Category Archive

It has been quiet here lately. I’ve been quiet. Maybe because my mind has (mostly) been quiet. I haven’t felt any urge or need to write or talk. Sometimes the best way to deal with my problems is to “not worry about them” - so to speak. Forget them for a little while. Of course my little demons remind me of their existence now and then… but I’ve managed to keep them pretty quiet. My thoughts have been quiet.

And yet I have been troubled. I haven’t had a panic attack in a long time and generally I feel pretty good. To some extent I’ve managed to subdue the inner voice that is constantly feeding my fear of dying or getting sick. I hear it and it affects my mood but I can resist the urge to run to the nearest doctor or scream “I’ve got [enter your favorite deadly deciese here] and I’m going to die within five minutes!!!”

But I have been troubled. I started smoking again and that troubles me. I see all the things I have achieved in life so far and I don’t fully realize how magnificent they are - and that troubles me. I don’t feel content when I know I should… and that troubles me.

So my current mission is to experience content. That doesn’t mean that I have to stop pursuing new adventures. It just means that I have to learn to savour the moment. To experience the joy of achievement. To experience gratitute for what I have (which is a lot). And to feel lucky and blessed.

To reach content I will have to be positive. That is my next step. Turn negative thoughts into positive paths. Be thankful. Feel blessed. Think positive.

I don’t know why I’m crowding the interweb with these thoughs. I don’t know if they contain anything relevant or helpful to others. The only thing I do know is that they contain my personal experience. My journey. And maybe - in a sea of souls - there are others out there that share my journey and will take comfort from the fact that they are not alone.

Jungian Thoughts – Part 1

I was pretty much in the throes of Panic and Anxiety when I first heard about C. G. Jung, a Swiss psychiatrist who was a young contemporary of Freud’s. I heard a talk in which the speaker mentioned “individuation” and the process of “becoming who you were uniquely intended to be” and how this process, though different for everyone, was the common ground of mankind. Well, I’m not sure of the exact words, but they struck a profound, deep bell in my soul – honestly, I had never heard someone talk like that.

After the talk, I asked what books he could recommend and thus began my journey. He gave me three names. Morton Kelsey, John Sanford and Linda S. Leonard. This was back in the days before amazon.com and so I went to bookstores. I found a book by each of them, and devoured them. Went to the bibliographies and found more books, more authors, more titles. For the next year I probably read over 180 books. This is an amazing feat if you know that I also had three children under 5 years old, and was having panic attacks almost daily.

The common themes in these books began to resonate within me. The first that I latched on to was the idea that I, personally, was here for a reason. Not some vague “here to be good” kind of reason, but that I represented a crucial thread in a tapestry and without me the world would be lacking. This language, of metaphor and rich imagery, drew me in and warmed me. It calmed me. I took deep breaths for the first time in years. I wasn’t just taking up space, I’m SUPPOSED to be here.

The second thing that I grabbed like a life-line is that the desires I had to be creative, and the images that sprang from my mind and heart, were parts of my healing. Painting, drawing and making art was not about getting hung on a wall in a museum, or scoring a huge gallery deal. It was about expressing something that without my voice (or choice of color, or line of pencil) would never be expressed. This changed how I thought: Thought about myself, and how I thought about others. For the first time in my life I felt connected to a deep voice in me that needed to get out! And so I painted. Sheets and sheets of paper, covered in colored pencil, acrylic paints and oil pastels. I drew and painted and tore paper, and made collages, and drew and painted some more.

(As a side note – my three daughters just LOVED this new me!! We lived in the play room with paint and paper and glitter. )

This was the beginning of a transformative era in my life that would forever change the way I lived. For three years I read books, created from my own imagination, and grew in an awareness of a rich and infinite inner wellspring that I would eventually refer to as God. But not in the beginning. It simply was my Soul. And that was enough.

I continued to do the things I had learned to do for panic and anxiety, but after this time period I never had a debilitating, paralyzing Panic Attack. There became, in me, a meeting place for inner and outer worlds that brought a sense of grounding, and on which I could depend. I became trustworthy to myself, and I was part of a much larger, grander and very interesting whole!

That was about 16 years ago. There have been many wonderful experiences with dreams, fairy tales, body work, analysis and I’ll share these in posts along the way. But for now, that was the starting point. And I am eternally grateful for that 30 minute talk on Individuation. As Robert Frost said in his immortal poem “And it has made all the difference.”

One thing I’ve realized lately is just how powerful a thought can be. When you think about being in pain you project pain upon yourself. You start to feel pain. When you think about the fear of dying you begin to feal that fear. You begin to die. The thought process is the same. You are actually preparing for your impeading doom and the fear of death is realized fully and in reality.

