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Fear
Jan 17, 2008 14:00:10 GMT -8
Post by roz2008 on Jan 17, 2008 14:00:10 GMT -8
Hi I'm Roz. Newcomer.
I need to hear from anyone who has anxiety attacks. What do you do to help your anxiety attacks?
I had small one in the market today. I started to think about myself and the mistakes I made. I wrote on question 1 and 2, and saw a pattern in my "love" relationships.
Thinking about it made me anxious, and thinking that other people saw me make those mistakes really made me anxious.
Thanks.
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Post by Susan Peabody on Jan 17, 2008 14:20:24 GMT -8
I have clinical (biological) anxiety for which I take medication. I also have learned self-talk to calm myself down. I also pray, go to AA meetings, and call people when I get frightened. I also have PTSD so some of my anxiety is triggered by nightmares and going out at night. I don't do that often. I avoid triggers and cope the best I can. Years in therapy have revealed why I am anxious, but only medication and relaxation techniques help. I take my anxiety with a grain of salt. It is part of who I am. I worry, but I don't worry about worrying. I am no longer ashamed but I do get embarrassed when I freak out in public at night. I leave early to go places because getting lost and being late triggers me. You just learn ways to cope. I encourage you to understand your anxiety better and then treat it as best you can. Then be laid back about it. No pun intended.
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Fear
Jan 17, 2008 14:40:22 GMT -8
Post by roz2008 on Jan 17, 2008 14:40:22 GMT -8
I also note that whenever I begin a new behavior, I experience anxiety. Giving up sugar triggered it. Moving into a nicer home in a nicer neighborhood triggered it. Getting a boyfriend ,and breaking up triggered it. Now, admitting this disease, writing about it, and changing my cell number triggered it. My cell is a huge addiction tool. Talking to my last (bottom) boyfriends sponsor yesterday REALLY TRIGGERED it.
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Fear
Jan 17, 2008 15:28:39 GMT -8
Post by Susan Peabody on Jan 17, 2008 15:28:39 GMT -8
I also note that whenever I begin a new behavior, I experience anxiety. Giving up sugar triggered it. Moving into a nicer home in a nicer neighborhood triggered it. Getting a boyfriend ,and breaking up triggered it. Now, admitting this disease, writing about it, and changing my cell number triggered it. My cell is a huge addiction tool. Talking to my last (bottom) boyfriends sponsor yesterday REALLY TRIGGERED it. This is why people avoid change. Our "old brain" likes familiarity, routine, habit. Doing something new triggers a fear of the unknown. It is very stressful. There is a great book called, Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway. On the other hand routine can help calm us down in the middle of an anxiety attack. I love routine, but I also push myself to do new things that are good for me. It is a real internal power struggle sometimes.
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Post by Rainbows Always on Jan 17, 2008 22:12:37 GMT -8
I understand entirely. I dont have panic attacks, per say but have chronic generalized anxiety. I have to work at living in an environment that doesnt involve too much change or stress and MODERATE it with new challenges. (huH!! try being a poly addict, single working mum!!) It's extremely hard for me to keep a balance. It's a toss between being too STRESSED and overwhelmed one day and then the next being too BORED and UNSTIMULATED.
Both degrees of the scale cause me anxiety. It sux but I accept that this is part of me and orgaanize my life accordingly.
Changing your cell no is a HUGE challenge. Be gentle with yourself. great work.
Also as we start step work it can be very confronting, esp confronting the addictive behaviour or writing about it, because it is challenging our behaviours. And the "addict" side of us wont like this. This is where the denial comes in, I know a lot of people who become depressed during their initial starting of the steps. It is also the beginning of a grieving process as we are giving "up" the only way we have known how to do things.
When I first started going to OA and gave up the sugar and food, I was so depressed. It passed tho.
One of my fav sayings
"this too shall pass"
Rainbows Always
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Fear
Jan 18, 2008 15:27:00 GMT -8
Post by rosemay on Jan 18, 2008 15:27:00 GMT -8
I had panic attacks for most of mylife before I finally learned what was happening to me. I used a lot of drugs as a teen so I thought they were drug related, later I thought they were because I was hypersensitive to caffeine. the last one I had put me in the hospital, I thought I was having a heart attack. That's when I learned a name for it.
For me getting entirely off of caffeine cured them. I haven't had another one since, although whenever I "flirt" with caffeine I start getting the heart palpitations and I'm positive too big a dose or starting to consume regularly again would send me right in to a full-blown attack. I can't even drink green tea, caffeinated sodas or eat chocolate.
