Things that look similar but are not - some strategies that may help.

[Ankhsious]

1. Humility and humiliation. Humiliation is something we all try to avoid. Humiliation is having you face pressed into the concrete without your consent. We hate it. But in doing so, do we also avoid humility? I do. "I'm not going to let the other person push me around" I will say. But humility is CHOOSING to let the other person have a voice, to speak fully, without necessarily agreeing with it.

Humility is a sign of true leadership and the only way to control a situation with integrity. I wish I knew this years ago, I would have avoided much angst and conflict.

2. Healing past trauma vs victim mentality. Yes part of the healing process is looking at your inner child and all the time he/she was wounded and stranded without needed love and support. But in doing so, it's easy to then 'take the easy road' and become the victim IN THE PRESENT.

Fact is life is challenging both financially and emotionally. You have to rise up in a good orderly direction. By all means heal your inner child, but I wonder at times I have trapped myself in this healing because it is a convenient escape from of going out and being triggered by 'the big bad world'.

3. Chemical or psychological? You can spend a lot of time ruminating over this age old question. Fact is, depression/anxiety is both. I was feeling HORRIBLE this afternoon. So bad I couldn't even nap. A shot of espresso and a meditation walk later and I am feeling much better. I don't know which it was, probably both!

[Xerosnake90]

Great post and ideas to those who need to evaluate said ideas. I'll comment on the third idea of psychological vs. chemicals and use my roommate as an example. She's had anxiety since she was a young child and is prescribed four different drugs. With a lot of stress in her life lately her levels have spiked and she takes the pills as the anxiety comes on instead of regularly. She made it clear multiple times that the ONLY thing that makes her feel normal are her anxiety pills. When I asked her what things she did to enjoy herself she replied with nothing, because she was so anxious when she did all these things that it brings her right back to that feeling. Whenever I suggested to her that she needs to use positive thinking I her life she said she's done all that stuff and it doesn't work. I asked her what her mindset towards it was and the response was always negative.

She also brought up the fact that anxiety to her is a chemical thing, and that she can't just change the chemicals she has going I unless she takes her medicine. When talking about my anxiety she downplayed it, reinforcing her anxiety as more severe by using her relatives and family history as examples. I let her know my mom as well as her mom were huge worriers, anxiety. And my brother was diagnosed with ADHD, bi polar. I told her I have family history too and that doesn't dictate the way I view anxiety.

Through my formed opinion mindset is the key to living a life without anxiety. By her believing it's a chemical that's out of her control unless she takes her medicine. Her believing everything makes her anxious and that she doesn't enjoy things anymore. That is the degrading effect of anxiety and is controlling her life. She has developed compulsive disorders to maintain control over what she has left and she acknowledges herself a control freak.

I've dabbled in the idea of becoming a psychiatrist or anxiety therapist and am quickly realizing what has been putting me down for years. People whom do not believe they can get better and lack the required positive thinking simply cannot be helped until they learn to help themselves.