So. You have to train yourself to let go. To move away from that reality and tell yourself that it is enough to face it when the time comes. When you actually are in pain or when you are actually facing death. It is enough to experience and live through it when it happens and there is no need to go through an imagined projection of the situation.

The Independent, a UK paper, recently published an article about Matthieu Ricard. Here’s an excerpt:

To scientists, he is the world’s happiest man. His level of mind control is astonishing and the upbeat impulses in his brain are off the scale.

Now Matthieu Ricard, 60, a French academic-turned-Buddhist monk, is to share his secrets to make the world a happier place. The trick, he reckons, is to put some effort into it. In essence, happiness is a “skill” to be learned.

[...]

…Ricard, who is the French interpreter for Tibet’s spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, took part in trials to show that brain training in the form of meditation can cause an overwhelming change in levels of happiness.

MRI scans showed that he and other long-term meditators - who had completed more than 10,000 hours each - experienced a huge level of “positive emotions” in the left pre-frontal cortex of the brain, which is associated with happiness. The right-hand side, which handles negative thoughts, is suppressed.

I’d love to quote more but I don’t want to step on any copyright toes, so just read the article. It’s short. Science is only now beginning to confirm what Buddhists (and some other meditation-based groups) have known for millennia: happiness is achievable by anyone who is willing to work for it. While there may be many routes to achieve such things, meditation is the most proven.

I do take one issue with this article in that it refers to meditation as teaching “mind control” and “suppression.” This is wrong. I’m unaware of any Buddhist tradition (or non-Buddhist tradition) that attempts to control the mind or suppress negative feelings. In fact, meditation is exactly the opposite. Meditation is a method of allowing negative feelings to enter the mind without judgment. We don’t solve problems during meditation, we just see them so clearly that we let go of them. We allow them to dry up and disappear.

Many people misunderstand meditation as mind control. Meditation is not mind control. Mind control is impossible. Meditation is simply a way to train the mind to see through all of our bull. It allows us to see how we treat ourselves and others without entering into an internal dialogue as to justify our actions. It’s a way of looking at ourselves to discover the painful truths which we consistently hide from, and, eventually it’s a way to discover that true happiness comes in the revelation that all of life is transient and is to be cherished while it’s here. It teaches us to live right here, right now, in this very moment, because it will soon be gone.

This is something we can all achieve. It is not magical, mystical, or reserved for hermits who sit in caves for years on end. This is something you can do on your own, just as you would exercise every day if you wanted to lose weight. And there’s the caveat: it requires diligence, practice, and persistence even when it feels like a waste of time. In this respect, it is very similar to physical exercise: we have to be willing to do it on a regular basis and suspend our desire for immediate results. If you’d like to learn more on meditation or Buddhism, check out my list of recommended books. Two in particular: Breath by Breath by Larry Rosenberg, and Mindfulness in Plain English by Bhante Gunaratana. These two books have taught me more about meditation, life, and happiness than anything else I’ve ever read.

Six months ago I knew I was in trouble. Anxiety and stress were pushing me towards an early grave. I started to feel depressed. Dangerously depressed. The light was starting to fade, the darkness was setting in and I embodied fear. I was fearful, pessimistic and on the edge.

But I’ve always been a “doer”. I do. That’s me. I move, I shake, I mold and I get things done. My way. I take control. Movement keeps me healthy. That’s what I’ve always told myself. Never stay still. Don’t stop. Don’t hesitate.

And I’m not just talking about physical movement. I’m talking about emotional movement. Spiritual movement. Intellectual movement. Movement through time, changing my surroundings, myself. Just movement in any form you can find it.

So I did something. I reached out. I found a society on the web - www.panicsurvivor.com - and that’s where I met Josh and Cindy (and many others). It helped a lot. For one thing it swept away my loneliness.

I saw endless posts that could have been written by me. They described experiences and feelings I truly knew as my own. I recognized the fear and the anxiety. I recognized the awareness of sure madness that was clouded by doubt. “I know this chest pain is just anxiety related but still… what if it isn’t!”.

Slowly but surely this feeling of community began stripping away my own fears. A wonderful doctor and an incredible family also helped tremendously but the community was key. I also initiated big changes in my life. Then I began writing posts for WeWorry.

And then I disappeared.

Why? Because I suddenly felt different. I think I discovered something I wasn’t really looking for (or looking out for). I’m a doer. I keep moving. I never stop. Until recently.

Without trying I’ve seemed to have learned that it is okay to stop for awhile. To enjoy the present, smile, breathe and reflect on both past and future. It is okay to relax.

