through debilitating, chronic anxiety, I came to see that reality is not what defines our perception of the world. It is our brain. What I mean by that, is that when I would have a severe anxiety attack, the entire world looks gray and dark. Things seem hopeless and things become a huge mix-up in my head. Walking down the street actually looks and feels different. In my research during this period, I’ve come to learn that people with emotional or psychological disturbances such as anxiety, depression, etc. have extra activity in the part of the brain that perceives the world. This part of the brain, in their case, overmagnifies different aspects of life. For example, a depressed person’s brain overmagnifies the negative aspects of life and the future, and a person with anxiety overmagnifies the likelihood of negative outcomes. This overmagnification in the brain actually affects the way that person sees life and the world around them.

For example, each day is a new beginning, a fresh start, and a chance to do things anew. While a person who is not depressed will see a new, bright, sunny day, a depressed person will see the exact same day as a gray, dreary day when they would rather stay in bed, because what’s the point? Life sucks anyway. A person with anxiety will see the same day as an anxiety- and worry-filled day where so much is or can go wrong. And if so much can and will likely go wrong, then what’s the point? So now when I see someone in the street, I have no idea how that person is seeing what I’m seeing. We may be standing on a street corner and I may see one thing, but the other person could be seeing it brighter or drearier than I am.

Another reality check is that while going through anxiety, one of the frustrating things was seeing people walking calmly up and down the street while I am all amped up, keyed up, and emotionally chaotic. And that made me feel as though the entire world is living it up happily while I am suffering emotionally.

But then I realized two things:

1) As emotionally chaotic as I felt at the time, I was careful to walk in the street with my head held high while maintaining my composure. People I would come across in the street would have no clue about what was going on internally. This made me realize that just like I am walking around like a happy-go-lucky person while my insides are being run through a meat grinder, who knows who else is doing the exact same thing, and I don’t have a clue because they are hiding it as well as I am?

2) A news report came out a few days ago which stated that 1 in 10 adults are on antidepressants as are 1 in 25 adolescents. Worse yet, this number, they said, only reflects one-third of the people who should be on antidepressants based on the symptoms they reported. That being so, as happy as others may look, 1 in 10 – and perhaps even more – are taking medications to deal with depression or anxiety.

This is not to say that I take any comfort whatsoever in the fact that others suffer too. In fact, that makes me more sad and anxious at times. All I’m saying is that it’s a reality check, that things are not as they appear. I realize now that it’s not that everyone’s happy and I’m the only one in emotional distress; it’s more likely that everyone is dealing with something, and I’m possibly one of those who choose to tackle the issue without medication or therapy – the long-short way.

Patterns, baby, patterns!

It’s the following day, and I know that I haven’t completed yesterday’s entry, partly because it was no longer an issue, and partly because I ran out of time. There is one rule with worry: if it’s no longer an issue, let it go. That explains why I have tons of notes to self lying around, containing one-liner items to meditate on, think about, or to write about which were never pursued. You see, each time I am feeling anxious I take some time to try to get in touch with what I am feeling, and what thoughts or worries need to be addressed and from what angle, in order to help me come out of that episode. Once written, I feel more relaxed, knowing that I have what to think about later in the day during my meditation period, or in bed. In many cases, by the time I am lying in bed or meditating, I am either no longer anxious, no longer anxious about the topic I wrote about, have resolved the topic I wrote about, or am anxious about something else entirely and have a new thought to address.

In today’s case, the issue from yesterday has been resolved in my head for now. The way I did so, was by getting annoyed. Annoyed at my worry and anxiety. And that’s because I, like my brain, like trends and patterns. I mean, isn’t that what started the problem to begin with? Patterns and habits that reinforced the worry, anxiety and panic instinct are what started the problem, so patterns proving otherwise should fix the problem! Granted that if one is not consciously aware of the pattern it will not result in change, but over the past weeks and months I have been extremely conscious of the patters: the one that shows without doubt that despite anything I feel in my head, the fact remains that everything around me is normal, and more importantly, that I am normal. It is also proven that the outcomes minute to minute are and will always be normal and the outcomes each day and night have been, are and will always be normal. But once the anxiety kicks in, that knowledge all goes out the door and it’s back to feeling crazy, like I need to check into a mental institution, and that I need to quit my job.

