I beat my anxiety, you all can too :)

[Anonymous13]

When I say 'beat', that's probably the wrong word.. because anxiety isn't our enemy! I've learned that now and that's been the key to my recovery. I'm a 21 year old guy from England and have been suffering from what I would call extreme generalised anxiety disorder and panic attacks for quite some time now.. If you look up the anxiety symptoms.. (I like to call them sensations) I have experienced every single one of them pretty much and had multiple panic attacks.

I know there are so many people out there experiencing the same thing I have and I feel that I want to help others get over this because it is possible, believe me.

The holy grail to my recovery has been regaining my confidence and erasing the fear of my anxiety. I know this probably seems too hard for some of you reading this but anyone can do it. My anxiety had led me to quite bad depression which erased all my confidence and the anxious sensations and thoughts were ruling my life, it was like I was running on autopilot every day.. I had the same intrusive thoughts every day, sense of unreality.. like I wasn't there and everything was a dream.. a pattern had formed for me which I couldn't stop or change for a long time.

What you need to drill into your brain at all times when experiencing any of these symptoms is that it's all part of it and there's nothing to fear whatsoever! I know a lot of you like me are scared to death that you've changed, some of you.. like me have probably questioned your sexuality, had scary and disturbing thoughts and maybe even felt urges to carry them out, but I know you never have and I didn't either. It's all the anxiety playing tricks, all of it, every single thing you experience.. the physical and mental sensations that you know don't feel right, it's harmless anxiety.. that's it.

I realised that they all mean absoultely nothing.. yes this was difficult at first as your anxious mind and body's immediate reaction is to fight and respond to the sensations with fear but with practice and persistence you can train your mind not to fear them anymore and your confidence will come back and you'll feel in control again, like I'm feeling now.

What you have to do is act like a non-anxious person and keep telling yourself you want to experience the anxiety even though you probably want to run a mile or escape. I don't want to rip him off so I'm not gonna say all the details but please if you're suffering from anxiety and panic attacks please consider purchasing 'Panic Away' by Barry Mcdonagh. It probably looks like I work for them or something but I don't, I'm just sharing this because it has helped save my life and I feel like myself again after so long.

It works 100% if you stick to it, trust me!

Don't let ANYONE tell you you can't beat it, you can. You don't need drugs or anything. I've 'beaten' this with my mind and my behaviour, you can too..

ALL of you reading this will be better, it's down to you guys.. no matter how long you've suffered.. I thought I was doomed with this for the rest of my life but that's complete and utter crap.

Also I just wanna say no matter how alone you're feeling you never are.. I felt it too but now I'm back like myself I have realised I'm not, it's just the anxiety making you feel like you are. Don't let it.

You will be better! Good luck guys - Buy Panic Away!

[Drausin]

Thank you, thank you, thank you. This is just what I needed to hear. I'm a 20 year old sufferer that's only been suffering since last August, but man is it constant miserable.

I know exactly what you're talking about with the disorientation. That's the scariest/most disturbing part for me, ya know? That I'm having all of these amazing experiences and I want to enjoy them, but something always seems a little off...I had no idea what they were, and I didn't believe they were anxiety-related, but I'm so happy to hear they can go away once and for all!

I have renewed hope that I can be the person I was just one year ago. Thank you so much.

[Anonymous13]

Hey Drausin. I'm glad I can help man, It is horrible when you're in the worst of it but.. you can get out of it! I was really at what I consider the top end of it all, truely miserable but at the end of the day we are the only people that can help ourselves.

Some people may benefit from therapy if suffering from Post-traumatic disorder but if you have generalised anxiety or panic attacks you can get out it completely on your own. Knowledge is power! Adopt the new attitude and just know 100% you'll never come to any harm or go insane from any of it and you can move forward with your life. Derealisation and depersonalisation is scary as hell... but again it means nothing at all :)

Hope you're feeling yourself again soon, take it easy!

[Gladys]

Dear Anonymous13,

Kevin's right. It doesn't matter that you reach your goal, but how you do it. In the case of anxiety, any method to treat it has to be committed to completely.

It's good to know that anxiety can be overcome, but also knowing how you dealt with your anxiety on the way to reaching your target would be good too.

I think the reason why Panic Away would have worked for you is because you were able to open yourself up to it, and learn coping strategies and new behaviours. I suspect imparting that ability to other people is not so easy.

[Anonymous13]

Hey Kevin and Gladys,

I'm not trying to make it seem like Panic Away is the only answer, you're right that's what worked for me.. others method can work too. But I do feel if you do beat anxiety, like I have.. it's because you've changed your behaviour and thoughts towards it. I just wanted to let everyone know that it's beatable, or very manageable so that it doesn't affect the quality of your life and your decisions.

Again, wish you all the best.

[Gladys]

Dear Anonymous,

Thanks for the reply.

