Day 16 - Dermatillomania Anxiety Dimension Solution
6:12 PM
My life had become ruled by anxiety. I had even developed an
anxiety disorder called dermatillomania. This blog is focused on picking apart
and dismantling this disorder, instead of my skin. I am doing this so that I
can restructure and put myself back together in a way that I can accept, because
I cannot to continue to accept this disorder in my life.
In my last blog series I walked the process of
deconstructing anxiety reactions to see what exactly causes them and how one
can firstly, direct oneself to walk through them in a way where one won’t feed
into and perpetuate them; and secondly, avoid triggering them at all. I have proven to myself too many times already,
that I can’t simply stop my compulsive skin picking and other OCD tendencies. I
am now working on making the internal and external changes necessary to create
the environment in which change will be possible.
For practicality, in my
last blogs, I listed five examples of every-day situations that trigger anxiety
in my own life. As a side note, in doing this, I actually got to know myself
and who I am within the anxiety, and how I can handle its onset. The process I
have walked in my last few blogs has been a very interesting, and I have been
successfully practicing what I’ve taught myself for several weeks now (in terms
of overcoming the anxiety where it would have normally taken over). I’ve
observed quite a significant change in my experience of anxiety, as well as the
frequency of anxiety attacks. The biggest difference has been at my job, where
my overall stress level had been reduced. I highly suggest checking out my
latest blogs in order to apply the same process in your own life
Here is where I left
off in my last blog: “The best
solution is to keep practicing being able to recognize the moment anxiety first
starts, because that is where it can be stopped. The goal is to prevent the
reactions from taking place at all. This requires a slowing down within self,
and a self-awareness perhaps not previously developed. I will work on these
aspects over the next weeks, by studying my examples of ‘anxiety-triggering
situations’ I wrote about in my last blog. I will ‘study’ them by walking
through them one by one, doing self-forgiveness on all the points so that I
reveal to myself any hidden self-sabotage and to see what exactly is going on
that leads me to create an anxiety reaction within myself.”
I
have been going to the gym for the past year or so. What I noticed at first was
minimal to no upper-body strength. After a year of working out with weights,
swimming and boxing, I have noticed visible musculature and a slight but
noticeable increase in strength. It has been awesome to see something develop
from virtually nothing. The muscles were not there before, and now they are. It’s
as simple as that: they are new, I created them. They are tiny and they are not
very strong, even the lightest weights make me tremble with effort after a
couple of reps. But I know that if I simply continue to apply myself they will
inevitably grow. I am mentioning this because it’s the same with developing
self-awareness. I personally develop self-awareness through self-forgiveness,
because it is really effective at peeling back the layers of the mind to reveal
what is under the anxiety, what is causing it, what thoughts are creating it,
and what reaction to those thoughts are fueling it?
Warning: I’m
about to go into some self-forgiveness statements. They may seem repetitive and
detailed … but I continue to apply it because, like the muscles, self-forgiveness
has assisted me to develop self-awareness where once there was none. I am
becoming able to, in the moment of reaction, identify where the reaction came
from, why it came up, and how to walk myself out of it. I’m not always
successful, and sometimes I’m too late, but like my muscles, I know that if I
keep practicing and applying myself, I will become more effective and will
eventually be able to let go of the anxiety point once and for all, because it
will no longer be an issue in my life.
Here is the first example of where
anxiety is often triggered in my life:
“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.”
I will let
you know in advance that in the below self-forgiveness, I revealed to myself
that I held the ancient belief that a ‘good woman’ is defined by her ability to
cook. I had no idea I held this belief, nor any idea of the pressure I placed
on myself due to it. I also found out that I compare myself to all the women
who have ever impressed me with their cooking abilities; women that had been cooking
all their lives – an unfair comparison as I had only learned later in life, and
lacked much practice and practical experience. I found this very interesting,
and I can see how the anxiety blows my reactions to it out of proportion. I
also found out a lot of simple, practical things I can change, like not taking
on too much, organizing myself before I begin to cook, keeping a clean
workspace, as well as making a plan ahead of time and sticking to it.
Read the
self-forgiveness on the example below to see how I found this out, and what I
plan to do to instead cook for the simple enjoyment of it, no pressure, no
judgment, just my hands working with food in gratefulness of the sustenance
being provided. After the self-forgiveness, read on to see how this is related
to the perpetuation of dermatillomania.
Self-forgiveness:
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to become anxious
when I start to cook.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing starting to prepare food to
be a trigger point existent within and as me.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to become anxious.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing anxiety and anxiety attacks
to exist within and as me.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to want to rush the
process of cooking food to ‘get it over with’.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to, within this
‘rushed’ energy, begin to cook immediately and figure it out as I go, instead
of taking a moment before I’ve started to plan how I will be proceeding.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to try and attempt to
cook something when I haven’t left myself enough time, instead of seeing what I
have frozen or if there is anything around that is quick to prepare.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not consider
cooking when I plan my time, viewing it as something I can quickly get over with
in a rush, instead of seeing, realizing and understanding that food preparation
takes time, and quite a lot of planning before-hand,
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to think, believe or
perceive that organizing daily food preparation into my life is difficult and
impossible, instead of seeing that every time I push myself to do it, I learn a
little, and become more effective and organized over time.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to take out all the
ingredients and try to start everything at once in the aim of saving time and
going faster, without realizing that I create a messy and chaotic environment,
reflecting my messy and chaotic mind when I follow through with this pattern of
becoming rushed and then trying to do everything all at once and as fast as
possible.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to spend more time
thinking about the outcome of my labour than time spent planning it in the
first place.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to create an
expectation about what others will think when they taste the fruits of my
labour, and to, within this, develop a desire for positive feedback, in order
to obtain validation that I believe I require, because of the idea that ‘a good
woman knows how to cook.’