But then reality comes a-knocking. A child needs me, an employee has a question, my boss needs my help with something, and voila, I snap back to normal and take care of the problem brilliantly. And while I am, I make a point of reminding myself that if I ever feel anxious or crazy I should remember how normal I was at the time. But believe it or not, once the spiral starts, almost nothing can bring you back. In fact, I start to think that I was crazy at the time that I was normal, or that even crazy people are normal at times, or that maybe I am bipolar or schizophrenic. Of course, if any of that was true I wouldn’t be so self-aware and conscious of that, and my behaviors would be affected, not simply my thoughts.

In essence, I am at the point where:

• What I have is an anxiety issue

• I am no longer anxious about the things I was before such as health; I guess I am, but it is manageable

• I am now at the point where I become anxious and panicky about the symptoms caused by anxiety such as thinking or doing silly things either because:

o I am not focused because I am in my head and anxious

o I am hyperfocused – meaning that I am so afraid of making mistakes that people typically make such as mixing things up, putting things in the wrong place, forgetting names, etc., in an attempt to avoid situations that would make me think I am crazy. This hyperfocus causes my brain to always imagine every scenario or possibility in an attempt to predict and control my behaviors. This results in recollection of past things which make me think that my brain is mixed up. It also causes what I call “the autofill effect”, where when reading, the brain simply scans the words and reads them as what they likely are, which in many cases is wrong. I also call it “the headline effect”, where the brain skims things and skips words even in articles, reading them like a series of headlines to just capture the gist of things.

o The mix-ups are typical and expected and happen to everyone

o The mix-ups are caused by stress-related scatterbrain which is an expected symptom of having the responsibility for a wife and four young children on my head as well as the operation of a large company.

o In many cases, what I thought was a mix-up turned out to not be a mix-up and was simply a false alarm which in many cases triggers an anxiety attack even after it was proven unfounded.

But in all cases, days, nights, weeks and months go by and as crazy and mixed up as I think I am, somehow my actions as perceived by others, my judgments, my management of family and career are all sane and smooth. So the actuality – the one that always wins – clearly shows that my thoughts, fears, etc. are just invisible mist and not concrete, because otherwise they would have manifest themselves in the form of a single screw-up or a sense from at least one other person outside of my head who is wondering what’s up with me, but for some reason, outside of my mind everyone is clueless. So what does the actuality show? What will the outcome be in spite of the realistic nature of my thoughts? The reality and actuality is that everything is normal, life is normal, I am normal, my mind is sane. Patterns are everything, and by now there has been sufficient opportunity for something strange to happen, but it hasn’t. So now it’s time for Mr. Brainy to look at the pattern that I am force-feeding to it and to use that to predict future outcomes, because that is what it does best.

I got through the night and day so far with the simple thought of “I know you think….and I know how real it seems….but let’s look at the pattern…haven’t you felt this way before? If not worse?....What was the outcome then? Do you think this time it’s different? Don’t you know that just like in the past, the reality will again be normalcy and this worry and anxiety will have once again been a useless waste of time and caused unnecessary distress when you simply could have enjoyed life?

Patterns, baby, patterns…isn’t that your forte?

Oh, but the symptoms? Perhaps we should get rid of the symptoms so that there are no longer any anxiety triggers? But you see, if you get rid of one trigger there will always be another, because the problem isn’t the worries or the triggers, the problem is the underlying anxiety. And it’s the anxiety is what has to be tackled. But the symptoms won’t go away as long as the anxiety is there. So the anxiety has to go first and then the symptoms will follow, which means that there will be a period where there are symptoms which would usually trigger anxiety which have to be seen for what they are and not result in additional anxiety. The anxiety over the symptoms has to go first before the symptoms themselves subside. Otherwise it’s a self-fulfilling vicious, never-ending cycle.

So now I’ve established this:

• There’s nothing really wrong

• The only issue is anxiety

• Any symptoms are 100% attributable to the anxiety

• Seeing the symptoms for what they are and knowing that they will subside when the anxiety does if they are now allowed to cause additional anxiety helps to avoid needless spirals

• The anxiety itself will subside as the brain sees the pattern that:

o The worry that triggers the anxiety never actualizes

o Outcomes are usually neutral or positive

o Outcomes are never as bad as worried about

o The worry itself was not helpful

o The worrying was not harmful

o The worry was distressful

o The worry was unrealistic

o The worry was pointless

o The worry only kept me from enjoying the good reality

o Worry has no benefit such as helping avoid or cope with anything

o Worry is absolutely controllable, stoppable and postponable

o Worry has been replaced with positive thoughts and realistic views of myself and of the world around me

o I am in touch with my thoughts and can meditate on and think about many other things besides what-ifs and unrealistic worst-case scenarios

Back at square one minus the after-effects

Welcome to normal. You see, now my brain is really starting up with me. It’s doing what I always did as a child; it’s prodding and instigating. I wake up in the morning feeling great after an amazing night’s sleep for which I have to pat myself on the back.

