Ways to stop monitoring myelf?? That's the trigger sometimes

[hesson81]

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[tinkerbell_11]

what do mean when monitering yourself???

[hesson81]

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[tinkerbell_11]

i'm exactly the same im affraid i wake up and instantly feel pain in my chest and then i can't breathe and it all starts from there..im sorry u also feel this way we have to re train our mind to tell us we are infact healthy people xx

[hesson81]

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[tinkerbell_11]

yes im the same..i indeed feel fine im a healthy young woman...i just find it hard to believe inside im not dying of some terrible ilness

[hesson81]

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[tinkerbell_11]

im not on any meds either im trying to self help which isnt going so well :(

[jennycat78]

I am the same way. My son was tested for some medical issues (he is fine) but since then I have had this terrible anxiety about anything medical for him and myself.

I do the self monitoring thing all day. If I feel an ache or pain or little bump, I will check it and check it until it is indeed very sore . I have a terrible time dealing with anything medical especially doctors visits.

I came to a point where I had to take mes....60mg bu-spar a day, I need it to calm me as I work through these issues. I hope to start to ween off them in the near future but for now I have a lot more less anxiety riddled days and I want to keept that going.

[hesson81]

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[hesson81]

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[tinkerbell_11]

yeah i do have some good days but at the moment they are mostly bad i feel like i have some stomach issues that i prob dont actually have im just thinking they are there i just wanna be normal again..

[ollie]

I get that alot, always thinking, if im not thinking about it im confident and good to be around, but these days anything triggers it. rocking up to work in the mornings is the worst because everyone has a meeting beforehand and it freaks me the hell out, everyone sitting there, i cant speak up or anything. but on the other hand i can speak infront of large crowds quite easily. could the fact i suck at small talk with strangers be the problem thats causing anxiety?

[hesson81]

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[jb]

I feel I am always monitoring my anxiety. If I am busy I feel great, but as soon as I have down time I am constantly worried about how I am feeling. When I'm feeling good I still think about how I'm feeling but in a good way. It is almost like I am obsessed with my anxiety or how I am feeling. Any advice will be helpful. I am currently weaning off klonopin so I don't know if that has something to do with it or not. I was weaning off during the week and I felt great because I was busy working.l Some days I think I am over my anxiety than other days I feel like the medicine isn't working. I am on 175 mg of zoloft I was on 100 mg zoloft but it stopped working or my anxiety increased I'm not sure which. I've only been on the increased dose for 5 weeks so maybe it needs more time. When I'm off the klonopin I feel better than I did before I started it so the increased dose must be working somewhat.

Any advice will be appreciated

Thanks
JB

[ThePhoenix]

That whole self monitoring thing can be real pain. I found when I first started to have anxiety issues it was bad. I would get dizzy spells lasting for like a split second which worried me, the more worried about it I got the worse it got. I would find myself constantly checking if I felt dizzy, did I have a headache, did I feel wierd. It drove me half crazy.

I still do it now but with other things, feeling for lumps and that kind of thing then if I think I have found something I panic about it.

[hesson81]

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[forwells]

The realization i came up with, that I think is every bit rattional is this. Even non anxiety sufferers monitor the way they feel. They just don't attatch fear/worry/concern to it. I started to think if all i'm worried about is the way I feel than atleast I'm worried about something so little, because there's much more out there to worry about, and it passes. It always passes, then you can go on to other things. You start habing normal thoughts, and you no longer pay attention to it.

Well said and thats about all it comes down to , You will never stop scanning your body for problems , its what we do , anxiety or no anxiety we scan our body for problems . But and this is what you must do when you scan and find a problem if you know what the cause of that problem is then you dont add that fear , worry or concern , you just accept it for what it is and live with it . Also the only thing that keeps anxiety going is the fact that we add this worry , fear and concern to it .

Two things the same anxiety and panic attack , reaction fear of unknown , why is this happening .

Riding a roller coaster , same fears but you react to it by saying of im nerveous because of this ride , you are nerveous for a little while and then you walk away . You dont hold on to the second one because you know the cause . But the first you are scared , you dont under stand why or where it came from . It is this lack of understanding that feeds the anxety and keeps it going .

What you have to do is face it , lets say You have a fast heart rate , well you have two ways to go , you can focus on it , run though things such as Oh i must be dieing , i must be having a heart attack etc and fead the aderinaline that is causing it , in turn releasing more chemicals into the brain which will in turn most likely send you into a panic and teach that auto part of your brain that there is something to worry about. So the next time it happens you dont need to think about it the auto part of the brain takes over and does it for you . This is why people often say attacks come from nowhere , they dont , they had a start and that auto part of the brain now does it automatically , just as it has learned to walk ,run , move , breath , blink , you could name 100s without you thinking about doing it. This is the key to recovery , it is the retrain of the auto part with logic .

Or you can see it for what it is , a miss firing of you aderinaline because your understress , So if you say Oh i dont like this feeling but i know what it is , I know it will not hurt me and it will pass in a short time . You stop the procese and the second chemical being released . But most important is you show that auto part of your brain there is no real threat , it is nothing to worry about and your brain will learn this over time . It takes doing it over and over again for it to learn because you are retrain the auto part of your brain to go againist something it was built to do . But it can be done .

So its not about stopping the scanning , its about chosing the right way to react to something when you find it , The symptoms of stress will be there for a long time , 18 months and i still have some but i see them for what they are and they get no reaction from me other than , Oh i must be a bit stressed today. By chosing not to react i know that my body will settle over time , just as it learned to live is such a hightened state of stress over time .
cheers kev :D

[JeffB]

Dear Hesson81 - you have tremendous insights I really enjoyed your posts on this thread (and congrats on the alcohol thing - I know what that's like).

As far as self monitoring goes, I've found a few things helpful. One is to make a point of finding things that I like and forcing myself to focus on them and feel grateful for them. In a way it's very odd that I have to "force" myself to feel grateful for all the wonderful things in my life. I think habits of thought get in the way and it takes effort to change habits.

For example, having a hot shower just by turning a knob is a major luxury historically and even in a lot of the world today. Yet I thing most of us take showers for granted and while we're in there worry uselessly about this and that. Feeling gratitude repeatedly shifts perceptions. I like the gratitude practice described on http://www.jfmccaffreymd.com/practice-gratitude.html.

Also, the few times I've volunteered at our local food pantry I had a lot of trouble feeling bad about anything in my life. This probably doesn't apply to you, but sometimes I think I get too self-absorbed. Trying to help others shifts that for me.