aml0017
12-02-2016, 07:32 AM
I am still having this fixation on my new car, and compulsively adjusting the seat and steering wheel arrangements over and over again. It was giving me panic attacks a couple weeks ago when my anxiety was in high gear, but the last two weeks have been better. I was stopping myself from touching it all. In fact, the last few days were really good days, hardly any anxiety. I have been eating much better and getting some exercise, bringing my dog to the park, sleeping pretty well. Last night I went have dinner with my grandmother and when I got back home I found myself compulsively adjusting the seat again. Then of course when I wake up this morning my anxiety is heightened. Not so bad, but when I get in my car to go to work I was doing it again and now my anxiety is definitely going up again. It is ridiculous!
This is not the first time I have become fixated on some trivial thing, it has become a pattern for me in the last few years. The last bad anxiety episode I had about a year ago was centered on my tv. I had an old box type tv that finally died, so I got a new tv, a 40" hdtv. Like my car, it was just a change for me and I freaked out, thought it was too big, too bright, was giving me eye strain and headaches, the picture wasn't right. I actually avoided my living room for a whole week, as in I didn't even sit in there once, to avoid having to think about. Finally I said enough is enough, and of course now it is fine, I love my tv in fact. Ditto about any other changes or new things in my life.
My point is it is not really about the tv or the car seat. It is about the anxiety of course but there is really a deep seated fear of change that I have, fear of doing the wrong thing, or making the wrong decision. It's like if my tv isn't right, or my car isn't right, or if something in my house breaks and I can't deal with it, I take it as a reflection of just how worthless and stupid I feel. Like something not being perfect is a personal failure. I haven't really figured out how to get past that. The only reason i've gotten past these things before is because after a couple months of being fixated on something it's like my mind just all of a sudden becomes desensitized to the thing I'm worrying about and I just stop thinking about it. Until a new change comes along of course.
This is not the first time I have become fixated on some trivial thing, it has become a pattern for me in the last few years. The last bad anxiety episode I had about a year ago was centered on my tv. I had an old box type tv that finally died, so I got a new tv, a 40" hdtv. Like my car, it was just a change for me and I freaked out, thought it was too big, too bright, was giving me eye strain and headaches, the picture wasn't right. I actually avoided my living room for a whole week, as in I didn't even sit in there once, to avoid having to think about. Finally I said enough is enough, and of course now it is fine, I love my tv in fact. Ditto about any other changes or new things in my life.
My point is it is not really about the tv or the car seat. It is about the anxiety of course but there is really a deep seated fear of change that I have, fear of doing the wrong thing, or making the wrong decision. It's like if my tv isn't right, or my car isn't right, or if something in my house breaks and I can't deal with it, I take it as a reflection of just how worthless and stupid I feel. Like something not being perfect is a personal failure. I haven't really figured out how to get past that. The only reason i've gotten past these things before is because after a couple months of being fixated on something it's like my mind just all of a sudden becomes desensitized to the thing I'm worrying about and I just stop thinking about it. Until a new change comes along of course.