This might seem obvious. It might even seem trivial. But to me it was neither. By constantly moving I was able to drown my constantly chattering brain with white noise. I was able to silence the voices of anxiety and worry almost perfectly. The keyword here is ALMOST.

They never stopped. They never gave up. That meant that they were always there when I had nothing to over shout them with. And they were constantly growing louder and louder.

So I finally decided to face them. Some I managed to silence for good, some I learned to control better. Some I even listen to, from time to time. But most of all I realized that movement won’t save me from myself. Movement is still important because I have to keep pushing myself but I also have to face my fears and I have to be able to stop. To enjoy now.

So I suddenly felt different. I felt no need to visit PanicSurvivor or WeWorry. Maybe a part of me was afraid of it. Feeling that if I did my anxiety and worry would come back with a vengeance. Like opening the door out of curiosity only to find out that the monster is still there.

But now I’m back. Mainly to stay focused, tell my stories and move on (keep moving). And, of course, to keep up the fight. Because I know the monster is still there. It’s just sleeping, at the moment. And while it slept I was able to tie it down. I hope the rope will hold.

P.S. One advice. I changed my diet. I’ve lost 18 pounds. It works wonders.

For quite some time I was confused about two contradictory pieces of advice. The first piece of advice said that I should try to reduce anxiety by developing a stillness of mind. From my initial interpretation, I had assumed that this meant I should think less. I’d always been hyperanalytical and an extreme overthinker. If it could be delved into deeply, you could guarantee that I’d be delving… until I got bored and decided to delve elsewhere, that is.

The second piece of advice said that I should try to keep busy. The term “busy” could mean many things, but I first took it to mean that I should jump from one activity to the other as quickly as possible without so much as a breath in between. I’ve never been fond of work, and “busy” sounds too much like work for me to get all giddy at the prospect that work will somehow reduce my anxiety. (I always laugh at people who think a ridiculously rigid work ethic is somehow their best character trait. I’ll expand more on this in a later post, I promise.)

So, is it possible to have a still mind while simultaneously being busy?

Absolutely. My problem was in my assumption that busy was synonymous with frantic and disorganized. In truth, an engaged mind is a still mind, but only when you allow yourself to become whatever it is you’re doing. This is essentially the practice of mindfulness, for which I’m an ardent advocate.

Read the rest of this entry »

Because I’ve dealt with Panic and Anxiety for a long time I sometimes think I’ve got a handle on it. That somehow I’ve learned the tricks and can dodge the bullets. And so sometimes a panic attack will come out of the blue, knock me on my butt and remind me that THAT is not how it works.

Dealing with the reality of Panic and Anxiety is not about cobbling together a protective shield of magical thinking. In fact, that can sometimes be very detrimental to the full, rich life I want to live.

No, dealing with Panic and Anxiety has become for me a daily practice. It is spiritual in nature. And it has more to do with acceptance and surrender, which is not the same as weak and helpless. It is an active process of trusting whatever is happening, and knowing that I am part of a bigger power. That I can, and will, survive the slings and arrows of life not because I have tricked myself into believing everything is okay. But I will survive and thrive because everything IS okay. Even the stuff that feels very un-okay, like a panic attack.

So my practice is about staying present to what is. Not getting caught up in what I want it to be or what it should be or what it will be next year. But if I can take my mind down to this minute and truly be IN that minute, then I’m not only okay, I’m at peace.

And ultimately, that’s where I live my best life. At peace. And in the moment.

Western medicine is still in its honeymoon period with the mind-body connection. Many cultures have understood this connection for hundreds — if not thousands — of years, but here in the West, we’ve been slow to come around.

Check this out:

People with generally positive outlooks show greater resistance to developing colds than do individuals who rarely revel in upbeat feelings, a new investigation finds.

Frequently basking in positive emotions defends against colds regardless of how often one experiences negative emotions, say psychologist Sheldon Cohen of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh and his colleagues. They suspect that positive emotions stimulate symptom-fighting substances.

“We need to take more seriously the possibility that a positive emotional style is a major player in disease risk,” Cohen says.

The exact mechanism(s) of how this works have yet to be fully understood, but I can guarantee you one thing: as soon as it is understood, pharmaceutical companies will patent, bottle, and sell artificial “positive moods” as immuno-boosters.

The good news is that you already have direct access to your emotions even though you may believe that your mood is pre-ordained by genetics. Despite popular belief, this isn’t true. Thankfully, there’s a host of scientific studies that have shown this to be the case.

The truth is that your attitude is not determined by how healthy, how wealthy, or how attractive you are. Your mood is determined solely by your attitude. If you can adjust your attitude in spite of your hardships then you can adjust your mood. It’s easier said than done, but it can be done.

