May I Help You?

[fjohn]

When I was a therapist I helped clients. This gave me great satisfaction and now that I am retired, I realize that helping others was very therapeutic for me also.
I am a life-long, chronic victim of anxiety and perhaps now of depression. I find when anxiety/depression strike, I draw into myself and exacerbate my symptoms.
I thought if I could help someone, I could "get out of myself" and in the process, someone could profit.
I know this may be seen as selfish and maybe I have nothing to offer anyone. But just maybe I can help. This is about you, not about me.
When I was practicing therapy, my focus was not the symptoms but how the client responded to the symptom. Kind of a narrative approach.
Here are my current symptoms...dry mouth, cold hands and feet, dizzy, palpitations, weakness in extremeties, insomnia, excessive worry, bleary eyes, crying, muscle soreness.
May I Help You?

[belle64]

I've got an anxiety disorder and recently developed a fear of feeling and being sick. Any advise on how to stop worrying about feeling sick?
BELLE

[fjohn]

We will figure out a plan on what to do when the "fear" surfaces. Very normal feeling that anxiety presents. You are fine.

[Gladys]

Dear fjohn,
I loved your post. Apart from your being a retired professional therapist, I find that helping other people saves me, periodically, from my anxiety symptoms.
You know, the best doctor I ever knew was my friend's. He'd experienced some trauma in his life, and it made him somehow more reliable. I'm using him as an analogy to you, because people need to know about anxiety and how to deal with it on a day to day basis. Does it always have to be with us and what are the best coping strategies for dealing with it? I'm trusting you to tell people how to focus beyond their anxiety symptoms and find their own way of resting from the anxiety.
Welcome.