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.

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.

The darkest moments come right before the light

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!

From reassurance to self-assurance

The next item to address is self-assurance. You see, this entire episode of anxiety was triggered by one thing: when the final rug of external reassurance was pulled out from under me. Since this entire chapter was preceded by that event and is clearly related to it, there is no question in my mind that it is one of the core issues at hand. My entire life, I turned to others for reassurance. Since I was not imbued with a healthy self-confidence, I always made it a habit to seek out the reassurances of others. I turned to friends, doctors, siblings, etc. to tell me that I’m doing a great job, that I’m a good person, and that I’m going to be okay. I lived with the illusion – or rather delusion – that I can rely on others to imbue me with the self-confidence that I needed. But that only worked to a point. As I matured, I began to see the cracks in my reassurers. I started to see their weaknesses, that they had vulnerabilities too. And in my image, as described earlier, I always believed that the person providing reassurance needs to be invincible which was why I suppressed my emotions since I felt I needed to in order to provide reassurance to others. I held those who provided me with reassurance to the same standard, needing to see them as invincible. So when I started to see that the doctor I went to for reassurance also got sick, the neurologist had a heart attack himself, my guidance counselor had a son who died a slow horrible death before age 5, and that my friend who was my source of reassurance was going through a painful and depressing health issue.

For some reason, this exposure of the humanity and vulnerability of the people I looked to for reassurance removed the facade that I had created of invincible heroes. To me, if they were vulnerable how could they reassure me?

So one of the new realizations that came with my maturity and growth was that all that is left is me. I can no longer rely on others to provide the reassurance I need, because at the end of the day, no one really can. Only I can reassure myself that I’m a good person and a good husband, father, sibling, son, employee, employer and friend. Because at the end of the day, I am with myself all day and only I can provide for myself what I always sought from others. I became addicted to running to doctors and others for a constant pat on the back. But those people can only handle so much; they don’t live with me, and they are not inside my head. Even my wife’s reassurance is limited by the amount of time and patience she has to provide while she manages a home and four children. And at the end of the day, she goes to sleep and I’m there lying in bed with my own thoughts.

And that leaves just me. Only I need to have the self-assurance, self-confidence and self-esteem that will be with me the entire day and night, since only I am with myself at all times. And only I am in my own head. And only I know myself best.

I was a reassurance addict. Like a person addicted to dopamine, I was addicted to reassurance. And as is the case with a dopamine addiction where the brain, sensing the steady supply of external dopamine stops producing it naturally. Then when the addict stops taking dopamine there is a period of withdrawal, where the person is no longer receiving external dopamine and the brain has not yet resumed natural dopamine production. That leaves a void, and that void is distressing because there is a temporary lack of the needed chemical. That is what leads addicts to resume their habit because the withdrawal is so painful. But if they would just hold out until the brain adapts to the lack of external infusions and kicks in with natural production, they would be alright. It is a matter of having the strength and willpower to hold out during the temporary withdrawal.

And that’s what happened with me. I was a reassurance addict, so I never learned to reassure myself and to have the confidence and self-esteem I needed. Then when the façade of external reassurance was broken and there were no longer any external infusions of reassurance, withdrawal set in because my own brain did not pick up the slack and start to provide me with the self-assurance I always needed. Like with addiction recovery, it is extremely important that I ride out this withdrawal period, all the while tapping into my own, endless supply of self-assurance and self-esteem.

Luckily, I have accomplished and achieved so much in my lifetime thus far and have so much love and support coming my way that I have the tools needed to tap into my own supply of self-esteem and ego. It is now a matter of doing the work of learning to self-soothe and self-assure, and not continue to seek external reassurance. I need to experience the void so that I can kick in with my own sense of self.

But I am imperfect. And I believed until now that heroes need to be invincible. And that’s where the changing of false belief systems comes in. Even heroes cry; heroes bleed; heroes are vulnerable; heroes are human; and heroes need their own heroes. And that’s okay, because nobody is perfect. But we are perfect for ourselves. I am learning to trust and believe in myself and to boost myself, to tell myself that I’ve got it, that I’m okay, that I’m going to be okay, that I’m talented, accomplished and self-sufficient. And I have what to show for it. But I need to believe it. I need to look at myself and tell myself that I am capable of knowing and taking care of myself. And most of all, I am capable of appreciating myself for who I am. My children may look up to me, my wife may love me, and my co-workers may appreciate me, but those external boosts are not lasting. It is only when I can look at myself and tell myself who I am and believe it, that I will be a satisfied individual who does not look to others for reassurance.

And I am well on my way. I stopped going to my employer; I pretty much stopped going to doctors; I use my wife as a support but not as a source of self-esteem. And I am working on facing myself and raising my own ego and self-esteem. And I’m getting there. Step one is recognizing the problem. Step two is stopping to depend on others for reassurance. Step three is where I come in and fill the void and provide myself with the self-belief that I need and that will be with me 24/7/365.

I’m a trooper, forging ahead, recognizing my false belief systems, discarding them, replacing them with true and healthy beliefs, and then tapping into myself – my emotions and my self-belief – to fill the void. And then I will be whole. And more whole than I ever was before. I have my whole life ahead of me and many more years to enjoy once the new me emerges!

