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