Or you can just wait for the happy pill.

I can’t speak for anyone else, but much of my own anxiety is centered around a feeling of groundlessness. In a sense, it’s almost as if I’ve spent much of my life feeling out of touch with the things that truly matter. In this way, it’s easy to get lost in the bustle of modern life and forget about the big picture.

For me, overcoming anxiety is about seeing the big picture and understanding my place as a husband, a brother, a son, and even a human. Buddhism taught me that the best way to conquer the feeling of groundlessness is to accept that life is, essentially, groundless and that the search for stable ground is a waste of time. Instead, we should spend our time living in the present moment, even if that means standing on uncertain ground. You can think of this is metaphorical terms by examining your own life. Do you search for stable ground? Certainty? Do you want to know what will become of you, your family, your belongings?

Here’s the bad news: You can’t know. Yes, you may get sick. It may happen tomorrow, ten years from now, or seventy years from now. Yes, you will die eventually. Yes, everything you know and love is impermanent. Nothing lasts forever; not the Earth, not the Sun, not the Milky Way, and presumably, not even the Universe itself. We’re all destined for birth, life, and death, in the cycle of existence. This is the only thing you can know with any degree of certainty.

Even the Earth itself is alive. It’s still cooling from its formation billions of years ago. Imagine our planet: a massive lump of iron, rock, and gas. It is on this that we humans were born, whether you believe it to be the hand of God or a natural process. Here we are. The Earth is, literally, our Mother. She breathes still.

Listen to this. This is the sound of the Earth. This is the heartbeat of the planet that allows you, me, and everything else to live. Without the Earth’s rumblings, none of us could be here. The Earth’s molten iron core (which sloshes around sort of like milk in a coconut) generates a magnetic field which protects us from deadly cosmic rays. When the When the Earth’s iron core cools — which it ultimately will — we will all die. Nothing will protect us from cosmic radiation and our DNA will become bombarded with deadly radiation that will kill every living thing on this planet.

When I listen to this, I hear the sound of the Mother. And it helps me to understand a little bit more about where I come from and where I belong. I am a part of the Earth. The Earth is a part of us. We’re bound together in our fate. There is nothing to fear.

I’ve decided to keep my eyes on something I want: peace. And how do I get it?

Well, what I’ve noticed is that it is in the details. In the nearly private, and certainly mundane encounters that I have with individuals every day - I can choose peace. Or I can choose to get huffy, be offended, get cranky and spout off at someone.

But I’ve made this decision about peace, right?

So when I’m standing in line at the Post Office and they are moving at a snail’s pace with only one window open at noon during Christmas I can either get pissed off, make sarcastic (but very clever) comments to those around me, or I can choose peace. I can close my eyes and breathe. I can focus on a child, dressed in holiday clothes with a look of wonder as she plays with a stuffed toy. I can imagine all the happy faces of people recieving the packages. I can say a silent prayer for the folks who work at the Post Office, and be grateful that it isn’t me.

When I’m stuck in traffic by the mall entrances I can holler at the idiots who pull out without looking and nearly sideswipe my car. Or I can focus on “Hark the Herald Angels Sing” playing on the radio and remember watching “Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown” as a kid, and how this was my favorite carol. I can be grateful that I’m in a comfortable car, with heat, and not scurrying around at the mall on my lunch hour or worse yet having to go work there till all hours getting harrangued by shoppers.

And if the pharmacist can’t understand my request I can get huffy and offended, raising my voice in anger and indignation, repeating it as if this imbecile should be working in a rock quarry instead of filling my prescriptions. Or, I can put a smile on my face, and say it again, and again and again, with patience, with compassion. And with peace. That is my choice.

I’m finding that if I choose peace, in these encounters and in my own thoughts about my life and my fears, that I can actually live in this place. For periods of time I can actually have peace on earth - at least in my little corner of the world.

A common argument in favor of medication is that, like any other illness, there’s no shame in taking medication for anxiety. It’s true that medications, especially SSRIs like Prozac, Zoloft, and Lexapro, adjust the brain chemistry in a way that reduces anxiety. Whether this “chemical imbalance” is naturally occuring or the result of our bad habits is a common source of contention, but we won’t go into that in this article. Rather, we will focus on a particular attitude that’s seen among the anxious. That attitude is best defined as “weakness.”

Disregarding medication because one doesn’t want to be “weak” is no different from any other fear. In this case, the fear is that we’re inherently unable to cope with life and that we need medication to help us get by. How many times have we heard others say, “I don’t want to be weak. I don’t want to take medications forever. I can do this on my own.” If you’ve made any progress in your recovery then you already know that what you want is completely irrelevant. The only thing that matters is what is. As with all fears, this fear of weakness is something that must be confronted. If you support this attitude, you’re likely supporting it with the same negative thought patterns that create your fears in the first place; this, in turn, only contributes to your anxiety.