Aside about sleep:

Sleep was something that I struggled with for years prior to going into my current battle with anxiety, and now when it should seemingly be harder than ever, I have been able to relax myself enough to fall asleep without a single sleeping aid, I have been able to stay asleep for extended periods of time, fall back asleep when I do wake up in middle of the night, and go back to sleep even in the morning light! I used to toss and turn unable to sleep, I used to need background noise to fall asleep or a radio on, and now I am able to relax, breathe, calm my mind, gather my thoughts, think to myself, and fall asleep, back asleep, stay asleep, and have normal and pleasant dreams. And all this is with the worst anxiety and emotional and mental distress I have ever had in my life. Now that shows what I am capable of and I should be very proud of that! My entire life until this entire episode was a blur of background noise and distractions, followed by the inability to deal with silence and listen to my own thoughts, all in an attempt to keep me from stopping for a second and thinking. The anxiety and my journey through it has taught me to stop, calm down, relax, listen to my thoughts, talk to them, tell them what is really happening around me, and disprove any of its preconceived notions about life and reality. Now I listen and talk to my thoughts all day, never once attempting to silence, avoid, suppress, or drown them out. I am in touch with my thoughts, my consciousness and my awareness – that’s me – the me I’ve been searching for and trying to identify. I have also learned to de-stress each day when my wife is exercising or with a client, by turning off the TV and lights, taking some deep breaths, gathering my thoughts, listening to them, addressing them, talking to them, and challenging them when necessary. I go through my day and realize what I accomplished that day and how much I contributed to myself, my family, and the world. I implant into my subconscious true and positive beliefs and facts about myself and the world, which in turn helps change my reactions to things. And I am most proud of myself because I made the decision to do all of this without the help of a medication or therapist. Not that I’m better than anyone else, but knowing myself, medication would not help me and would only make me more anxious as I think about the side effects and after effects, but mostly because there isn’t a pill in the world that will make my anxiety go away. I am anxious for a reason, and all that the medication may do – and experience has shown that it won’t – is remove the symptoms of anxiety and perhaps make me drowsy, that’s all. I don’t want only the symptoms to go away, nor do I want to not be in control of myself. I do not want any side effects, nor do I want to become tolerant and need more and more medications and higher doses, and then become an addict as the medications begin to become less effective, as daily news stories continue to show, the rate of prescription and overdoses of prescription painkillers and muscle relaxants is increasing at staggering rates. Anxiety and worry never killed anyone. It was the medications or alcohol that the individual took that killed them. And that’s not the path I want or am going to take. I have two choices: either take medication to deal with only the symptoms of anxiety, and then have the side effects of the medication, the escalation of medication dependency, the health effects and possible death resulting from the medications, plus the strong possibility of losing my wife, my children, my job, etc. as I would begin to be under the influence of medications and progress down that path. And it’s not like I can take a medication that would just help for the long term, because it’s my mind and thoughts that I’m dealing with and nothing will turn off my mind. Nothing. But what I can do is control my thoughts. Gather my thoughts. Listen to my thoughts. Be in touch with my thoughts. Challenge my thoughts when they are not accurate. Input new, accurate, positive thoughts into my subconscious in order to replace the wrong, inaccurate or avoided thoughts that filled it before all of this. And the side effect of that? Actually tackling the underlying anxiety, beliefs, and thought processes. Now perhaps I may never fully tackle it, you may say, but remember that with medications, alcohol, drugs, etc. I’m still not even tackling them and I’m not even trying to! And then there are the side effects that have landed many people in hospitals, jails, or coffins. When tackling the thoughts themselves, there are no negative side effects whatsoever, and there is are many possible and likely positive side effects, like actually dealing with the core issue. So do I choose to drown out the thoughts, deal with the devastating aftereffects and still never get to the bottom of the issue, or do I tackle the underlying issue, have no negative side effects, have many immediate and future positive side effects, and perhaps even deal with the issue and move on as a better person who knows and understands myself better than ever and is more realistic, mature and mentally stable to raise my family? Hmm, it’s a no-brainer, forgive the pun. So that’s why I pat myself on the back. Because I made the difficult but mature decision that as long as I could function and get through the day, take care of my responsibilities to my family, my job, myself, my community, etc., that I would tackle the rest mentally and emotionally and without any cop-outs, I can give myself a lot of credit. Who’s me? Who am I? I asked myself not too long ago. I am the one who made the conscious decision to get in touch with myself, and I am the myself with whom I am getting in touch. I am the one who gets through the day each day and tackles the thoughts that are mine as well. I am the one who makes the conscious effort daily to care for my wife and children, control my thoughts and actions, try to see the reality of things, and give my children the tools and values to help them grow into emotionally stable people. In fact, just yesterday, AOL/Huffpost published a story about ex-SNL star Darryl Hammond who just came out with a new book in which he reveals that he had a very dark side. Due to a horrible childhood, he was having emotional distress and disturbing thoughts. He turned to cutting, painkillers, and eventually to hard illegal drugs, living in crack houses, and then had all of the effects that come with that: hospitalization, family issues, work issues, legal issues, etc. Lucky for him he never got into real trouble with the law and is still alive to tell his story, but many are not as fortunate. So he finally went to rehab, had a relapse, went to rehab again, now has countless physical and health effects – oh, and the kicker – with all the wasted years, money, and the lifelong effects that he is now left with – he did nothing to even attempt to address his thoughts, anxieties, etc. So now, after all of the hell and the rehab, and the recovery addiction which is essentially lifelong, he also still has to deal with the core issue that started this craziness in the first place! So here I am, dealing with a less intense circumstance but horrifying and distressful nonetheless, but I get to have the objectivity to see myself through it, hold onto my life, my family, my job and my health. And just like he ended up back at square one, so am I, only without the lifelong effects that he will now have to struggle with. Bravo! I honestly did not ever know how strong I was, but now I am starting to get a glimpse of it. Of me. Of I.

