What my shrink said!

[Cobra]

I recently went to see a psychiatrist. Took months to see him, but this is how it went. After our initial interview, he asked me what my problem was. I told him hypochondria and panic attacks. We talked about the things I had tried, and he said, " I don't want to offend you, but cognitive behavior therapy and positive thinking do not work. If you want to get rid of anxiety, you can only do one thing. Cultivate a fuck it attitude. No matter what the anxiety does, you have to think fuck it and go on about your day. You cannot run from your thoughts. You cannot fight them. You have to think of your anxiety as a bully, stand up to it and let it have its way with you." So, my shrink is an exposure therapy adherent. I actually liked him, but I've been in hell since, trying to do as he said. Fuck it might work, but it doesn't feel good in the meantime. Especially the heart phobia and palpitation. I'm doing my best, tho!

[jloca215]

I agree with him! Fuck it! I've been trying that approach too. It's hard but when it works you feel great and accomplished. And it helps build your courage to face the next challenge.

[GymRatNoMore]

My psychologist said almost the same thing, he said "you can either let your panic disorder destroy you or you can stand up to it and ride it out" he also said "the more you let it control you the stronger it becomes, if you turn around and don't tell yourself to push through it your mind will think the anxiety was for a good cause letting it reoccur again". So I'm like "hell yeah! I'm gonna fight this thing!" I took my kids to the park practicing what he told me, to be angry at the situation and tell my anxiety to screw off when it got the better of me and I had to turn around and rush home to prevent the full on attack... So sad but it was too scary to cope with. I plan on eventually letting one of my more severe attacks occur and not going to the ER... I hope it works one day

[Cobra]

To be honest, the following day, I ended up in the er. My pulse had gone thru the roof after eating lunch. Eating is one of my triggers, unfortunately. The other, my heart phobia. It seems, like a bully, the panic redoubles its efforts when you fight back. It is almost like it is a separate creature that consciously wants to break you. But I am growing very tired of it. Perhaps soon it will simply become a tiresome bore to me. Oh another one? Well, get it over with then! Perhaps that is the key to beating it. Just being bored by it. Or in other words, fuck it, get done with it. I need to put on dinner! Lol!

[Anthony Mendez]

Look at my signature! :)

[Ahlstrom]

Exposure therapy definitely worked for me, I used to panic around marijuana smoke, but now I'm tottally fine around it.

[jessed03]

Exposure therapy definitely worked for me, I used to panic around marijuana smoke, but now I'm tottally fine around it.

I have Dorito's, you wanna bring some weed round and test it? :P

[tailspin]

Your shrink is half right but is leaving out the main bit .

First accept that it takes time to heal . Just because you say fuck it does not mean that it will heal over night . It takes a long time for the body to heal from such a state . The more you stress it the longer it stays. But in saying that you have to learn how far to push in order to move forward.

Second . It is also something you need to do slowly . You start small to show your brain you can do it but also because small steps feeds confidence and helps you move further . Pushing it is one big jump where you fail which will happen feeds defeat .

Third . If you dont learn and understand anxiety on a better level than your quack so that you can reassure yourself though every step it takes to recover then you will fail . Your anxiety is yours and yours alone and unless you have wrote a book and gave it to your quack then at best he knows about the basics and thats all . He does not know everything that feeds it and every thing that you think as you try to exposes yourself to things.

Fourth again . Learn because i will tell you know as you recover and push your body its will push back and the only person that can tell it to shut the hell up because its over reacting is you . There is no point waiting days to find someone to tell you whats going on .

Example .

Person has anxiety about lets say going in a shop .

First person starts at home . I cant do this , its too hard , the symptoms are too much . They may get out the door , they may get it the car , they may make it to the shop but you can bet your butt that the minute they set foot in that shop they will be hit with massive symptoms and they will go running scared and will have done more harm than good.

Second person .

Starts at home . Knows that this is going to be hard . Knows that their body is going to increase symptoms of anxiety . They learn to self talk . Its only anxiety. Its only my brain relearning not to be scared . It will not harm me . It will not kill me . This person will push past the symptoms and this will show the brain there is no danger .

Now no matter how far the second person goes . Weather it is just to the mail box or to the mail they have won . They have won because they took that small step with the knowledge that they knew what would happen .

It does not matter if they dont make it all the way . Its a start and as you cant eat a elephant with one bite its best to start small .

