Bad Day

[Velrose]

...I wish I had 100% proof that my fear is not real and completely and totally irrational. If I had that---I would be comfortable again.

[joey9]

You will never have that. Life is full of risk and challenges. If you see the only way for your anxiety to end as being the certainty that something will never happen then you will never recover. Sometimes life slaps you round the face with a wet fish. Everyone has shitty luck every now and then. But people are resilient and they get through it and it makes us stronger. Focus on teaching yourself that you will cope if something bad happens, rather than wishing that they don't, as this makes you feel helpless. Don't give worry the power to rule your thoughts and ruin your life. Empower yourself with the knowledge that you can handle whatever life throws at you. You WOULD get through it. Imagine something that is bad but that you do not waste your life ruminating on. Lots of bad things can happen but we don't worry about all of them. We all have our own 'pet' worries. I don't have health anxiety - but I can think about getting cancer and know that it would be shit if it happened. But I don't waste any time at all worrying about it - my mind just naturally doesn't, in the same way that non anxious people don't waste any time worrying excessively about anything, even though they know that if they happened it would be shit. My worries are all about other issues, but it helps me to know that my mind COULD know that if they happened it would be shit without having to waste so much time and energy worrying about it. It helps to realise that although your fear of something may be founded on fact, your feelings are totally out of control, and that there is hope.

[Velrose]

You will never have that. Life is full of risk and challenges. If you see the only way for your anxiety to end as being the certainty that something will never happen then you will never recover. Sometimes life slaps you round the face with a wet fish. Everyone has shitty luck every now and then. But people are resilient and they get through it and it makes us stronger. Focus on teaching yourself that you will cope if something bad happens, rather than wishing that they don't, as this makes you feel helpless. Don't give worry the power to rule your thoughts and ruin your life. Empower yourself with the knowledge that you can handle whatever life throws at you. You WOULD get through it. Imagine something that is bad but that you do not waste your life ruminating on. Lots of bad things can happen but we don't worry about all of them. We all have our own 'pet' worries. I don't have health anxiety - but I can think about getting cancer and know that it would be shit if it happened. But I don't waste any time at all worrying about it - my mind just naturally doesn't, in the same way that non anxious people don't waste any time worrying excessively about anything, even though they know that if they happened it would be shit. My worries are all about other issues, but it helps me to know that my mind COULD know that if they happened it would be shit without having to waste so much time and energy worrying about it. It helps to realise that although your fear of something may be founded on fact, your feelings are totally out of control, and that there is hope.

Thanks so much for saying all of this. Sometimes...I just need to be reminded that dwelling on my fears does NOTHING. It's so hard to cope with sometimes, as I'm sure you know. I'm still trying to teach myself that "worrying is wasting my life," but some days, it's just rough.