jessed03
02-20-2013, 08:03 PM
Hey QQ,
As my anxiety started to calm down, I often asked questions very similar to what you've asked
I've always thought of anxiety, not as a mental illness, but as a mental disorder. Many publications in the UK have actually started calling anxiety a mental disorder now, instead of an illness. Perhaps that's just to show more respect to anxiety sufferers (as it's never nice to call somebody ill after-all!) but - perhaps the word 'disorder' describes anxiety much better than 'illness'.
Let me elaborate... If you read many posts on here, you'll realize very few of us are actually ill, with any kind of significant physical ailment, or sickness - and there in lies the problem. We usually believe we are sick, or we worry that something is wrong, or will go wrong. This requires action on our part. Action to remedy this imaginary sickness. But what action do we take? What action can cure an ailment, or prevent a situation, that just wasn't there, or that just wasn't going to happen? *I appreciate there are many different fears and worries people suffer in relation to anxiety, and there are many spectrum to this condition, but for the sake of example, let's keep it simple!*
So where were we? Oh right... We usually reach a point very early on in our anxiety, that sends us searching for some sort of cure or prevention to a circumstance that isn't destined to arrive. Take the fear of collapsing. A usual port of call is the A&E... Heart tests, blood tests, scans on our brain... We have to find out what's wrong, or at least check that nothing untoward is happening in our bodies. The problem that usually follows this, is when the tests inevitably come back safe... it doesn't convince us. At least not for long. We either doubt these test results or our anxiety moves on to another fear, or another part of the spectrum. Because we may have learnt most of anxieties naughty tricks, but it doesn't give up without a fight. It usually keeps some power in subtle ways, that we don't realize. I found this out the hard way, but let me explain what it is.
All the while, while our searching is going on, there is this overwhelming level of disorder, and chaos in our minds. We are constantly trying to solve a problem, that doesn't exist. We're inventing situation, after situation, outcome after outcome, on such a rapid level, the whole of the HollyWood writing academy wouldn't be able to keep up.
'Let's check out this migraine on symptom checker, and see what it is' we often say - health anxiety follows, 'Let's decide to postpone social events today, as I just have an awful feeling about it' we may say - Agoraphobia can begin to reveal itself.
You see, let me give you a situation to imagine; if I told you now, your life depended on you telling me, what was written on a piece of paper named 'Paper A'... You would first use logic to try to find clues, but when those clues don't arrive, you would slowly but surely descend into a great deal of unrest, and panic. 'Paper A... What does that mean? Where do I find it? Does it exist?!' - you may say?
Of course, Paper A never actually existed. The same way the brain tumour, never existed, and the same way the protection an OCD ritual supposedly gives, doesn't exist. But you'd torture yourself none the less, trying to find this imaginary piece of paper, in order to preserve your life. You'd most likely read books, search the internet, ask scholars, call up libraries. The panic would grow and grow and grow as the answers never came, and your mind would work faster, and faster, and faster still, until you couldn't sleep at night, until not a waking second went by without questions as to the where-to of this mythical 'Paper A'.
The mind would have worked itself up to the unmanageable level, that many on here suffer. Whereby a moments peace is hard to come by. There would be no other way to describe this mindset, than pandemonium. Chaos. Mental Disorder. You'd be waking up in the night with an idea, a hunch, that 'Paper A' could be in Arizona... So, a quick breakfast, at 3am, and hit the road. No time to waste. It's not there, so lunch at 8am, and back home. You see, you'd be so wound up, with thoughts, with ideas, with questions, unanswerable all in one go. It would be a torturous state to live in. A state many on this forum are metaphorically living out day after day (and a state we both have probably lived through).
So what would cure this state? What would create order again? Only one thing, really. Realizing, that there is no 'Paper A'. It was made up. Realizing that there are no major problems inside your body, and that the heart palps and dizziness, were just one big fat bluff. This of course, is far, far easier to write, than to do. (How you go about realizing this is a topic for another thread, but it sounds like you've passed that point of realizing it's all a bluff anyway!)