Like a soldier returning from war

Picture this scenario and see how it applies very closely to my situation:

A boy grows up carefree in Middle America. The child loves his parents and has lots of friends in school. Then the child grows up, becomes a man, gets married and loves his wife dearly. Unable to find a job, the couple agrees that the man will enlist in the military. They calculate that he will put in a few years, earn a pension, hopefully won’t be deployed, and then when he’s done they can live off of his veteran’s benefits.

The man enlists and attends training and is away occasionally, but is mostly home, and life is good. Then one day, the United States declares war on Iraq. Every able-bodied soldier is deployed to Iraq, including the man in our example, who is shuttled off to Iraq immediately. While in Iraq, the soldier flourishes; he makes quick, smart, lifesaving decisions and is promoted multiple times. He is in his element and has never shone brighter before in his life.

And then, one day, he is told that the war is over and his tour of duty is up. He can now go home, enjoy his wife and his newborn child who was born while he was away in Iraq. He is told that he will now live off of a comfortable pension and health benefits. Luckily, he was not injured or killed and really enjoy the rest of his life, unlike others who were either killed, injured, or lost limbs. With his wartime experience under his belt, his life financially set, and his health and body fully intact, nothing sounds better than going home and enjoying the rest of his life in peace and love.

But then the soldier comes home, and after the homecoming parade and fanfare dies down and he is home with his wife and child, something feels off. There is a pit in his stomach that seems to be preventing him from enjoying the life he thought he could now enjoy. He feels somewhat distant from his wife and child. He hugs them, but he doesn’t feel it. This lack of feeling causes him to spiral into a deeper anxiety, wondering what’s wrong with him. Maybe war got to me, maybe I snapped, maybe I’m going crazy. Wasn’t I supposed to do my tour then come home and enjoy a nice, quiet life? What’s wrong with me? And the self-fulfilling prophecy feeds itself, depression ensues, and the man feels like things will never be the same again. His wife encourages him to hug her, get to know his child, tries to convince him that everything is okay now, but that sends him into a deeper spiral as the cognitive dissonance sets in, him seeing and knowing that everything is okay, but that he just simply can’t get himself to enjoy it and to love his loved ones.

In this classic, all-too-familiar story, what changed? A young, loving, smart man who just went to battle and fought courageously and bravely for the sole purpose of creating a quiet, enjoyable life for his family, now can’t seem to enjoy his life and love his loved ones. His life is good – in fact it’s better than the way he left it, so that didn’t change. His wife still loves him – in fact she loves him even more after what he went through at war, so that didn’t change. He didn’t “snap” or “go crazy” so his mental status didn’t change. He didn’t lose his ability to love his wife and child and to enjoy life, because he loves them so much that he’s frustrated about his inability to get in touch with those emotions. So what did change?

The answer in one word, is conditioning. War is an intense circumstance that, since it involves actual fight, flight or freeze, quickly reconditions the human brain with the following set of new beliefs:

1. Worry is good because it will keep you alive. If you don’t let your guard down and worry about and anticipate the enemy coming from anywhere at anytime and be as prepared as you can at all times, you have a better chance of staying alive. Worry and expecting the worst is good and will protect you.

2. Do not get too emotionally attached to anyone, because people die in war, and if you get too attached to someone you love or are close to, it will hurt more if you lose them. To protect yourself, avoid becoming emotionally attached to anyone. Emotional attachment is bad and can cause you to be hurt. Emotional distance will protect you from that kind of pain and loss. Love is bad.

3. Don’t show emotion because emotion equals weakness, and in war weakness is bad. You need to feel, look, act, and be tough and emotionless when facing the enemy. You must also show strength to the men in your company by keeping a strong, straight face and by never breaking down or letting go. Showing emotion will demoralize others who are looking to you for stability and strength. Displays of pain are bad.

4. You are not an individual anymore. You are a member of a team. You depend on your men and your men depend on you. You must have your men’s backs and they must have yours at all times. There is no each man for himself. You are part of an army. You are serving your country. It is more honorable to not take credit for your bravery, but to see it as your duty. Individuality is bad. Taking credit for your accomplishments is bad.

With those beliefs ingrained in his subconscious, the soldier comes home to a situation where his conscious brain says:

• You no longer need to worry. You are no longer in danger. You are back home, safe, and no longer at war. Worry is no longer helpful. In fact, worry about danger that is no longer applicable will keep you from enjoying the beautiful life you now have.

• It is now healthy and okay to become emotionally attached. It is bad to be distant from your wife and child. It is good to be close and loving with them.

• Emotions are healthy and can now be freely expressed. You can openly express your love for your wife, your frustrations, your anger, hate, fear and sadness. Expressing emotions brings you closer to your loved ones and deepens your attachment to them and enhances your relationships.

• You are a hero. You sacrificed your life and comforts for your family and you created an environment where they can now enjoy an easygoing life. You can give yourself credit for your heroism, bravery, sacrifice and accomplishments, and you can accept accolades from others when they tell you how proud they are of you. It is okay to be an individual now. You are no longer part of an army and you are no longer at war. You are now yourself once again.