I think you were right in posting about your success. People do need to see that methods like the one you mention can work.

However, you may find that people need additional help in working with that method, so keep posting.

Best wishes

[applesauce]

Embracing anxiety is hard, but I think it's true to say that in doing so you can overcome it. I have anxious episodes every so often, as I'm autistic and autistic brains fire off more signals than average folks, meaning it's muuch more easy for us to overload and go into an anxious spiral. It's actually considered a comorbidity of autism, so having weaponry against it is pretty much the only way of existing.

For me the trigger is usually a major change, or multiple heavy things crashing in on me at once. The only way I've found to overcome this was to just, somehow, keep going and not pull away from my every day life while it's running through my body. I still go to work. I still go on holiday. I still go to my classes and I still mix with people and do all the things I normally do even if my instinct is to run away or curl up and cry.

I don't know as it's a perfect solution. As a rule I have quite a good diet, and, when things in my RL are stable, I don't usually have anxiety moments these days. I don't drink, don't smoke, don't ingest caffeine except in chocolate (though I've been lax in that this year, and probably that's one reason I'm paying for it now with one of my anxiety blips).

I think that if you have the rest of your life in a reasonably stable, good place, it's easier to focus on what's important and use those things as anchors. A lot of people are going through major changes at the moment, with job uncertainty and debt uncertainty and that makes it seem like there aren't any solid things to hold on to, but the worst thing is to let those things sweep you away. I really do get it, because I've already lost my job and gone through redeployment this year as well as had to deal with disability assessments and fighting the local council on transport and disability issues, but even when it seems impossible, finding one stable thing to hold on to is the first step to pushing back the panic.

For me it's my family, especially my mother. Also, things like reading, sitting out in the garden just taking stock of the world, writing, watching a good but mentally unchallenging television show - little distractions give your brain a break and snap the cycle of panic-fear-reaction-panic just long enough for you to get a foothold and start to stop it affecting you so badly.

The way I see it is, if I'm going to have anxiety - and I am, because that's how my brain is hotwired - I'm better off doing things anxiously than not doing things and sitting at home being afraid of pushing forward. You can't live like that, and I've realised that, since I took that attitude, the anxious fits I've had have been fewer and less long lasting.

You can't pretend nothing is wrong, of course, and you shouldn't try to - but accepting it's going to happen and working through it with the belief it's a temporary state seems to help lesson the stress, even if it can't eradicate it forever.

I've been reading here about people suffering constantly with this for months and months on end and I really feel for you people. I find it hard enough for just a week or two weeks in a twelve month period, and I wanted to post just in case something I said is of any help to any of you in kicking the fear reflex and getting back to living your lives.

[Anonymous13]

Anon13 here again!

For me, despite difficult at first.. embracing the anxiety was the answer. In my case I knew that when I was feeling anxious it was innaproppriate and therefore it had no right to be there. After fully gaining knowledge about it all and easing my anxious mind about the physical sensations being worse then anxiety and seeing people also suffer with the thoughts of insanity etc etc it made it easier for me to implement my new attitude. So what I did was to repeatedly drill it into my mind that I was happy that the anxiety was there and it can do its worse because I'm always gonna be safe and nothing is going to happen. By continually doing this my confidence began to rebuild and from there you can fight off the anxiety using that method pretty much with ease. Keep acting like a non-anxious person, keep welcoming the anxiety, actually go out and hope it will happen.

I should add that doing it with your mind only isn't the whole way of doing it - emotions and behaviour are also key. When you experience a panic attack coming or even high anxiety you need to try as hard as you can to welcome it and be pleased that its there using your mind, emotions and behaviour - correcting anxious posture is also a good trick to making you feel alot better.

This reverse psychological method works so well and goes against all the coping methods which are trying to fight off the anxiety - by welcoming it you're erasing the fear of fear which keeps it active in you. The depression and low confidence made it hard at first for me and I did start doubting this method when I couldn't do it fully. But after suffering for much longer trying to 'cope' with it and do the breathing exercises to no avail I tried to go back to this way of thinking and behaviour. This time, with persistence it truely worked and it got to a stage where I was welcoming my anxiety in with happiness like it was a friend. This works so well, because all the fear and confusion gets erased.

Applesauce - Any inappropriate anxiety experienced you can 'pretend' nothing is wrong because really there isn't, it's not pretending. For most people including me the anxiety was there when you're not actually scared of the situation or people for example, the confused signals from the brain and sub-conscious habits is what's keeping it there and making you anxious but really you're not.

Undermine your anxiety by treating it like a friend! It works.

You can do it people :)

[CharlotteHughes]

Thanks Anonymous 13. Your first post felt like you were describing everything I have been feeling for the past year or so. I have reached the final straw with my anxiety and have realized that just trying to ignore it isn't helping! So I will take your advice on trying to accept the anxiety and try to "beat" it just like you have.
Best wishes,

Charlotte :)