Your ego is your greatest obstacle. Your ego tells you to be strong. Your ego tells you that you need not resort to medication. Your ego tells you that you’ll never recover. Your ego tells you that you need to do this, or that, or the other thing. In short, your ego is a non-stop source of worthless jabber. The sooner you stop listening to these irrational ramblings the sooner you’ll be able to see reality. The truth of what you’re dealing with is right in front of your face, but your ego wants to protect you from that truth.

Think of it this way: if your ego is telling you to be strong, that’s because you feel weak; otherwise, you wouldn’t need to feel strong. You’d know you were strong. Your ego is very adept at lying to you. The best solution to this is to learn to distance yourself from your ego’s incessant chatter. Question it at every opportunity. For example, if you catch yourself thinking, “I don’t want to take medications, I need to be strong,” then look at this closely. The only reason you’re telling yourself this is because you know you’re weak and you’re denying this. Instead, acknowledge that you’re suffering and that you need help. Yes, you may be weak right now, but strength is something that can be built and the first step in building strength is in embracing yourself, weakness and all.

If you allow your pride to get in the way of your recovery, you’re playing right into the hands of your “anxiety factory.” Forget pride. There’s no place for it here. You’re in the business of recovering from chronic anxiety and this requires a delicate, compassionate view toward yourself. You cannot be compassionate so long as you continuously reinforce your fears with nonsense about “being strong” or doing this “on my own.” These types of thoughts are the antithesis to compassion. They are, in essence, you beating up on yourself.

There is no shame in taking medications. When someone breaks a leg, they need a crutch to keep the weight off while their body does the difficult work of healing. The same goes for your mind and your emotions. When you’re suffering from chronic anxiety, there is absolutely no shame in using medications as a crutch while you’re in the process of recovery. We wouldn’t berate someone with a broken leg for using a crutch. There’s no weakness in it. The leg can’t heal without the crutch. Just the same, your mind can’t heal without a crutch. That doesn’t necessarily mean that you need medications, but one crutch is as good as another.

However, if you use medications as a way to avoid acknowledging your fears, then you’re again doing yourself a disservice. The trick is in finding a balance. We should never use medications (or alcohol, drugs, religion, or anything else) as a shield to protect us from what we fear. This behavior, in turn, forces the fear to dive below the surface where it will do more damage, only to surface at a later time of weakness. Rather, we use them as a way to help us develop the proper attitude, the proper perspective, and the proper coping mechanisms to deal with our fears. It’s incredibly difficult to do this while one is in the midst of constant panic attacks or chronic anxiety. You need a crutch to take the weight off while you’re in the process of recovery. If you use no crutch, you will make little progress.

Even if you end up taking medication for the rest of your life, so be it. Sometimes the leg just won’t heal and we may need a crutch for life. So long as you’re always focused on recovery — in the sense that you recognize that recovery requires that we work and not become complacent or lazy — then you’re doing your part and there’s no shame in it. Similarly, if you continually tell yourself that it’s okay to take medications because you’re “broken” then you’re again falling into the traps of egoism. You’re not broken, your ego just tells you this to keep you from feeling the sting of the truth that you’re not as strong you think you are and that you need help. It’s okay to admit that we need help. Be compassionate with yourself.

In summary, if your ego is getting in your way, push it aside. Free yourself from the bonds of pride. Medications are a viable treatment and they work surprisingly well for many people. There’s no shame in using crutches to give the mind and body time to heal. So feel free to explore whatever options are available to you.

MSNBC has posted an interesting article about conquering your fear of dogs. Here’s a snippet:

“To me, big dogs looked like wolves, and little dogs are so jumpy. If I see a big dog, I’m terrified. Little dogs I avoid because they bark and I’m always afraid they’re going to nip,” she says.

Sometimes phobias develop after a bad experience with an animal or simply through lack of exposure to them, but often they originate as a type of panic disorder, for no apparent reason, says David Carbonell, author of “Panic Attacks Workbook.” “This kind of fear can be really powerful.”

I think the most interesting thing about this article is that those of us who deal with chronic anxiety on a regular basis can really relate to the symptoms and responses that are described in this article. Yet, for me, a fear of dogs seems completely irrational. I love dogs more than most humans. In fact, I honestly don’t know if I could’ve made it this far in life without my canine companions. My dogs have helped me through rough patches, and not by being soothing or caring, but by reminding me that they had no idea what was going on and they didn’t really care so long as I continued to feed them and hang out. I think the genuine simplicity of dogs is unparalleled and we could learn a lot from it.