The cognitive dissonance between what the subconscious was conditioned to believe and what the conscious brain perceives as the reality is what causes the anxiety and frustration. The facts haven’t changed. The people haven’t changed. Only the brain’s beliefs and conditionings have changed. And they changed for good because that is what was needed in war. Worry, emotional distance and selflessness were necessary for survival so the brain adapted. But now they are no longer needed. Now, worry is no longer needed and can be a hindrance, emotional closeness is good and important, and individuality is necessary to be a whole person. But the subconscious did not yet catch up with the reality. And that can cause intense frustration and increased anxiety.

But the good news in all of this, is that the cure was created before the disease.

You see, that very same brain that enjoyed a life of love, emotional attachment and hope, was reconditioned in order to survive in war. The reconditioning was extreme and quick. The brain adapted quickly in order to survive at war. It is the very same brain that can now be just as easily reconditioned to survive in the new reality of life back home where things are drastically different.

Seeing the new reality does not help recondition the subconscious because without understanding what is happening and why here is a disparity between the subconscious’s reactions and the reality, the cognitive dissonance creates a spiral of anxiety and does not help with the healing and adaptation to the new reality. It is only when there is a clear understanding of what is happening, – how the brain was reconditioned during war and how it is still using its wartime tools because it needs to be re-adapted to home life – and once the understanding sets in and the fear is gone, that the healing can begin and the reconditioning of the brain can start to be implemented. And just as the brain switched from home life to wartime survival, it can now, just as easily switch back. Since it is not a fight, flight, or freeze situation at home, the progression is more gradual as opposed to wartime where survival instincts result in quick, almost instantaneous adaptations. The re-adaptation to a non-survival environment may take a little longer, but it is equally possible and will be accomplished with the right perspective, tools and patience.

And that’s where I come in. my childhood and development, career advancement and child raising was wartime, and it continued into marriage with the struggles of infertility, moving, and so on. Now is the time to reap the fruits of my years of investment, but I found it hard to change modes from one of struggle, worry, emotional evenness and teamwork to one of enjoyment, relaxation, self-appreciation, individuality, love and feelings. And not knowing what was happening resulted in cognitive dissonance and frustration.

But, as with the soldier, the very same brain that was originally conditioned to believe, think and feel the way it needed to in wartime, can and will now be reconditioned to believe, think and feel what it needs in order to enjoy a quiet life of calm, love, peace, emotion, individuality. After all, the soldier – and myself – worked all of those years to create what it now has to enjoy, and nothing changed – the situation is better than ever and the person is stronger than ever – the only change that is needed is in the subconscious’s survival tools – it simply needs to adapt to the new environment where love, emotion, closeness, individuality and heroism are all needed and appreciated. It happened when he went to war, so it can and will happen again.

My childhood was like wartime on a much smaller scale, in that:

• I was not provided with a healthy ego during my developmental years

• I was not encouraged and taught to be self-sufficient and independent

• I was forced to suppress emotions to avoid looking weak in the eyes of those looking up to me

• I avoided emotional attachment, fearing I could lose anyone at anytime as I did my mother

• I was conditioned to see worry, sympathy and excessive concern as helpful tools

• I was not provided true love; from my mother I got abuse and from my father I got kindness

But now, my brain – and, more specifically, my subconscious – is beginning to truly internalize that:

• I no longer need to worry about anything

• Worry is not a helpful or useful tool; in fact, it results in distraction and hesitation

• Spontaneity and uncertainty are what make life exciting, fun, unpredictable and adventurous

• Most uncertainty results in positive outcomes

• Emotions are healthy and a necessary part of life

• I am learning about true love from my wife and children

I also realize that:

• I am better than I ever was

• My life is better than it ever was

• Any feelings I have that make me feel otherwise are leftover learned worry behaviors that will be unlearned as my subconscious realizes and internalizes that those feelings are no longer useful or helpful

• The world and life are there for my enjoyment. It beckons me to embrace it. They need me to and want me to. My job needs me to enjoy what I do; my family needs me to enjoy and love them; my wife needs me to love her and want to enjoy and be with her. Even my conscious brain is on board with the new me and my enjoyable life. My conscious brain knows now that worry is unhelpful and is ready to enjoy the spontaneity of life. It’s now up to my subconscious brain to receive the new signal – that worry is not helpful and that emotions are good and healthy – and to get on board!

• Thankfully there are no additional related concerns like financial hardship, addiction or medical issues that would complicate a recovery. It is only the anxiety itself – the worry behavior – and once that goes when it realizes that it is no longer necessary, useful or helpful, and that it is okay to access and express emotions like love, joy, anger, sadness, happiness, appreciation, etc., I can re-enter my happy life as a more self-confident, assured person with many more years to enjoy.

• Nothing can stand before the will. I can choose to not pursue a feeling of anxiety, knowing that it is not based on realistic concerns, is not helpful, and is unwanted! This is not suppression; it is acknowledgement that there is a worry and a feeling of anxiety, but that the worry is unrealistic and unhelpful and therefore not worthy of my time. I am better off focusing on real, actual life!

What we're not dealing with

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.