Davit what techniques did you get to get to that point?
My concern is I'm trying to focus on things I can fix about myself and my surroundings now but I have my parents constantly either A) going on about the future of things I can't control as of now B) asking me to do something when I'm in the middle of doing it.
I have arthritis and some fused joints. I have limited range of motion. I have artificial knees and some pins and screws in one leg. I have a collapsed vertebrae and some times a pinched nerve in my neck. I can't walk far or stand long and I can't sit in a car for more than a couple of hours. Still I do because I want to. I don't have anxiety because I don't want it. I don't do anything because I have to, even if I have to, if you can see what I mean. Everything I do is because I want to. If I had to I would be in a constant state of anxiety or worse. It is all a matter of attitude. A matter of thought patterns. I'm still the person I was five years ago, I just think different. Very little bothers me now.
No I didn't use this program but I did read it to add to my information bank and would not be here if I didn't think it was any good. You will notice I have been here four and a half years and pretty much panic free all that time. I came out of curiosity to see if it was the same as what I had been doing with my therapist. It is close. It is similar to the only book I found any good. It will work. True CBT is about changing thought patterns. Relaxation and coping skills are the basis needed to do CBT and are necessary. Exposure is a test of how well you do them. CBT is putting it all together so you can change how you think. It has to be done in order or it won't work. The program is in steps. You can read ahead but you must do one section at a time and understand it before moving on to the next. In school and other courses 60 % is a passing grade. Not so with CBT. It is all or nothing. You will feel better though shortly after starting just not cured till you finish. Sounds discouraging. Not really, a lot of people get by with the relaxation and coping skills, they just have to keep using them where finishing reduces the need to a very small amount. I no longer use the relaxation techniques but still use coping skill when needed. Coping skills are anything you can do to reduce anxiety and although similar are specific to the person. You pick out what works for you. The forums is where people can discuss what works for them.
People who are aggressive by nature seldom get anxiety disorders and can not understand why others do. Ignore them.
"just do it" is not a solution any more than exposure is without the preliminaries. There are no short cuts.
All phobias have one thing in common if they cause fear. Lack of control of the situation. Therefore they all fall under Agoraphobia which is a fear of not having control and manifests itself mostly as a fear of open spaces because that is where you most often have the least control. In fact the minute you move your car you are dictated by it's limitations and your surroundings. You only think you are in control, where in fact you are following possibilities and rules.
To be able to do this without fear you need to have control of the situation. There is only one way to do this without affecting the situation around you and endangering yourself and everyone around you. That is to take back control. And there is only one way to take back control of any fear or phobia and that is to want to do what you fear. Not do it because you have to but because you want to. Have to and want to seem similar but are not. One allows fear because it has control the other stops the fear because there is no need for it. This is not only a coping skill but a CBT process where you change a thought pattern. And it works if you truly believe it works. I love to drive and can drive anywhere within my limitation. My limitations are physical. I can't shoulder check so use my mirrors a lot. And that is another coping skill not entirely specific to me.
Why can't you look at life objectively. It is what it is because it is. It doesn't owe you a living, it doesn't owe you anything. You have to fit it because there is little you can change to fit you. You can still live it how you want to just that you will likely be doing it alone. And if you don't do alone well then what are you going to do? Try to make people fit you? You know where they will tell you to go. So you have one option left. Use the program to give you the skills to live in a stress filled world without it bothering you. This way you get to keep your feelings and not become a pill popping zombie. Life is what you make it, you have a choice. And in truth most people choose not to change because they like their crappy life. It fits the crappy life they complain about. Change would make them an outsider and even more alone. So they are left with doing relaxation techniques and coping skills that are just the beginning of getting better. CBT is a whole lot more than this. CBT is hard work. CBT takes a conscious effort, but it does work.
yes and no on the fault thing. You can't look at life objectively. If you went from anxiety to not having any feelings about anything that doesn't you moved to a healthy point in your life.
Yes, some things can be looked at objectively but some cannot. Some people in my life have been the cause of my anxiety such as my mentally unstable aunt who choked me and the mind games she tries to play. Hence, why she's not allowed near me anymore.
Lets see if I can explain this better. Every day of our lives there are going to be things that cause us stress both physical and mental. We start off being annoyed with them but soon turn to blaming them. It soon becomes someone or somethings fault we are having anxious moments. It is easy to put the blame somewhere else since it is in fact most times someone or something else's fault other than ours. The next step is usually anger or avoidance or both. The ability to look at things objectively (as they are) disappears and all we see is the things that cause stress not what we can do about them. We justify this by saying they are not our fault. And a lot of the time they are not our fault. So with them being thus what are we supposed to do. They can't be eliminated without moving into a total vacuum. And if they are bad enough that is what we do. But they are still there waiting for us and what was stress becomes fear now. Unreasonable fear because most causes of stress can not hurt us. This is not the dark ages when things in normal life could. Now this is where it gets out of hand. Because the memory has a record of solutions it will try to use those solutions for other situations. Those solutions may or may not work. Or we may try to convince ourselves they do. One solution is to take a pill. Then two then three because in the first place they don't work that well and in the second place they become the solution to every stress. There are more stresses in life than there are pills so this won't work. Enough pills and we don't care. Akin to being a drunk.
So as you can see the things that cause stress are not going away. Quit trying to make them and quit blaming them. We know it is their fault, dwelling on them won't make them go away.
So what is left. CBT. Cognitive (thought) Behavioural (how we think) Therapy (repetitive change) So it amounts to changing how we think so the stress can be there but how we see it makes it powerless to affect us. This is why CBT has so many forms and why there are so many books on it. You have to tailer this thought change to your particular stress and this is why the process is called tools. The tools give you the ability to do this. That is all. They are just tools. You use them to affect a cure. They can not do it for you anymore than can someone else. You have to do it.
At first I thought I was eliminating it but I wasn't, it is almost all still there. Some are gone, some are new. I have a new life with new stress. No CBT gives me the ability to not be affected by it. It just doesn't bother me anymore. It has no power and no control. It doesn't change, how I see it does. You can not stop stress unless you are the cause. So much stress is out side our control. but how we treat it is not.