Then I remember that my brain has been playing games with me for reasons that I will go into in a moment. Then I begin to purposely hyper-focus, purposely mix up information and images in my head in order to freak myself out and say, “You see? You are crazy!” But of course, I do nothing out of the ordinary in actuality because I am not losing it. So to the outside world everything is normal and ordinary. But in my head, it’s crazy at times.

So let’s analyze what is happening and what is not happening, and then I will analyze the causes of what’s happening. It will show that what’s happening is essentially nothing, the consequences are nothing, and the causes are nothing. It’s nothing with nothing.

Drill, baby, drill!

Now, here’s something important to look at:

If the last two weeks and even months, when looked at by someone outside of my head, were typical, if not amazing, then that it is the fact: it was all good. Any turmoil was limited to my own brain. Hmm, so that means that life was and is great, yet in my own mind there was unwarranted and unrealistic fear and worry. That worry made me enjoy the reality a lot less than I would have had I been less in my own head and more involved in what was actually happening. Now, had my mind been in synch with the reality which was in fact great, I would have enjoyed it a lot more and most likely others would have as well. So what I’m asking of my brain and mind is to see the actual reality for what it really is and to just get with the program. Realize that everything has always turned out good, things are good right now, and things will be good in the future as well. And any fears or negative thoughts are just worries and not actuality or reality. Worries may appear real but we know for a fact based on the facts and extensive past experience that they are nothing other than worries that are not happening and which will never happen. That said, let’s let go of the fake worries and let’s focus on the actual reality.

And here’s an important advantage: Many people do really have realistic negativity in their lives as well as realistic worries. In their case, they still have to challenge their worries because as likely as they are to happen, they are still inactionable thoughts and worries that are not taking place at the time, and which may never actually happen, regardless of how likely. In my case, I do not need to look past real negativity or actual likely negative outcomes because there are none! I simply need to let go of the worry instinct and habit and get with the actuality and reality which is good! On top of all that, since I did not turn to anything that would compound the worry problem such as alcohol, illegal drugs, prescription drugs, etc. I don’t have anything other than the worry itself to get rid of! Isn’t that amazing?? I don’t have to see through any real problems, I don’t have to overcome any addictions, I didn’t let the worry stop me from doing anything at all, so there’s no harm done to my family life and job as a result, and I have plenty of positive things to turn to – so everything is the same, everything is amazing, I know that the feeling is one of worry and fear, I know that the fears have never actualized, I know that none of the fears are real at the present time, and I know why I am prone to worry, I know how to address the worries, I have seen success in tackling my fears, and I am chipping away at the general tendency to see or expect negativity. And the best part is that the subconscious brain is seeing a pattern: none of the fears and worries have ever actualized, none are actual at the moment, and as a result, it can deduce that none are likely to ever happen. So now Mr. Worry is left hanging out to dry, naked and exposed. It creates its own symptoms resulting from lack of focus and distraction and then points to them as “proof” that the worry is true. Oh, and it’s so pathetic, that it points to events that in the end were never even real and where I actually did the right and smart thing, and uses them to scare me. The scare itself triggers the panic even though the trigger was false to begin with. But I’ve got its number because I know that:

