I’ve been overly stressed the last few days, I’m wondering if it is the pressure of the holiday season. My anxiety has been very high and I’ve been bad. I ran to Dr. Google to diagnose whatever it is I’m suffering from. So frustrating.
I came across some interesting information on changing behavior and brain chemistry.
You need 3-6 weeks of consistent action to begin to see some real noticeable results in your behavior changes. However, the brain seeks to return to the old baseline for about 3-6 months. So when you do not follow through with your changed behavior the brain will gravitate back to the original unbalanced baseline.
It takes 6-12 months of compliance with the new behavior to affect the enzymatic changes that change the brain chemistry baseline. When the baseline brain chemistry changes you are less subject to day to day drastic swings. The new behaviors that keep an optimal brain chemistry for you then become part of what you naturally do.
I got a new piece of exercise equipment because anxiety has left me extremely out of shape. As I began working out, a recurring thought overwhelmed me. I know I’ve talked about this before but it is something that I truly struggle with. Recovery takes work, a lot of work. When I first starting seeing a psychologist I thought, great, I can show up once a week and talk about what is bothering me and I’ll be healed. Doesn’t work that way, at least for me. Sure it is helpful to talk about what is bothering you but that is only one step. Unless you change those thoughts. Unless you dedicate yourself to change and the things that need to be done to bring out change, nothing will change.
Its like going on a 5 mile bike ride and expecting to have the endurance and strength of Lance Armstrong. Its like going for a leisurely swim at the public pool and expecting to wake up the next day with the body of Michael Phelps. Any great change takes time and effort and dedication yet this is what my mind tells me everyday about anxiety. Do your homework, exercise, and eat right for one day and tomorrow you will wake up, your mind and body will be magically cured of the years of chronic stress and worry.
I’m not writing this to scare you and discourage you, I’m writing this to give hope. Marketing and the media have us believing that we can make great changes over night but the truth is that they don’t show us the months of grueling work, the getting up early when we would rather stay in bed, the daily grind that makes people successful. If is was that easy to recover then we wouldn’t appreciate it, we wouldn’t learn from our trials, we wouldn’t become better people for it.
My goal this week is to focus on progress and not perfection, which can be hard if you are a perfectionist :) I had a very low, low point two Saturday’s ago, it was as low as I’ve ever remember being and it was at that point that I reached a fork in the road. Do I give up or do I make some real changes in my life?
Well, I decided giving up wasn’t the answer. The answer was giving up control though, in the recovery movement they say “let go and let God”, so that is what I am doing. It actually has been a great relief to give up my pursuit of perfection and know that it is OK to seek progress instead. The past week has been amazing in how I have felt. My wife commented to me last night “wasn’t it just last Saturday……”, yeah it was, it seems like months ago.
I’m looking at things in terms of sobriety, my sobriety is based on the unhealthy ways I cope with anxiety (staying inside my house, Googling illness and disease, taking my pulse, taking my temperature, etc.) Today, I mark my 9th day of sobriety.
I went grocery shopping this morning. I didn’t feel weird. I wasn’t dizzy. I didn’t feel off balance. My heart didn’t race. I didn’t run through the store.
Just thought I’d share a bit of good news 
I had a very productive visit with the psychologist yesterday. We touched on a couple main topics:
Biological Nature of Anxiety
My mom and biological father divorced when I was in kindergarten and between that time and today, I’ve probably seen him less than 20 times. The doctor thought it would be helpful to reach out to him to see if he or members of his immediate family had mental health issues. So that is what I did. We had several phone conversations and email exchanges which I shared with the doctor and we both agree that there are clear signs that he suffers from a mental illness. I also see alot of my internal workings in him.
Accepting my Diagnosis
The doctor feels, and I do too, that my major roadblock is due to incorrect expectations. My expectation is that if I learn enough about anxiety, face my fears, practice relaxation for lets say one week straight, that I will magically wake up on the 8th day healed. Of course this never happens and when I feel the first twinge of anxiety or first weird sensation in my body, I completely fall apart.
My family also has issues with chemical dependency and I was told that anxiety and addiction 9 times out of 10 go hand-in-hand. The way that I look at it is that rather than medicating with drugs or alcohol, my drugs are produced internally. I am addicted to the drugs that my body creates when I get overly anxious and I am choosing to do that. Sure I have a biological predisposition to overreact to anxiety but I am making the choice, just as the alcoholic is making the choice to pick up that drink.
If I look at my recovery in terms of recovery from addiction it makes more sense to me. My body has been ravaged by years of chronic stress and being filled with chemicals that, although can be very helpful, most of the time were uncalled for. I like what Laura’s doctor said, that the brain’s chemistry is out of balance and that it makes sense the body is going to feel weird as the brain controls the body. My brain’s chemistry is susceptible to anxiety and because of my over reaction to anxiety, I have thrown my brain’s chemistry out of balance and the only way to get better is to return my mind and body to a state of balance. How can that be done? As other have said - TIME.
However time alone is not the cure, time reacting the right way is the cure. I must accept that I am going to have anxiety for the rest of my life but I don’t have to let anxiety have control over me. As long as I continue to accept and not over react, I will slowly begin to return to balance and wellness. It will be hard, it will be painful, I will have to withdrawal from choosing anxiety, I must morn, I must put my faith in God, and I will be whole.
At this point, I’d say that 80% of the physical symptoms of my disorder have all but vanished. I should be excited, right? Well, I think so too, yet my mind fixates on that last 20%. I could go a whole day and only feel one physical symptom, yet my mind will grasp onto that symptom like it is the last piece of bread on earth. As I thought about why, it started to make sense, I still have not fully accepted my diagnosis. So everytime I feel something physical in my body, my brain kicks into over drive. Rather than say “oh, ok that is a common reaction to anxiety and stress, I’ll note it and move it” oh no, my internal dialog is more like “what the hell was that? I thought I was getting better. This is a sure sign that sometime horrible has gone wrong. Is it a brain tumor? Is it MS this time? What is is? Do I call the doctor? Do I just go into the ER? What do I do?” and of course everything falls apart at that point.
Can anyone give me some advice on how I can accept my diagnosis? I would greatly appreciate it. I think until I can accept, I will be destined to fail.