Filled with anxiety for years and feeling hopelessness.
You can’t seem to not feed your mind with negative feeds of information and fearful thoughts.
You know what you need to do; to have clarity, meditate and ground yourself.
You just can’t shake it as much as you try.
You know you need to fuel your mind with less amounts of fear and more positivity or the anxiety will consume your everyday life.
If I know all of this, then why do I still feel this way…
What Is Crippling Anxiety?
Crippling anxiety is a common expression used to describe severe anxiety or an anxiety disorder.
In order to understand anxiety disorders, it’s essential to differentiate them from the everyday pressures and stressors people experience in their daily lives.
For example, feeling nervous or having butterflies in your stomach before giving a presentation, taking a test or meeting someone new is typical and expected.
However, when you experience anxiety more often than not, then it becomes challenging to complete daily tasks or participate fully in your life.
As we know, anxiety can present as fear, restlessness, an inability to focus at work or school, finding it hard to fall or stay asleep at night, or irritated very easily on anything/ anyone that comes in your way.
In social situations, it can make it hard to talk to others; you might feel like you’re constantly being judged, or have symptoms such as stuttering, sweating, blushing or an upset stomach.
It can appear out of the blue as a panic attack, when sudden spikes of anxiety make you feel like you’re about to have a heart attack, go mad or lose control.
It also can be present all the time!
Generalized anxiety disorder
When diffused, can make the worry consume you and you look to the future with dread, you become still, feel alone, SCARED.
Why me?
Most people experience it at some point, but if anxiety starts interfering with your life, sleep, ability to form relationships, or productivity at work or school, you might have an anxiety disorder.
Research shows that if it’s left untreated, anxiety can lead to depression, early death and suicide.
And while it can indeed lead to such serious health consequences, the medication that is prescribed to treat anxiety doesn’t often work in the long-term.
Symptoms often return and you’re back where you started.
What can you do that you haven’t done before
The best advice that I can give is to keep pushing with coping skills and talk therapy.
If you have been doing this for many years and feel you are falling off the ship you’re trying to sail.
Don’t give up.
Sometimes changing therapists can allow a fresh start, by changing old habits into new strengths.
Learning new techniques for breathing and journaling.
Exploring the unknown you can achieve things you ever thought were possible.
Lastly I would like to share, as negative thoughts cross our minds we tend to believe the worst, this allows our mind to think what is not true, be true and we start feeling the fears.
Taking Back Control
“When negative thoughts threaten to take over, it is worth shining a light on them to see if your fears are indeed warranted. By asking yourself the following questions, you can begin to calm the worried voice in your head, and replace it with a more rational process.”
- Why am I stressed out about this?
- What is the likelihood that my fears will actually come true?
- Are there any reasons to be optimistic instead?
- What would my friends think about this?
- What would my friends do about this?
- In the grand scheme of things, is this really so important that it will affect my future?
If negative thought becomes a continuing pattern for you, then it may be worth writingthese kinds of thoughts down on paper.
This post was written by Lauren K., and published by Convenient Counseling Services.
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