Day 13 - Deconstructing Anxiety, Dis-Arming Dermatillomania
5:32 AM
“What
I am going to do from here is to locate five examples of instances where I go
into an anxiety reaction. I am doing this in order to learn how to slow myself
down enough to be able to pin point the moment where the anxiety is triggered.
I will then use that moment as an opportunity, instead of a falling point. It
will be my opportunity to choose who I will be and how I will be and handle the
situation, instead of letting my auto-pilot, unconscious mind, default-mode way
of thinking direct me, my personality and my actions. - See more at: http://dermotillomaniatolife.blogspot.ca/#sthash.4DcEwQIt.dpuf”
I
continue in this blog with walking my process of anxiety, in order to develop
the self-will and self-direction to walk myself out of the anxiety reaction and
into grounded and practical action as a self-willed decision.
The
following five examples are of instances where I go into varying degrees of
anxiety reactions. (As a side note, ever since I have been keeping track, I
have managed to become more aware of my anxiety, and significantly reduce its occurance
in similar situations). Please read on.
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhN91NhswF4Xj_jEp6T_4yRFGlVgW6Qx1zFebQeTyRYAVHUBpqHvvfqeVOWDDwVnnWnTcaCrMNFdpWidRQwZ4f7WJiKj8Vb0ouauVb0afACp6SRtPsJhHa7-JcO4ak8NystgutfGBZtZXo/s1600/anxiety+disorders.jpg
at:
http://dermotillomaniatolife
Example 1) Anxiety +
Overwhelming-ness
My first example is in relation to food preparation. It
starts when I begin to think about organizing meals and food for the next day
or couple of days, or as I begin cooking. It’s a simple task that I think I
could actually enjoy, if I didn’t become bombarded with thoughts that become
overwhelming. Thoughts such as: what to make, how to make it, the ingredients
involved, the quantity I should make, how I can use the leftovers during the
week, whether I should get groceries now or later, whether I have the most
efficient plan with regards to money/time, will it be good or will I get sick
of it, will my partner like it, is it healthy and how can I prepare the ingredients in such a way to keep their
utmost nutritional value, and is the quality of the food any good… and then I
will branch off into worries about the environment and the chemicals in the
food, and also about money and how to eat healthy on a budget, and so on.
The anxiety in this situation is amplifying the sensation
of overwhelming-ness. It starts as I am cooking, and sometimes I ruin the meal
because I have become so frazzled, or I start so many different meals and ideas
that I spend hours in the kitchen and end up exhausted. This is obviously not
normal and is the result of how I subject myself to the disorder in my mind,
affecting my everyday life and complicating things that should be straight forward.
Physically I experience a racing mind, blurry vision and difficulty breathing.
Example 2) Anxiety towards
authority - Anxiety + Panic
I
was driving on a dark road and thought I had a turn coming up, but I noticed it
was a bit farther down the road, so I veered back into my lane. It was late
Friday night so the police officer probably thought I had been out drinking,
and for the first time in my life I got pulled over. The big lights lit up my
entire car from behind and this silhouette walked up to my window. I understood
what had happened and I knew I had nothing to hide or worry about, yet I was so
anxious that even the officer commented on my trembling hands.
The
physical sensation of being hot and constricted and feeling pressure in my
solar plexus happened in the past when I was called into the principal’s office
at school. I had been watching as my friend threw paper airplanes out the
window. Three of us were called into the office and we were questioned one by
one. I was so nervous I kept choking because my throat was closing up. I
figured they would just assume it was me because of how guilty I was acting.
Even
when I talk to figures of authority in the workplace, I get this anxious
feeling inside of my chest area. I haven’t had any particularly horrible or
abusive bosses in my life, yet when they even approach me to chat I become
anxious and hot and feel surges of energy within me. I feel like I have to act
a certain way or hide a part of myself and I feel panicked that something will
be found out about me or used against me and I will lose my job, even when I
know this is a completely unreasonable way of thinking.
3) Public Speaking – Anxiety
+ Fear
As
soon as I know I will be speaking in front of a group I begin to feel the
effects of anxiety. I start to feel like I’m in a bubble and everything
surrounding me becomes like a blur. The sides of my face burn and I begin by
speaking extremely fast. My thoughts race and my words can’t keep up with what
it is I am trying to say. If I lose my wording I get flustered and sometimes
start making points I didn’t intend on making. I can feel everybody’s eyes on
me and it feels as if they are expecting something more than I am giving. When
it’s over, it takes a while before my heart rate slows down and my face stops
feeling flushed, and after when I feel fine again I end up wondering what the
big deal was.