Thanks for this really helpful post. I do see what the original poster's shrink means about needing to say "fuck it", and it is a good point, but I think it can be more complicated than that for some of us, especially if we've been dealing with this crap for many years and the misfiring neurons and out of whack brain chemistry are deeply engrained. I don't know, obviously different things work for different people and perhaps for some folks facing their biggest fear in one fell swoop does the trick, but I personally do better with a gentler approach of attempting things in stages. I also agree with forwells that we know more about anxiety than our shrinks do!! I read in some anxiety self-help book or other that it can be helpful to think of ourselves as "students of panic" and to adopt a curious approach to our anxiety disorder and see what it can teach us. I like that idea. Pretty soon I will be an expert!! :rolleyes:

[Anthony Mendez]

My first success of the second person was on the freeway coming from Long Beach California to Rancho cucamonga (1 hour drive/ big test for me) I felt the adrenaline rush shooting through my head and My mind was about to go through thinking the usual, "Calm down Anthony Breath etc" But then I realized, wait a minute my hands are not sweaty? My feet are not cringing up, I am not showing any physical symptoms except for the adrenaline rush! Then I laughed out loud to myself and said dam you Anthony, Your mind has already started to realize it's ok if you have the adrenaline / panic attack rushes. Knowing what is going on with you is the first part but you know us deep thinkers (panic attack people) it's hard for us to keep believing , but after that successful night on the freeway I was launched into many successful times like that over and over again.

Note: By this time I had already worked on exercising and eating healthy and taking all those small steps for around 2 years before that beautiful winning night drive occurred.










Your shrink is half right but is leaving out the main bit .

First accept that it takes time to heal . Just because you say fuck it does not mean that it will heal over night . It takes a long time for the body to heal from such a state . The more you stress it the longer it stays. But in saying that you have to learn how far to push in order to move forward.

Second . It is also something you need to do slowly . You start small to show your brain you can do it but also because small steps feeds confidence and helps you move further . Pushing it is one big jump where you fail which will happen feeds defeat .

Third . If you dont learn and understand anxiety on a better level than your quack so that you can reassure yourself though every step it takes to recover then you will fail . Your anxiety is yours and yours alone and unless you have wrote a book and gave it to your quack then at best he knows about the basics and thats all . He does not know everything that feeds it and every thing that you think as you try to exposes yourself to things.

Fourth again . Learn because i will tell you know as you recover and push your body its will push back and the only person that can tell it to shut the hell up because its over reacting is you . There is no point waiting days to find someone to tell you whats going on .

Example .

Person has anxiety about lets say going in a shop .

First person starts at home . I cant do this , its too hard , the symptoms are too much . They may get out the door , they may get it the car , they may make it to the shop but you can bet your butt that the minute they set foot in that shop they will be hit with massive symptoms and they will go running scared and will have done more harm than good.

Second person .

Starts at home . Knows that this is going to be hard . Knows that their body is going to increase symptoms of anxiety . They learn to self talk . Its only anxiety. Its only my brain relearning not to be scared . It will not harm me . It will not kill me . This person will push past the symptoms and this will show the brain there is no danger .

Now no matter how far the second person goes . Weather it is just to the mail box or to the mail they have won . They have won because they took that small step with the knowledge that they knew what would happen .

It does not matter if they dont make it all the way . Its a start and as you cant eat a elephant with one bite its best to start small .

[Nathan415]

Thanks everyone, this was a great thread.

[Cobra]

Thanks for this really helpful post. I do see what the original poster's shrink means about needing to say "fuck it", and it is a good point, but I think it can be more complicated than that for some of us, especially if we've been dealing with this crap for many years and the misfiring neurons and out of whack brain chemistry are deeply engrained. I don't know, obviously different things work for different people and perhaps for some folks facing their biggest fear in one fell swoop does the trick, but I personally do better with a gentler approach of attempting things in stages. I also agree with forwells that we know more about anxiety than our shrinks do!! I read in some anxiety self-help book or other that it can be helpful to think of ourselves as "students of panic" and to adopt a curious approach to our anxiety disorder and see what it can teach us. I like that idea. Pretty soon I will be an expert!! :rolleyes:

Funny you should say that. One of the things my shrink said is, you are not special. There are no special cases. Anxiety is just anxiety, and the treatment is always the same. You have to face it, let it do its worse, and keep on going.

[DodgingRain]

I guess the reality is you can't let fear(anxiety) dictate your actions. In the world we live in it's rare to come face to face with a bear or a tiger where the fear is something useful. It's rare to have to worry about getting yourself into that situation. For most of us the anxiety and fear are relic's of thousands of years ago and don't really have any value in most of daily living.

So the question is why are you stopping what you need to do or want to do? Fuck it is the correct way to think about these things. As someone that suffers from anxiety I know it's not easy to do but it does work sometimes. Or sometimes you just have to put yourself on auto-pilot and do what you need to without thinking much.

The interesting thing is that everyone deals with this, it's just that we have a stronger reaction than the average person. But everyone has some social phobia or worries about their health or money or whatever. If you think about it it's amazing what someone that has no fear could accomplish in life, most people don't end up accomplishing very much of what they want because of the same fears we all deal with, we just tend to have more of a physical reaction than they do.

[HealthAnxNut]

That has been my mantra, honestly. I have learned not to use negative talk toward myself, as in, calling myself names and whatnot, because that is counterproductive. But there's nothing wrong with telling the anxiety where to go! It does take practice, and a lot of starting over. BTW, eating is a HUGE trigger for me. My stomach seems to start all kinds of bodily sensations, which are normal, but that my anxious brain doesn't like.