• There is nothing real to worry about

• The “evidence” to support the worry is either false, normal, or caused by the worry itself

• The worry has been proven false time and time again, and all past experience show them to be 100% false

• There is a ton of positive all around me that it’s trying to keep me from

So now we’re down to a problem with “worrying” itself – no other problems! The “proofs” are normal, false scares, or self-caused. So, knowing that it’s just worry and no real problems, the worry is on its own with no life support. Baseless worry. So why do I hold on to worry if it’s been proven baseless time and time again? Although my conscious brain is fully aware, perhaps my subconscious has not yet completely given up on the false belief that worry is:

• The most unlikely scenarios that have never actualized

• The most unlikely scenarios that will never actualize

• Unhelpful, useless, unbeneficial thoughts that will not and have never helped prepare for, prevent, or cope with a negative scenario

• Disruptive and distressing

• Controllable and stoppable

• Hurting me my preventing me from enjoying the joys of the great life I was granted

The brain only holds onto behaviors that it believes are helpful and beneficial. By the subconscious brain changing its beliefs about worry – and that’s all it is, worry – it will let go of that behavior because it will then know that it is not helpful or beneficial, and most of all that it is not even necessary or based in any fact. It only needs to look at the patterns of events to see that only positive has and will happen despite the worry, as realistic as it may have appeared at the time, and it will see that the worry never helped with anything and it only caused useless emotional distress. So that said, the brain which acts on instinct and self-preservation will let go of the underlying worry impulse, seeing that it was never necessary, is not needed, is unhelpful, has never been helpful, and can be easily stopped once it is clear that it is not needed and unwarranted. It also has the benefit of plenty of actuality to focus on, to distract itself from thinking too much about what isn’t happening. So all the facts, past historical proof and patterns, tools and knowledge are in place, the worry was isolated, and now it’s down to the impulse to worry for no reason at all. Now, the subconscious needs to continue to be drilled and flooded with this information until it changes its emotional and physical behavioral reactions, as a result of its cognitive modification about worry. It is happening and will continue to happen. Drill, baby, drill!

Challenging my false belief systems

To that end, this is what I have accomplished and will continue to reinforce:

1. I will not avoid exposure to the misfortunes of others, since avoidance does not solve anything and can actually reinforce the fear

2. I recognize that I react emotionally to the misfortunes of others in a manner that is beyond one individual sympathizing for another, but to the point where I actually internalize their misfortune and truly believe that I have, may have, or may one day have the same problem as them

3. I recognize that it is not a hard-wired reaction, but that it stems from a false belief system

4. I recognize that the false belief system is that if I sympathize enough and internalize their tragedy, I can either help them or prevent myself from having the same problem. I recognize that the false belief system involves fallacies related to hypochondria (if I know of an illness I am likely to get it myself or should try to avoid or prevent it; worrying about illnesses will help me prevent them, catch them earlier, or make me more able to cope if I do get them) and paranoia (thinking that if it’s bad and it’s out there, it’s likely to happen to me).

I challenge those belief systems, by knowing, understanding and reinforcing the facts that:

1. Sympathizing with other people’s tragedies does not help them at all

2. In fact, staying above and separate from their tragedy is more helpful. If every doctor would think they have what the patient has, they would have difficulty remaining separate enough to treat the patient, or if every firefighter would run into a burning building without safety equipment and a rescue plan, who will save the victims? A person needs to see other people’s problems as being the problems of the other person, and needs to care but not personalize and internalize it so that they can maintain their status as separate from the person with the problem, thus enabling them to help.

