Perhaps worry and emotion suppression were needed in order to get to where I am today. I accept that and I don’t challenge that. But now, it’s okay. Like a soldier coming back from war who needs to be trained that it is okay to walk down the street and not dodge bullets or jump at a popping sound, I too need to understand that it is now okay to let down that guard that was needed for survival until now. I also need to accept that it is okay to feel good about myself and to enjoy my accomplishments. Perhaps it did not fit in until now, but now it does. The prisoner of war or a Holocaust survivor afraid to leave his cell or to escape the concentration camp is now told that it’s okay to leave. It’s safe to. Come out. The sight of friendly soldiers is sometimes not enough to reverse years of conditioning. But a little prodding and encouraging – in my case self-prodding and self-encouraging – can do wonders.
To get a full picture of what’s happening, it’s important to see things from an objective point of view. Anxiety has a nasty way of putting oneself inside one’s head in a seemingly endless circle, so it’s important to break out of it. We first have to establish what is not happening so that we can have a truly accurate perspective of what is happening.
1. This is not depression. Depression is the inability to get out of bed and enjoy life. Symptoms include having difficulty getting up in the morning, feeling drowsy, crying a lot for no apparent reason, letting oneself go hygienically, seeing no purpose to life, and having the inability to find things enjoyable.
If anything, this is the opposite of depression. It’s (self-)oppression. I find it hard to stay in bed. I am frustrated by the feeling of anxiety interfering with my desire to enjoy life. I am keyed up, and definitely not tired. I am careful through the entire ordeal to not let myself go or to walk in public with what I am feeling being apparent. I see so much purpose to life and so much to enjoy that I am actually frustrated (expressed as anxious) by the anxiety interfering with that.
Although depression about having an anxiety disorder is co-morbid, a neurologist and a psychiatrist confirmed that the primary diagnosis, if you will, is of anxiety, which is the core which needs to be addressed and the related conditions will go with it.
2. This is not a mental disorder. It’s not a mental disorder because every single symptom that I’ve experienced that led me to suspect a mental disorder was described as a symptom of anxiety disorder. In fact, just feeling like you are losing it is a symptom of a mental disorder. Besides, a neurologist and a psychiatrist assured me that we are not dealing with a mental disorder. Additionally, if I was I wouldn’t be so aware or afraid (anxious) about having one. It would just happen and others would see it before me. in fact, while I am thinking I’m losing it, others have no idea. Somehow, I am magically able to snap out of the supposed mental disorder and I am hyper-aware of it, both of which are absolute proof that there is no mental disorder at play here. Additionally, there is my wife who knows me better than I know myself, who would detect a mental disorder before anyone and she is confident that there are no signs of mental disorder. In fact, anxiety is carried by the person not being focused and forgetting something or mixing something up and then being anxious about the fact that they think they are losing it. Also, mental disorders can’t be talked down like anxiety can and it does not get better or take a week vacation. It would also be so severe after all these months, but in fact this past week was my best week in months.
3. Anxiety disorder is not irreversible. In fact, everywhere I turn, all I see is how treatable it is. It is treatable because it is not a real thing. It is a learned behavior and a young, healthy brain like mine can easily relearn the correct information that will result in healthy reactions and feelings. There is nothing to fix. The subconscious brain was instilled with a set of beliefs and cognitions and simply needs to be reconditioned to understand the falsity of those beliefs and to be supplied with a set of true beliefs.
The false beliefs that my brain was conditioned to have include:
· Worry is helpful,
· Worry is harmful,
· I have a need for certainty
· I cannot cope with uncertainty
· Emotions are messy and should be avoided at all costs
· I will not be able to cope if something bad were to happen
· I am not worthy of enjoying the life I created
· I may not believe that I actually am a good husband, father, provider, employee, and boss
· If things are good, then I need to worry that it is volatile and the worst will happen
· The worst case scenario that I can imagine is what is going to happen
The true beliefs that my brain is being reconditioned to understand include:
· Worry is unhelpful,
· Worry is not harmful and I am not losing my mind when I worry,
· I do not have a need for, nor do I truly want certainty
· I can cope with uncertainty, in fact I do it almost every second of the day
· Emotions may be messy, but they are a fact of life, they are healthy expressions of feeling, and they are mostly good, and should not be avoided
· I am very capable of coping with whatever life throws my way
· I am worthy of enjoying the life I created for myself, my family and my workplace
· I may and should believe that I actually am a good husband, father, provider, employee, and boss
· If things are good, that’s all there is, because the present is all we have, the future is mostly good, and is in God’s hands and will therefore always be for the best as it always has been.
· As past experience has consistently shown, outcomes are usually good and are mostly better than expected or imagined, and the predicted worst has never really happened and most likely won’t in the future.
Now that it’s clearly established that there is nothing at play here other than anxiety itself with no reason for anxiety other than the anxiety itself, and that it is a result of false beliefs which are 100% reversible, and that I know and believe the true beliefs and simply need to work on reinforcing them, we can now go on to picture what is, in fact, happening.
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