What is needed most is for me to trust myself when I reassure myself. I no longer see anyone else’s reassurance as comforting so I am only left with me. and that’s a scary thought, but in truth it is empowering. It’s good to know that in a true emergency there is police, ambulance and fire departments to call. There are also doctors and emergency rooms. But for the daily, standard issues like muscle twitches, muscle spasms, anxiety attacks, etc., I need to rely on myself and self-soothe. I, my conscious brain, knows the facts: that there is nothing seriously wrong. In fact, if there were, I would be going to a doctor, taking a pill, or calling emergency services. But I’m not because I know the cause and resolution to whatever is happening, be it real or imagined. But I need to learn to trust my own reassurance because it is the only true reassurance. Self-belief is all we have at the end of the day! When I start to have some anxiety and it results in muscle twitches, then I know for a fact based on what’s happening now and on past experience that it is a symptom of the anxiety and not a separate issue to be anxious about. So knowing that, I should:
• Not panic about the physiological anxiety symptoms
• Relax
• Address the reason for the anxiety and realize that it is simply an unnecessary fear about an unfactual worry
• Look at my surroundings and all of the good things in my life that are actually happening
• Cease to worry
• Cease to react emotionally to non-factual worries
• Begin to react emotionally to the facts – to the gratitude at having a job with a great salary and a beautiful family and a happy home to go to after work with no commute or added stress
• Be excited to go out tonight and have a break from the kids and spend some romantic special time with my wife
Trust myself! Be soothed and reassured by myself! Know that there is help in the event of a true emergency! Believe myself! Be as generous to myself as I would be toward someone else in the same situation who I would reassure by telling them that it’s just from the anxiety and will go away with the anxiety. Start to get in touch with what is really happening. Take the emotional and physiological reactions away from what is not real. Start to put those emotions and reactions into what is real and is really happening. I am at my great job, surrounded by great people, with room for growth, and have a great home and family to go home to and a fun, enjoyable, peaceful night planned. No more useless, unnecessary fear and panic about non-factual and improbable worries. Only love, joy, happiness and gratitude about the great fortune that is tangible, actual, factual, and perceivable with the five senses!
One of the self-assurances that needs to take place – and effective immediately – is that I’m not going crazy!!! You see, my brain is a silly little thing that likes to play games with itself. And when all else fails, as it has, because there is nothing in fact to be anxious about, my brain turns to the most intangible and vague irrational fears – that I’m going crazy. Because who can argue with that, right? If I’m thinking crazy things, then in my head I must be going crazy. And since it’s thoughts, then it doesn’t matter what others say, because even though I’m acting normal, my thoughts feel crazy. And that’s the ultimate frontier that I am now facing and challenging and will successfully overcome as I did everything else. My brain is backed into a corner where it received all of the medical clearance it could ever want or need, all of the external validation and all of the assurances that I am okay based on testing and behavior. So it pulls out its last weapon: thoughts. Sure, all of the medical tests are perfect and you were reassured that you are normal, but no one can tell you that you are normal in your thoughts, because only you know your own thoughts. So there! Gotcha! And then the brain reinforces this nonsense by using every little misstep or misstatement – which for anyone else would be considered normal and laughed at – or thought, to validate this fear. And when there aren’t any such thoughts, it creates them and then points to them as proof of mental illness. Then, anxiety ensues, fueled by the fear that I’m losing my mind. Anxiety then results in lack of attention to and focus on surroundings, and a sense of detachment, along with the fear that I’m going crazy. These symptoms of the anxiety result in weird thoughts or actions. These anxiety symptoms further fuel the fear of mental illness that originally triggered the anxiety in the first place, so it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Before confronting the issue it is important to remember that the darkest moments are right before the light, so it is actually a good sign that the brain is pulling out its most desperate weapon of last resort – the weapon of thoughts. It shows that all else has been confronted and now the final battle has arrived. Like in a video game or an action movie, the first battles involve the faceless minions of the big boss, but then the final scene always involves a battle royal with the most notorious enemy leader. But when the battle royal comes, you also know that the ultimate victory is near. So the deeper the darkness, the more cornered and desperate the enemy is, and the closer the breakthrough. The key is not succumbing at the last moments, staying strong, and then having the opportunity to break through into the light. And that’s what I am going to do!
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