But I’m getting off-topic.

As I was saying, one individual’s fear is another’s love. You may fear dogs but I want to approach even the most ferocious looking animals. So the core problem here isn’t the “trigger.” You’re actually not afraid of dogs per se, you’re actually afraid of your perception of dogs. Perhaps misperception is a more accurate word. When you see a dog, your mind generates thoughts, ideas, and images, and it’s this automatic response that tells the brain “beware!”

Anyway, my point is this: always keep in mind that your fear of dogs or cats or clowns or heart attacks is not actually caused by the trigger itself, but rather by your reaction to it. By changing your reaction, you can significantly alter your perception of the feared object/event.

Check out the article. It’s not too shabby.

It’s not quite as dramatic as the full-blown panic attack that sends me to the ER gasping for my last breaths, certain that my heart has attacked and killed me, but isolation seems to be a key ingredient of my panic and anxiety disorders.

Sometimes I find myself either mad at the world, or vicitimized by the world, alone, misunderstood, and baffled by the experience. Most of the time I view myself as pretty positive and pleasant, a person who tries hard to get along and “play nice,” and as fairly intelligent. So it is with surprise that I ask myself how did I end up all alone at the far end of some opinion, isolated from my fellows and nursing hurt feelings?

I think it has to do with anxiety, and it is one of the more subtle features of my disease. Over many years I have learned that anxiety can spread in an almost invisible mist over my whole psyche - and, indeed, through an entire crowd of strangers. It masquerades as common sense, a well-thought-out-opinion, a core-belief or even as a sum-of-my-experience. This giant boulder of anxiety builds itself with tiny, imperceptible bricks of “fact” - this is right, that is wrong, he is mean, she is hurtful, this pain is serious, that behavior is dangerous. I may convince myself that I don’t swallow some idea whole, but over time I may swallow enough little pieces of things to stuff myself on an anxiety-producing belief. Then,
I act on these beliefs and avoid certain activities and people. If I collect enough of these beliefs, and avoid enough people and activities I can find myself alone, and boxed in to a very tiny mental space. All in the name of self preservation.

For instance, flying is a good example. If I read enough news articles, books and stories, or watch enough TV and film versions of plane disasters, I can collect images and beliefs that flying in airplanes is dangerous - and even stupid. I can avoid traveling, going places I love, accompanying people I love, and attending functions I love. I can convince myself that I’m safer if I just stay home. Over time, I realize I have missed out on weddings, vacations, musical and artistic performances; that I have missed out on the opportunity to live life at its most abundant. Yes, I’ve been safe, but I’m now also alone, bored, resentful and misunderstood. I get sad. I get depressed. I am anxious. I think I’ll have a panic attack.

This goes with people as well. I can collect hurt feelings like other people collect pennies in a jar. And then one day I’m full of hurt feelings and so I avoid all those people, that situation. I’m alone. I’m sad. I’m bored. I’m resentful. I get anxious. What is wrong with me? Is that a pain in my chest? I think I’ll have a panic attack.

Of course I don’t consciously choose this line of thinking - nor do I consciously choose to have a panic attack. But if I allow myself to go down these many (sometimes inviting) roads of judgement, avoidance and isolation, I can find myself back to the very familiar place of a full-blown panic attack. Part of, maybe a HUGE part of, my recovery is to pursue self-awareness, in order to recognize the subtle clues that I may be putting myself in place to get slammed by the disease. I’m coming to believe that knowing and avoiding this is my responsibility.

But these warning signs are quiet and small. They are good at disguising themselves in “normal” clothes. Maybe 95% of all people would say that this person is a jerk, or that flying is dangerous. Maybe they’re right. However, I need to be careful of this kind of thinking. Like caffeine, it may be fine in small doses and it doesn’t necessarily CAUSE a panic disorder. But it is the kind of anxiety that, for me, can build into a full blown attack.

And I need to remember this about myself. It is up to me to choose something else.

Most of us come to anxiety from the same road. The story usually goes something along the lines of, “Everything was fine until…” Anxiety disorders usually appear to pop up out of nowhere, as if one day we were “normal,” and the following day, we were “abnormal.” Others may experience anxiety at a very early age (and it appears that this is becoming more common). Regardless, the anxious often speak in terms of normality, as in, “I want to be normal.” In the practical sense, this means that we want to be able to handle anxiety in the same way that most people do. Unfortunately, many anxiety survivors fail to realize that most people don’t handle anxiety very well at all, even though most people experience less anxiety than we do. They’re just better at denying it, avoiding it, or distracting themselves. In this article, we will examine the simple question: What makes you different from them?