You see once you realize this, the billions upon billions of unrelenting thought processes, idea's, and ruminations, pretty much come to an end. There is no reason to think it anymore, it's over with. It was a bluff, we realized the bluff... The days of waking up at 3am and driving to Arizona to chase down a mythical literature, would be long over. The days of eating at unreasonable times due to incessant research, again, would be long over. It would be irrelevant to do them. A waste of energy, and the body isn't designed to waste energy on things it deems useless. You could say, a degree of order would once again be assumed. Life, after the shock of the ordeal, would slowly and surely, return to normality. To it's default state.
As you can see, with mental stress, it has very little to do with illness. Sure, a chemical imbalance may play a part, but more often than not, mental stress, simply means disorder in the mind. Conflict, tension, worry, stress, limitless questioning, ruminating and shifting through mental patterns and ideas in order to come to an often unreachable conclusion.
So, one is left with the ultimate question... How do we create mental order, that will lead us to a greater deal of calm? How do we soothe the disorder in our minds? Afterall, if our minds are filled with a gazillion ideas and questions... surely asking another one, will only make the situation worse, after all, when there's a fire, you don't put it out by starting another one, do you!
Here's how you order the mind. And you're gonna feel cheated. Because it's too easy! We all ignore this advice, thinking the answer must have much more profound insight. We order the mind, by leaving it completely alone. You see, nothing in your mind is tangeable. Nothing is designed to stick around, unless you deem it necessary for it be there. Really, nothing... You will never get stuck on one or two thought processes for eternity. Everything will flow through your mind, like it has been designed to - given time, and practice. Trust me, I've suffered the most horrific of OCD. :)
Your mind is blank canvas. These thoughts and doubts, will come through, and we'll see them on this black canvas. Think of it like a bulletin board, and every thought gets posted up, and we pick the ones most interesting, and supposedly useful to us. We pick them up. Just like we pick up the doubt about our health, and just as we pick up the idea of finding 'Paper A'. If somebody had told you it didn't exist, would you have picked up that thought, and become consumed by it? No, right? What would be the need to. And that's where our problems arise. You would have picked up the thought, only because you deemed it necessary to your life somehow, to find it.
That's why you are struggling with these thoughts wondering whether or not you are mentally ill. You pick them up, the same way you did with your fears in the beginning, only, it's different now, it's something new... but the process is still the same. You pick it up, and try to find an answer to a question, that I really believe doesn't have a universal answer. And, to a degree, probably far less than before, and far less than the examples given, you create some level of chaos, and unrest in the mind, that didn't need to be there.
You see all of anxiety is about sales. Everything in your head, wants your attention. Every thought is like a separate entity. It often comes into your mind unannounced, and demands participation from you. And, usually without realizing we can do otherwise, we give these thoughts what they ask for. And so they keep coming. They get stronger, and hold more power. If you go to a friends house, and they treat you like a King, give you endless energy and attention, you would be back there much more often, I'm sure. All anxiety thoughts, regardless of their message, are exactly the same. They come only when they get the treatment they want.
jessed03
02-20-2013, 08:04 PM
There's a reason why we call it Peace of mind, and not Peace in mind! Even the most ruthless of minds will finally settle if left undisturbed. But in our ignorance, when the process doesn't happen fast enough, we try to reach and, and physically stop the ripples... of course, we have all done this to water. It only makes it worse. Always.
So, to answer your question, (in my opinion of course)... Do you have a mental disorder? Yes. But only whilst you bother with these types of ideas. :) Can you see how funny the paradox is? You are worrying about creating mental disorder, that you wouldn't have, if you stopped worrying about it!! You can laugh! It's funny! :) It's a realization many of us discover, and laugh at. A big theme among recoveree's is finding the whole process, very disturbing, yet very funny. It's like a practical joke, terrifying at the time, but you look back at find it amusing to a degree afterwards.
With a little practice, once you allow these doubts to surface (which they will for a while), and give them little to no energy or attention, and ensure anytime you realize you are indulging in them you stop, to let them leave naturally, you will find (and I'm certain of this!), after all their kicking and screaming is over, that you will no longer have a mental disorder. :)
Be well :)
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