aml0017
12-27-2016, 07:46 AM
Holidays in and of themselves don't really stress me out. I don't really have a lot of social obligations except family gatherings which are pretty low key and don't really bother me. However, it seems every year around this time I am dealing with a lot of anxiety. Maybe it is not the holidays per se but a wintertime thing. In South Louisiana we don't have much of a winter, I think it is supposed to get up to the upper 70's for most of the week. It does get darker earlier though maybe there is something to the Seasonal Affective Disorder effect. I don't know, just can't wait until it passes.
My biggest issue is when I have a lot of time off from work due to the holiday or whatever, I allow myself to wallow in my house too much. During the week I work most of the day so that is my biggest distraction. By the time I get home I have to run errands, cook, clean, walk the dog so I don't have much time to just sit and feel sorry for myself. I was off 4 days for Christmas so i got off to a bad start Friday, just lay in bed all day. I wasn't particularly anxious/depressed - just couldn't seem to get up. Same thing Saturday. I'm usually pretty good about making myself get up and do something but I just didn't have the will. Once I was forced out of the house on christmas day it pulled me out of my funk but still high anxiety and a lot of buzzing in my ears all the time.
On another thought - I have been continuing to use the dare method to deal with anxiety in the moment. It is becoming a good habit I find, especially the first two steps. I always did something similar with talking myself through the anxiety though that was more of an avoidance, like trying to ignore or make the anxiety go away. The DARE method is more like telling the anxiety if it is going to be there regardless then sit down and shut the **** up so you can continue with your life. LOL. Gonna stick with it and try to internalize it rather than just going through the motions of the steps, though that alone is a great help. If anyone else who has been helped by DARE wants to comment on how you made it work for you I'd like to hear.
My biggest issue is when I have a lot of time off from work due to the holiday or whatever, I allow myself to wallow in my house too much. During the week I work most of the day so that is my biggest distraction. By the time I get home I have to run errands, cook, clean, walk the dog so I don't have much time to just sit and feel sorry for myself. I was off 4 days for Christmas so i got off to a bad start Friday, just lay in bed all day. I wasn't particularly anxious/depressed - just couldn't seem to get up. Same thing Saturday. I'm usually pretty good about making myself get up and do something but I just didn't have the will. Once I was forced out of the house on christmas day it pulled me out of my funk but still high anxiety and a lot of buzzing in my ears all the time.
On another thought - I have been continuing to use the dare method to deal with anxiety in the moment. It is becoming a good habit I find, especially the first two steps. I always did something similar with talking myself through the anxiety though that was more of an avoidance, like trying to ignore or make the anxiety go away. The DARE method is more like telling the anxiety if it is going to be there regardless then sit down and shut the **** up so you can continue with your life. LOL. Gonna stick with it and try to internalize it rather than just going through the motions of the steps, though that alone is a great help. If anyone else who has been helped by DARE wants to comment on how you made it work for you I'd like to hear.