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to base any part of
my value and worth as a female upon my ability to cook food, or my lack thereof.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to think, believe or
perceive that a ‘good woman’ can cook well, and to think about all the women I
know who can cook well, and make things I cannot make, thus placing pressure on myself to prove that
I am a ‘good woman’ too, by trying and attempting to make things when I don’t yet
have the know-how, which is setting myself up for failure.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to set myself up for
failure and then judge myself as having ‘failed as a woman’ when I inevitably
make a mistake.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to distract myself
away from the actual cooking by thinking about the potential positive and
negative reactions to my food – thus preoccupying my mind and not focusing on what
I’m doing, and once again setting the stage for failure.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to, within the desire
for positive feedback, want to create a delicious masterpiece, placing pressure
on myself instead of calmly focusing on what I ‘m doing, and/or cooking for
taste alone in order to obtain a positive reaction, instead of considering
health benefits, which don’t always taste the best, ie: steamed not fried,
olive oil not butter, less salt/sugar, etc…
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to, within the desire
to avoid a negative reaction, begin feeling upset and defeated when one part of
the meal or another doesn’t turn out as I had imagined, creating pressure,
blame and self –defeat when I’ve let something cook too long, or when I’ve made
a mistake.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to build up anxious energy
while I am cooking, wherein pressure is place on the reaction to my cooking,
and I end up taking the reaction personally, whether good or bad, because I had
built up energy which now needs to be released in a feeling (good) or emotional
(bad) experience by which I would then define myself.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to define myself by
my feelings and emotions.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to place pressure on
to the reaction of others to my cooking, due to me having participating in
thoughts, feelings, emotions and imaginations within and throughout the cooking
process.
When and as I see that I am about to cook, I stop, and I breathe. I
bring myself out of my mind and back into my physical body in the present
moment, here, by giving myself a moment to organize, check for ingredients,
plan the process and proceed one step at a time.
When and as I see that I am starting to go into a rushed and chaotic
experience while cooking, I stop, and I breathe. I bring myself back to the
pace of the physical, slow and steady, by taking a step back to look at my
environment, ensuring I do not have too many items out or too many things going
on at the same time, tidying where necessary, and assessing the most efficient
way to proceed based on the requirements of what I have going on.
When and as I see that I am going into the ‘pleasing’ character while
cooking, I stop, and I breathe. I bring myself into the lightness of the moment
by taking off the pressure of cooking from the starting point of pleasing, and
replacing it with the starting point of cooking for the mere fact that I enjoy
cooking, experimenting with food, and learning from my mistakes.
When and as I see that I am searching for validation through cooking
well, I stop, and I breathe. I bring
myself back to self-worth by reminding myself that my value is not in my
ability to cook, but in the time and care that I invest in myself, creating my
self-value, by, for example, cooking within and as self-enjoyment, open-minded
learning, self-evolution within organization and pre-planning, thus creating
myself as someone that can cook well because I have walked a process of trial
and error, planning and organization, and practice over time.
I commit myself to learn to simply enjoy cooking, in all its aspects and
everything it entails.
I commit myself to embrace myself within the mistakes I make, and to
learn from them.
I commit myself to put in the time to plan and organize meals, to cook
around discounts at the grocery store, and to cook for my health/body, allowing
for pleasure as well.
I commit myself to cook for fun, because it’s a necessity, so I might as
well have fun doing it!
This above example relates to dermatillomania, because the condition is
not necessarily a complete focus on the skin. It is a symptom of an anxiety disorder.
Anxiety is created throughout the day and carried around within the mind and
body, It builds up and from time to time, reaches a tipping point where it
needs to be released. Often when I get anxious it feels like a discomfort
within me, and it becomes very uncomfortable like an itch that, when left
unscratched, becomes the overwhelming focus and then an obsession and
compulsion until the energy is released and dissipated. I rarely look at what
throughout the day created the anxiety, things of varying degrees that I didn’t
face in the moment, but instead suppressed. Usually when I do take the time to
investigate, I find self-defeating thoughts which make me feel bad, lonely,
isolated, hopeless etc… which are
soothed either by the endorphins released by the pain of picking or the
complete focus on the skin and it’s imperfections, rather than the thoughts
that are creating the pain and discomfort.
All of these thoughts
are connected to energies expressed as feelings and emotions, which we then believe
is who we are, but it’s not true. We have the choice to turn any self-defeating
situation into a moment of self-empowerment. The thoughts that pop into our
heads are just robotic programs that we’ve programmed into and as ourselves
over a lifetime of believing ourselves to be the energies we are able to create
in our minds. We simply need to invest the time and care into ourselves to
re-program how we think and act and do. This is effective, I have already
proven it to myself. Like going to the gym – it’s just a matter of time before
the results become real, visible and measurable!
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've 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.
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've 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.
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