4) Anxious about Being late
- Anxiety and Worry
Photo: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQ6tklqwI1g8_F7hwJhNzwmmug_T6QalQB1FPZqXRtshFtUjBfzqSUkMguSJgU2Udkj_ymVy-watB_6FMpNaxnYHbnNDyLsdpnCFCi6HO77jAOWojjVe9MWO7zjB2AxLac_WN6Uw6KcsT7/s1600/running-late.jpg
My
fourth example is being late. Even when I have left myself enough
time I tend to leave things to the last minute. Lots of time makes me
uncomfortable and I feel like I move in slow motion to use up the time, and
often times I end up picking if I have spare time. Only when it becomes last
minute do I feel the motivation to move forward and take control of myself and
my direction and only then do I get ready efficiently. When I see that I am
getting close to the time when I will have to leave, or I see that I am cutting
it close, I start to feel energized. My heart beats fast and my breath is
shallow and my thinking become very clear. But soon thoughts creep in about how
my late-ness will affect others and how I could ruin the night because everyone
would be waiting. I begin feeling guilty and becoming mad at myself for not
being ready on time. I picture everyone mad at me and I feel like I have been
disrespectful. I become very impatient with everyone around me, as if my
getting to where I am going is the priority and I will have to hold myself back
from driving too fast and tailgating. When I final get to the location I will
feel tense and stressed and not very relaxed at all.
5) Making Mistakes: Anxiety
+ Fear
I work in the banking sector where mistakes are grave, and
I am human, and I make them. What I’ve noticed, however, is that when I go into
an anxiety reaction I am less effective and more prone to making a mistake. I’ll
make a mistake and once I realize it’s like my entire insides drop out from under
me, like this internal falling sensation followed by intense self-judgment and
regret. I am not excusing making mistakes in itself – it is necessary to learn
and develop means to avoid the same mistakes in the future. What is unnecessary
is the internal reaction play-out that accompanies the mistake, because when I experience
this sometimes my whole day or week can be affected, where I will not be able
to focus, wherein it feels like I cannot think rationally or reasonably and use
common sense. Smll concepts become seemingly too big to grasp, and I have major
back-chat and internal conversations about how I am not good enough for the job
and I just don’t get it etc…. However, when I am not in an anxiety reaction, I
am quite quick to learn, I am sharp and on point, and I am capable of
organizing and doing many things at once, sometimes taking on more than my fair
share of responsibility.
So there we have it, my five
examples of when and as I fall into detrimental anxiety reactions. And for
those that do not suffer an anxiety disorder, this will be like a glimpse into
what it is like to live with one.
An
interesting experience developed after having written down the examples of my
experience. As I mentioned, I am following the steps from an interview
recording, and within it one is instructed to be very detailed with the
examples, especially regarding the physical reactions and the exact moments
when they are triggered. Within being so detailed, I really had to look at the examples
closely. I had to place myself back into the situations and re-play them in my
head, remembering how I experienced myself and everything I went through. I
realized that my anxiety is more intense than I thought. In reading my
descriptions, it felt like someone else had written them and they seem somewhat
extreme, as if I do not believe myself to be quite this reactive and anxious as
they portray. As I re-read the examples I find myself judging them wherein if
someone else had written them I would think “wow – this person has problems.”
However
it is beneficial to have a sobering look at one’s own reality. This has been
proven to me this week, in the fact that on several occasions these same
play-outs happened again in my life (cooking, making mistakes, being late etc…).
This time, I was able to recognize the moments where the anxiety was beginning,
I saw some of the triggers as they were happening, and was able to recall my
own writing and slow myself down enough to talk myself out of it, so to speak,
wherein I was actually able to see the pattern and prevent it. I could actually
stop it from occurring – I stopped an entire anxiety play-out that would have
accumulated within and as me and later lead to a picking session. I can now see
that, with a lot of practice and paying attention to myself, I can greatly
reduce my daily anxiety.
In
my next blog I will cover the next steps in the process of how to manage
preventing and releasing anxiety in the same or similar situations, as a
process that can be walked by anyone, step-by-step, as a true act of self-love
and self-support.
If
you would like to teach yourself how to find the answer to yourself
within yourself, check out DIP Lite, a
free online course. As you move through the lessons, looking at the mind
as you have never seen it before. You are assigned to a 'buddy', someone that
has already walked the process, to support you through the writing. It is
completely free and confidential. On lesson 6 you get 4 amazingly supportive
chats with your buddy. - See more 
1 comments
A very good and informative article indeed. It helps me a lot to enhance my knowledge, I really like the way the writer presented his views.
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