3. Knowing or hearing of a problem that someone else has does not make it any more likely that I will have that problem

4. Worrying that I may get the same issue that someone else has will not make me more able to prevent or cope with it if it does

5. Every time I did overly sympathize and internalize someone else’s illness, it never actualized and in many cases what their issue was not even applicable to me as a male, etc.

6. The people to whose misfortunes I’ve internalized throughout my life have been

i. Not me (exactly that: individuals other than me who should not be compared to me)

ii. Vastly different from me (unable to understand the trauma they experienced or see themselves objectively, etc.)

iii. Under extremely different circumstances from mine (victims of sexual abuse, extreme violence, war, tribal conflict, live in different parts of the world, etc.)

 I am adopting a healthy belief system that includes:

1. I am me. I am not anyone else and no one else is me. What happens to me applies to me and to me alone. What happens to others applies to the others alone. What happens to me does not apply to others. What happens to others does not apply to me. I am me and my life and experiences are my own. Others are just that – others – and their experiences apply to them alone. This includes TV commercials and movies portraying others as having illnesses, tragedies or painful conditions.

2. Overly sympathizing with or internalizing the tragedies or misfortunes of others does not help them at all with whatever they are experiencing

3. Overly sympathizing with or internalizing the tragedies or misfortunes of others inhibits my ability to remain separate from the other person’s problems, making it difficult to assist them if I can

4. Overly sympathizing with or internalizing the tragedies or misfortunes of others makes me miserable for no reason since it makes me worry, wonder, or experience something that I don’t actually have

5. Hearing about another’s misfortune does not make it any more likely that I too have or will experience their misfortune

6. Most misfortunes that I have been or will be exposed to in my lifetime are not applicable to me, or will never occur to me

7. I am a person who enjoys helping others and in order to do so I need to see others as others and myself as myself.

With the old, incorrect belief system debunked and my new belief system in place, I will begin to behave and react emotionally in accordance with my new and accurate belief system:

1. I will be able to observe myself as me – an individual, unique person with my own set of life experience, history and circumstances

2. I will be able to observe people and events as separate from me and inapplicable to me

3. I will sympathize for others by caring but not internalizing or personalizing their misfortunes

4. I will not fear that I am more likely to be a victim of the same misfortune that I am exposed to

5. I will realize that most other people’s circumstances are not applicable or relatable to me

6. I will assist others when I can as an individual who is completely separate, independent, different, and other than the person I am helping who understands and feels for what they are experiencing but who am not myself experiencing it, nor do I fear that I may have now or in the future whatever it is the other person is dealing with.

I will then proceed to know who I am:

1. A healthy

2. Strong

3. Determined

4. Accomplished

5. Ambitious

6. Mentally stable

7. Well-established

8. Intelligent

9. Great father

10. Great husband

11. Member of a great community

12. Whose children attend schools in the community

14. Active, participating and contributing member of my community

15. Great neighbor

16. Good friend

17. Good confidant

18. Helping hand when needed and wanted

19. Always happy and cheerful

20. Put together

21. Gainfully employed

22. Great employee

23. Great employer

24. Who established, runs and grows a great company

25. Respected by neighbors, colleagues, co-workers, community members, friends, etc.

26. Who has and enjoys a great life, relationships, living conditions, working conditions, etc. that I created and maintain.

27. Is a great sibling who is looked up to

I am not anyone else

Now, before I could believe in myself, I have to know who I am. But first and foremost, I need to know who I am not:

• I am not anyone else

• Everyone is different, individual and unique

• What applies to everyone else does not apply to me

• Someone else’s misfortune, tragedy, illness is not mine.

• Despite my conditioning in childhood, I am not benefitting others by sympathizing and taking on their misfortunes

• I am not benefitting myself by applying the misfortune of others to myself.

• I cannot avoid the misfortunes of others because avoidance is not helpful

• I need to learn to view the misfortunes or fortunes of others as an outsider – separate from them.

• Just as others are not me, I am not others.

Think about a doctor in a hospital. The doctor is conditioned to see himself as separate from his patients. If doctors would behave like I do emotionally, they would always be applying all of their patients’ illnesses to themselves and wonder if they themselves have the problems that their patients have. Similarly and possibly more intensely, a psychotherapist cannot engage with patients with severe mental illnesses and start to wonder if they too are going crazy, hearing voices, bipolar, schizophrenic, etc. Therapists need to see themselves as individuals unto themselves who went to school and obtained a degree in mental health. This independent individual, licensed to treat individuals with mental illness now opens a practice or works in a facility where s/he listens to patients who are separate people with their individual issues. The therapist speaks with them. The therapist diagnoses the patient. And the therapist treats the patient. The therapist does not become the patient or think that they may have the same issue as the patient.