For many anxiety survivors, there are two stages of life: pre-anxiety and post-anxiety. Once we pass into the post-anxiety phase, we tend to romanticize the pre-anxiety stage, as if it were all flowers and hummingbirds. We easily forget that pre-anxiety, we suffered just as much, but in a different way. The transition from pre-anxiety to post-anxiety is usually made when we discover something unsettling about ourselves, our family or friends, or even reality itself.

This “discovery” is often caused by a tragic or painful event that caused severe and inescapable anxiety. It could be a death in the family, a diagnosis of a disease, a change at work or in a relationship (with the associated feelings of insecurity), the birth of a child, or any number of things. Regardless, these events or realizations have three characteristics: 1) The feeling that you are more vulnerable than others and, therefore, weaker; 2) The feeling that your well-being and your life are out of your control; and 3) The belief that something must be done to prevent or avoid negative change.

This event or realization was like a pressure cooker. It slowly cranked up the heat and pressure until you could no longer avoid it, deny it, or distract yourself from it. Even if you think your first panic attack or bout of chronic anxiety happened overnight, it had probably been building up for a while. The primary distinction here is that prior to your first acknowledgement of debilitating anxiety, you were doing a damn good job or avoiding, denying, or distracting yourself from it. Once you were no longer able to keep up the fight, your defenses crumbled and the anxiety came rushing in unchalleneged. The results were severe anxiety, panic, and a confrontation with some scary facts of life. These facts, in summary, are as follows: 1) You can and will get sick and, eventually, die; 2) You cannot control everything that happens to you and your family; 3) Loss, impermanence, and change are inherent features of life and are, therefore, unavoidable.

Pre-anxiety, you weren’t anxiety-free, you just ignored it in the same way that most people do. You weren’t as sensitive to it. You didn’t have that sense of critical vulnerability. You thought you were virtually invincible solely because you hadn’t been exposed to — or didn’t acknowledge — death, disease, old age, and loss. You didn’t die, other people died. You didn’t get sick, other people got sick. You didn’t go crazy, other people went crazy. You went through life without truly realizing its fragile nature and how vulnerable you really were.

Once we discover the fragile nature of your own existence, it scares the hell out of us, and now we’re left trying to cope with it. This realization is nothing to scoff at. It only takes a moment to recognize that our entire lives are sometimes built like a house of cards, ready to come crumbling down at any moment. Different people experience this in different ways, but the underlying fear is always the same: uncertainty. Unfortunately for us, uncertainty cannot be avoided. It too is a fact of life. To protect our house of cards from the winds of uncertainty, we often go to great lengths, and we suffer tremendously. We could tape, glue, or bind our house of cards, hoping that it will withstand time and the changes it brings. But nothing will protect it forever. Change is inevitable. The true path to recovery from anxiety is to dismantle the house of cards and rebuild our lives with a solid foundation based upon the knowledge that we are fragile. Instead of fighting natural change (which includes death and illness), we must coexist with it and learn that every moment is precious. Be here now. Right now, as you read this, you are living your life. Your life doesn’t happen tomorrow or when you get a promotion or when you buy your dream home. Your life is in this very moment. Take it as it is and stop wishing for it to be something that it is not. Acknowleding this is easy, but developing a symbiotic relationship with uncertainty is very difficult. It requires an entirely different perception of the world. We cannot continue to think in the same way, act in the same way, or live in the same way. It requires change, acceptance, and insight.

So, the next time you find yourself wishing to be “normal again,” think on this: you were never normal, at least not in the sense you think you were. Yes, you could handle anxiety and get by in life, but you were avoiding reality. You were living in ignorance of reality. As a result of this, you never developed a peaceful relationship with death, disease, old age, and loss. Instead of wishing to be normal again, it is slightly better to wish to be normal for the first time. Wishing, however, will only get us so far. We must work for recovery. The difficulty is in determing what must be done and how to do it, and for each of us the path may be different.

So, intead of going back to the “normal” delusion, the best solution is to learn to cope with reality. It is, in fact, the only solution; no matter how hard you try, you cannot change reality or protect yourself from harm forever. It’s time for you to free yourself from the bonds of chronic fear, and the only way to do this is to tighten your belt and to march straight through it.

I tend to get most anxious when I see myself as the last bastion before impending disaster. This is a handy metaphor because it fits into hundreds of actual situations.
For instance, is my child doing well in school? If not, then it must be up to me to halt that demise and fix the problem (teacher, school, learning disability, whatever!). Is there a pain in my body? If so, then it must be up to my brain alone to come up with the answer (certain death) and derail the disastrous consequence. Sometimes as I drive through my town I offer helpful advice to fellow drivers, notice how the city could be more concise with the wording of this sign or that notice. I often see how a kooky intersection could be designed more efficiently, and I correct the incorrect grammar that has been posted on billboards.