In my case, I think I had an adrenal system disorder and I can't handle too much stimulus, and caffeine triggfered it. I also notice stressful social situations start the symptoms, such as speaking in front of a group of people, and I start getting red in the face and all kinds of chemical responses in my system.
"Falling in love" seems to trigger some of this too as it is an adrenal rush in the early phases.
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Post by Susan Peabody on Jan 18, 2008 16:44:29 GMT -8
"Falling in love" seems to trigger some of this too as it is an adrenal rush in the early phases. The chemistry of love is called limerence. Dorothy Tenov writes about this in her book, Love and Limerence. Here is an article that lists the chemicals released when we fall in love. They are all mood-altering. people.howstuffworks.com/love6.htm
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Fear
Jan 18, 2008 18:27:37 GMT -8
Post by amiramaile on Jan 18, 2008 18:27:37 GMT -8
That was a great article from Time. I feel anxiety when I am in withdrawal. This last time, I would wake up at night with my heart pounding and be unable to go back to sleep. I took sleeping pills for a while. The withdrawals are still there, but the anxiety is better. Unfortunately, I soothed the feelings of withdrawal by contact with him, now I have to start all over. That brief contact gave me hope, even though nothing changed for him. I was so naive, but I guess I was still hoping and had not fully accepted that it is over. Silly me. Now the work starts all over again.
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Fear
Jan 18, 2008 19:16:51 GMT -8
Post by Rainbows Always on Jan 18, 2008 19:16:51 GMT -8
Dont forget that building our self esteem is a HUGE part of our love addiction recovery. Learning to love ourselves (when we felt others didnt) My sponsor would tell me off if I used negative words to berate myself. ie calling myself naive. Practice self lovin words instead. I think its a pattern we get into, being negative, how dumb I am, Im so naive etc....We need to change our self talk....Self nuture, and self love instead.
Yesterday when I was angry I said to my daughter that she was dumb because she did do something so ridiculous. Then I had to do an immediate backspace. I apologized (made ammends) and said that she wasnt dumb she had just made a bad decision.
The negative words are a trap!!
rainbows Always
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Fear
Jan 18, 2008 19:24:29 GMT -8
Post by Rainbows Always on Jan 18, 2008 19:24:29 GMT -8
Brilliant article in Time. thx butterflygirl
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Fear
Jan 18, 2008 19:42:00 GMT -8
Post by amiramaile on Jan 18, 2008 19:42:00 GMT -8
You are right. Negative words won't help me. I'm not naive. I'm very successful in life otherwise, except for being a love addict. I understand a lot more about it since joining this board. I gave in to a moment of weakness. Thanks for reminding me, I am not naive.
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Post by jonny on Jan 19, 2008 8:57:17 GMT -8
I am also very succesfle in my bisiness life but i think because we are succesfle we are used to winning or getting what we want and acheiving goals...and when we get addicted we channel this drive into the desire and the will to win as usual....but there is the other person that gets in the way and it becomes beyond our control and much more difficult to achieve.!!!
But we dont seperate this fact we battle on as we are used to to winning and acheiving our goals but this is where we MUST identify and should learn give up and walk away from all the pain it is giving us and realise its not getting us anywhere just the buzz chemical in our brains which promises everything but delivers nothing.....jonny xxx
The buzz is just a fantacy dream and not reallty. When you get rid of it reallity takes over and you are much more content with your life. All this can make you feel very naive and insicure. And very obssesive as we love addicts seems to be.
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Fear
Jan 19, 2008 15:53:26 GMT -8
Post by Rainbows Always on Jan 19, 2008 15:53:26 GMT -8
I agree with the above, most addicts I know strive to be PERFECT in everything they do.(or goes from extremes). Perfectionism is a defect of character (ie character flaw-something we can work on changing)
In recovery we learn there is no such thing as perfection.
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Post by Susan Peabody on Jan 19, 2008 17:45:32 GMT -8
Only our Higher Power is perfect.
We are all perfectly imperfect.
We all live in the shadow of perfection.
We can strive for perfection but at the end of the journey will only fall into the arms of one that is perfect.
Recovery is progress not perfection.
We were born perfect and then life began.
To think we are perfect is to lose our humility.
To want to be perfect is human but our soul knows better.
We are not better than or less than. We are just children of God.
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