MyAnxiousMind

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.

I had started to string together a few days of feelings really great, my anxiety was constantly hovering around a 2 (out of 10) for about 5 days in a row. On Sunday I was feeling really great and actually suggested that we go for a drive in the mountains and then stop off to see my grandparents. Then Sunday night came along, I started to develop a headache but thought that I could just relax and it would go away. I hate taking medicine. By 1 AM the pain was so bad I wanted to vomit so I broke down and took two Excedrine and within 20 minutes, the headache was gone.

Now I find myself laying in bed worried about the side effects of the Excedrin. I awoke Monday and felt fine, my anxiety was a bit higher than normal but I chalked that up to the extra large dose of caffeine that the Excedrin delivers. As Tuesday rolled around my anxiety began to peak. I didn’t want to be around anyone. I didn’t want to talk to anyone. I just wanted to find a dark cave. Now today I sit and wonder if I am back at the foot of the mountain again. The ups and downs are so frustrating.

As I drove into work this morning, I was thinking that the Excedrin was just a convenient something to attach my worries and anxiety to when in fact there is a lot going on and if I think about things logically, it makes sense that my anxiety is creeping upwards now:

• My wife has a doctors appointment today, nothing big but doctor’s appointments for me and my family always stress me out.
• We will be driving to my in-laws tomorrow for Thanksgiving and I am nervous as nervous can be about it.
• I am no good at Holidays. Instead of enjoying time and activities with family, I think about how quickly I can get them over with so I can get back home.
• Rather than going out to find fun presents for friends and family, I procrastinate and then finally end up buying something lame online.

I just want my life back.

This morning, if for a few brief hours, my anxiety hit ZERO.  10 being a full blown panic attack, zero being perfectly balanced.  I felt like the Jason I remember.  It felt so amazing, I wanted to cry.

Rather than celebrating the fact that I went out to lunch with my family yesterday, I continue to beat myself for being nervous and not being able to fully enjoy the experience.  I talked to my mom about this in relation to my biological father and the divorce.  She mentioned that the expectation was that I was perfect, so I was always “the good boy”.  Even when I did make mistakes, I mean come on, we all make mistakes, my mom would shield me from any wrong doing.  She said that my biological father would become very upset at every mistake that I made and not only me anyone for that matter.  I guess the neighbor kids called him the Grinch because he would yell at them for walking on our lawn.

The problem with perfection is that none of us have this trait, we are all imperfect beings.  The problem with perfection and recovery is that you tend to focus on the wrong things.  Rather then seeing progress being made, we tend to focus on “what still is wrong”.  This type of thinking keeps me trapped in this endless loop of thoughts creating fear, creating anxiety, creating thoughts.

I’m also coming up on my one year anniversary of when I first sought out the help of a psychologist and I keep asking myself why I’m not better yet, why do I still get nervous in public, why do I still fear disease?

Well I did it. I survived lunch. I’m so frustrated with myself its so hard to put it into words. Yes, I made it through lunch but it should be something to enjoy. Time with my family. Not something to endure. I knew I was going to be nervous because I had talked myself into it before even going.

Upon arriving I felt out of it. A bit off balance. I just wanted to get back in the car and drive home but I didn’t. I had lunch. I talked with family. However, I couldn’t eat that much, I can’t eat when I’m nervous. I didn’t enjoy it as much as I could. Worried about feeling “weird”, feeling “not there”, can’t really explain it but its a scary feeling.

You know, it makes me feel less than human to not be able to enjoy such simple things like eating a meal in a restaurant.

OK, that experience is in the past. I want to give a sincere thank you for all of those who visit my blog and for those of you that comment and share your thoughts. It means so much to me to know that there are others out there that understand. It makes me feel not so alone, not so scared about being in a dark and isolated place.