When Right Feels Wrong

[dewdroponwiltinggrass]

I don’t think I get severe panic attacks like most of you, my friends, struggle with. But when I am experiencing anxiety, the right hemisphere of my brain feels like exploding. Sometimes I even imagine it stuck with some big stone or something and that it is swelling. Half migraine, I suppose. At times my migraine would even be accompanied by vision problems like when it is so hard to look straight at something or someone when I am talking to them because my eyes feel like gouging out. But it is possible that the reason for that might be only due to lack of sleep. I have insomnia. Moreover, my right ear usually feels dysfunctional when it is really not. And sometimes when my anxiety is really bad, my right jaw tightens that I feel like I would be getting a half stroke. It is different from most cases, though wherein the sufferer would get even more anxious and panic after experiencing those similar situations because in my case, I just submit to the possible negative outcomes of it. Partly because I assume it would lead to death which is more appealing to me and I guess mostly because I believe I am miserable enough no matter what happens to me. So, I am just wondering... do I really have an anxiety disorder?

PS. The first time I posted here, no one replied and I've gotten a little anxious about it especially when I see the number of views. Maybe no one here likes lengthy stories eh?

[dont_worry]

"I just submit to the possible negative outcomes of it."

This is good and bad. Good, becuase, in one sense, you are accepting your current limitations and the problems you perceive that you have. Acceptance is a hugely powerful therapy that costs nothing.

Bad, though, in that you are essentially haggling and bartering with your ego. You allude to this in your next statement:

"Partly because I assume it would lead to death, which is more appealing to me."

When one is in the grip of health anxiety it's very easy to get sucked into an egoic state where you start debating with yourself. I have a friend who obsesses about moles on her body; she "reasons" with herself along the lines of "well, if it IS really serious, at least there's a really good hospital nearby" etc.

This is never the route out of pain. As you knock down one mental barrier, the ego will regroup and give you more things to worry about. Acceptance and, crucially, self love are your routes out of anxiety. This, at least, has been my experience.

I wish you well.

[dewdroponwiltinggrass]

"I just submit to the possible negative outcomes of it."

This is good and bad. Good, becuase, in one sense, you are accepting your current limitations and the problems you perceive that you have. Acceptance is a hugely powerful therapy that costs nothing.

Bad, though, in that you are essentially haggling and bartering with your ego. You allude to this in your next statement:

"Partly because I assume it would lead to death, which is more appealing to me."

When one is in the grip of health anxiety it's very easy to get sucked into an egoic state where you start debating with yourself. I have a friend who obsesses about moles on her body; she "reasons" with herself along the lines of "well, if it IS really serious, at least there's a really good hospital nearby" etc.

This is never the route out of pain. As you knock down one mental barrier, the ego will regroup and give you more things to worry about. Acceptance and, crucially, self love are your routes out of anxiety. This, at least, has been my experience.

I wish you well.



Easier said than done. Why is it so hard to accept and appreciate myself, Sir? I've been trying to do that, you see. But it is exhausting because I always end up hating myself for being such a sore loser who is not good in anything except for thinking of the things I will never be good at.

I'd like to still thank you, though.

[dont_worry]

Dude, you are not a loser. Understand that this is merely your EGOIC perception of yourself. I strongly urge you to research the Buudhist concept of ego.

In short, it is the primal part of you that is governed by fear and obsessed with survival. It knows nothing of love. Like a flame, if you feed it fuel, it burns longer, and in turn gives you a negative view of yourself.

But it is not a true view. You are perfect and pure as you are. The criteria by which you judge yourself are egoic and umimportant. It simply means you judge yourself by the standards of a fear-centered, negative society. Ask yourself why every film poster depiects a guy holding a gun, or why fans of a given sports team "hate" fans of a rival team (when the notion is plainly ridiculous), or why magazines exist to feed, vulture-like on the private lives and appearances of celebrities. Society is geared towards making you feel precisely as you do currently.

You say you're not good at anything. Firstly, I suspect that's not true. But more importantly, the things that you might wish to be good at are just surface-level things.

If you can manage to learn self love, and compassion towards others, then THEY are true skills - not basketball, or Call of Duty, or graffiti art.

Self love is the key to every problem you can name. Perhaps you view yourself as a loser also due to other people's perceptions of you. This can be a particular problem in younger people due to the cruelty of the school environment. But understand that anyone who gives you cause to be upset simply does not understand love for themselves.

There is a famous, and very apt phrase: "I hurt, therefore I hurt." It means someone hurts inside, therefore they hurt others.

Feel free to read my other post with 15 points that helped me through problems like yours.

If you take only one thing from this post, though, let it be that your view of yourself is a false one.