Think about the therapist I called, the psychiatrist I contacted, or the neurologist I consulted with and visited. They see patients all day and hear about and get deeply involved in their issues. But they do not become intimate or personal with their issues. They understand the roles: I am me, the doctor, and you are you, the patient. You can tell me all about what you are experiencing and feeling and I will listen to your story and tell you want I think you can do to change the way you think, feel and behave.

I have a problem where my sympathetic portion of my brain is overly sensitized to things it perceives. That, coupled with paranoia and hypochondria, and you have an individual who is so overly sympathetic that every tragedy or illness triggers sympathy and personalization of the other person’s tragedy. One night I’m listening to a news story about mental health issues resulting from years of war in Liberia and thinking that the severe mental illnesses resulting from the extreme trauma the people there incurred applies to me, and the next morning I’m reading the transcript of Michael Jackson’s last words, and thinking that I have the same mental disorder that he had and that ultimately resulted in his early death.

The common denominator is that in both cases:

• I am applying things that happened to others to myself

• The individuals to whom I am comparing myself are extremely, beyond the ability to contrast, different from me

• The individuals to whom I am comparing myself have endured trauma that is extremely, beyond the ability to contrast, different from me

• The individuals whose issues I am “adopting” are extremely, beyond the ability to contrast, different from each other

• The individuals whose issues I am “adopting” don’t benefit from me internalizing their tragedy

• The individuals whose issues I am “adopting” do not want me to internalize their tragedy

• The individuals whose issues I am “adopting” would never care enough about me to internalize my tragedies

This is not a hardwire issue as described earlier. It is a learned behavior. I got it from my father who conditioned me to believe that if you have enough worry, sympathy and pain for someone else, you may actually be able to help them or make their problems easier to handle.

The problem is, that it’s not true. In fact, it’s the furthest thing from the truth. And since it’s not true, it needs to be changed. And the way to change the behavior of internalizing and reacting emotionally to the tragedies of others is to:

• Recognize and acknowledge the behavior or emotional reaction

• Recognize that it stems from a false belief system

• Recognize what the false belief system

• Challenge the false belief system to prove that it is in fact false

• Adopt a healthy belief system

• Begin to react behaviorally and emotionally based on the true belief system.

No action to be taken

Interestingly, my wife just emailed a link to an article saying that a 25-year-old actress is in therapy for a panic and anxiety disorder. In her case, she described her fear as:

“I think too much and overanalyze things. I'll start worrying about my parents or my dog, and I'll picture him opening the window of my apartment and falling out, even though I can't get that thing open myself."

In her case, she becomes anxious and panicky about the fear that her dog may open and leap out of the window. Now, if it were a true concern or a real possibility, she would go home and ensure that the windows are bolted shut or dog-proofed, or she would have someone watch or check on her dog. But because it is not a realistic fear, she does not take any action. This perception of danger with nothing to do about it result in panic and anxiety as the brain feels trapped, thinking that something is or may go terribly wrong and there is nothing I can do about it. But the reality is that there is nothing wrong or that may realistically go terribly wrong, and that’s the very reason she is taking no action. And, that if there were in fact an actual or possible danger, there are actions to be taken and she would take action. The brain is confusing the lack of action actually being taken (due to the reality that there is no danger and therefore no action to take), with the lack of action to be taken (in the event of a true emergency).

So to get at the core, I need to look past all the symptoms and the lack of action being taken and to realize at the core that there is in fact nothing wrong, and therefore no action to be taken, and as a result, no action is being taken. It is all imagination, what-if, worst-case scenario prediction and fortune telling, and not actual or factual. And there is no action to be taken for an imaginary what-if. And that’s why no action is being taken.

So let’s roll it back:

• I am not taking an action

• Because there is no action to be taken

• Because there is no actual situation to react to

• Because the danger is in my imagination

• And my imagination is causing me to be anxious

• Which is causing symptoms that reinforce my imaginary fears

• And since the symptoms are a result of anxiety

• And the anxiety is a result of an imaginary fear

• And the imaginary fear is not real or realistic

• There is no reason for anxiety

• And there is no point in focusing on imaginary situations

• And instead I should be focusing on the reality

• And reacting to it physically and emotionally

• All the time, knowing that if there were ever a true and actual situation, there is action to be taken and I would take it.

Also to note:

• A doctor or emergency responder can treat a real situation or emergency

• But a doctor cannot treat an imagined problem. You cannot tell a doctor to treat a wound you don’t have or a wound you are afraid you may get.

• A firefighter can’t put out a fire in a building you are afraid will go up in flames

• There is either no real problem and therefore no one to call because there is nothing that can be done

• Or there is a real problem, and things to do about it

• Or there is no problem, no reason to worry, no benefit to worrying, and no one to call and nothing to do

• And while there is no reason to worry about what might happen, there is reason to focus instead on what is happening, to be in the present and enjoy it

• To not get wrapped up in imaginary fears that there is nothing to do about

• And to get wrapped up in what is actually happening, where there is what can be done about it – enjoy it.

And the key point:

• While a doctor or emergency responder can treat a true situation, it is only I myself who can provide the reassurance that I am okay when there is no real situation.

• A doctor would say there is nothing for me to treat

• And his reassurance that I am okay would not last because what if something goes wrong in the future? What if there’s something wrong and the doctor doesn’t know or missed it?

• That’s where I myself come in: I need to reassure myself that I am okay, and I need to trust and believe in myself and my reassurances.

Getting past the symptoms and isolating the anxiety itself

The way to attack this final frontier is to isolate the anxiety itself and attack it at the core. It’s similar to when a patient is rushed into the ER, covered in blood. It’s easy for the doctor to panic and start cleaning the blood and treating each wound. But the way to treat the patient is to take a step back and analyze the patient, isolate the symptoms and identify the core issue and then treat it. Or like when a person comes to the doctor complaining of headaches, congestion, chest pains, and pain when swallowing. The doctor can treat the individual symptoms, but it would still not solve anything because the underlying illness that is causing the diverse symptoms was not identified and treated, thus treating all of the symptoms with it.

So a good doctor takes a step back and analyzes the symptoms and identifies the underlying issue. And that’s what I’m going to do. You see, the brain thinks that it could use thoughts as its weapon of last resort because who can argue with thoughts? But someone can. And that person is me. I am the only one in my own head who knows me best and who knows the truth about things. Only I can look myself in the eye, figuratively speaking of course, and assure myself of the one thing that no one else can. I am my own worst enemy, but I am also my own best chance at confronting this enemy. And I’m getting good at it, so I know I’m going to overcome this one as well. And it will empower me to self-assure with everything and anything else.

Let’s first touch on something that I told my wife yesterday because it think it is so fundamental and encouraging: Life has 3 types of situations:

• Where there is nothing wrong and no reason for medical attention or emergency services

• Where there is a non-emergency medical issue that requires a visit to a doctor

• Where there is a medical emergency that requires emergency medical services

In the first instance, there is nothing wrong, so you do nothing. In the second instance, you visit a doctor who determines that you have a virus or infection, prescribes medication or refers the patient to a specialist. And in the third instance, the person calls 911 and receives the help they need.

Panic and anxiety – including and especially about issues of health and mental illness – comes when:

• There is in fact nothing wrong

• The brain perceives that something is or might go wrong

• Since there is nothing wrong in fact, there is no doctor to visit or emergency service to call

• As a result, the brain feels trapped, thinking that something is or might go wrong, but there is no one to call

• It goes so far, to the point where it actually forgets that if something were in fact wrong, there are medical and emergency services to call, so it feels even more trapped

• Panic ensues at the brain feels like something is wrong but there is nothing it can do.

• The fact, however, is that there is nothing wrong, and that’s why there is nothing to do.

• And the fact is that if there were something wrong there would be no questions about it, and there are plenty of resources to call who would respond at a moment’s notice.

• It is the cognitive dissonance between the illusion that “something is or might go terribly wrong and there’s nothing I can do”, and the reality that “there is nothing wrong and that’s why there’s nothing I am doing or can do, (and that if there were something really wrong there is plenty that can be done as has been done in the past during real emergency situations)

That said, instead of panicking over the feeling of being trapped by being unable to do anything about a serious situation, the focus needs to shift to the fact that there is no emergency situation and therefore there is nothing to do. And the proof that there is nothing to do is that you are not actually doing anything, because there is plenty to do in a true emergency or even a non-emergency, and your lack of action is because there is no action to take because there is no situation to react to.