I’m a busy bee.

And it is just this busyness that can signal the onset of a full blown panic attack - because if all these wrongs are dependent on me for getting “righted” then we’re ALL in serious trouble! It can make my heart race just to contemplate this scenario.

Through a spiritual program that I follow I’ve come to believe in a power greater than myself. It’s not so relevant that I articulate and explain the personal ins and outs of this belief system, but what IS relevant is the crucial idea that there IS a higher power, and I’m not it! This seems like a simple phrase, and perhaps to those who don’t suffer from anxiety and panic disorders this is taken for granted.

But for me, it has to be consciously and constantly remembered. I am NOT the world’s safety net. I am not my children’s safety net. I am not even my OWN safety net. I’m just a decent human being, living life to the best of my ability, and I probably have a few talents and ideas to contribute to the world, so maybe I could focus on that, eh? I can let go of monitoring the edge of “the great abyss” to make sure no one falls over, and I can do what it is that I can do.

Like, I can make sure my kids get healthy food, and a good night’s sleep. I encourage them to get organized, and ask for help, but I can leave the rest up to them. They will work it out. If I have a pain in my body I can go to the doctor, or I can chalk it up to one of the side effects of HAVING a body, and go on with my day. Chances are I’m not going to die from three or four life-threatening illnesses today. As for my driving, well, I could probably just pay more attention to my own choices, my own speed, and whether or not I’m using my turn signal. If I’ve got so much time on my hands in the car maybe I can listen to a book on tape.

What this practice of depending on a higher power is teaching me is that I do have a place in this world, I’m just not in charge of it. And not being in charge means I do not have to take on the responsibility for the proper management of every detail. I can do what I can do for myself and those in my tiny circle. And I can trust that the same power that organized planet’s orbits and the creation of a galaxy, can probably put the right person on the right task. Just for today I can go with the flow.

I dance with panic and fear. Not necessarily because I like it, but it’s better than any alternatives I’ve found. At first I didn’t want to dance. I was in denial. I tried to organize it away. Drugs helped. I was, in my mind, a perfectly normal person. Happy, positive, busy. I got along well with life. I didn’t push too hard at life, and life didn’t poke too hard at me. But, panic and fear and anxiety came rushing into my life. Without ever asking permission, or inquiring if I knew how to handle them, they were there.

I began to notice dangers. For instance, what if a person (a person like ME) forgets how to swallow? What then? Or, breathing, how about forgetting to breathe? What would happen? I began to choke on most foods, and couldn’t quite catch my breath. My heart raced alot and I thought maybe this was a heart attack. I remember driving down the street and seeing this big Public Service Billboard listing the five warning signs of Heart Attack - I had them all! I pulled the car over and dialed my HMO. The nurse, using a very condescending tone, told me that if I was having a heart attack I wouldn’t be talking to her on the phone and that I was probably fine. I hoped that when they found me dead they could trace the call to her and make her feel terribly guilty. Over the next year I had three MRIs (to find the brain tumors), two Stress Tests (one after wearing a portable heart monitor for 48 hours), numerous x-rays and too many doctor visits to count.

My family physician is a saint, he is NOT condescending and he has been wonderful in explaining the ins and outs of Panic Disorder and General Anxiety Disorder. He has educated me about stress. He is willing to talk meds and refer me to psychiatrists. He orders tests when I am convinced of imminent death. He still takes my calls. After 18 years he STILL takes my calls, and schedules appointments with me - this man is a saint!!

But my *dance* with panic and fear started about five years in to the disease. I just couldn’t get my mind around the possiblity that I may survive these symptoms. I thought I was really petrified of death. And that it was just around the corner. With three small children, and having just turned 30, I was pretty sure that my Panic and Anxiety arose out of a fear that an untimely death would leave my loved ones alone. I began a Jungian analysis and in doing that I started writing down my dreams. I studied Jung’s approach to healing and imagery. It started to occur to me that perhaps I wasn’t so afraid to die. What I was afraid of was life.

And so began the dance - with panic, with anxiety and with life. I began to risk things like making art, studying mythology, and creative writing. The generalized fears and anxieties, the dangers encroaching on my life made their way into collages, journal and stories. I tore paper and glued it to large canvases, splashed paint around and added the flotsam and jetsam of my life. The creations were huge, colorful and full of movement. I took classes at the University and read books, plays and myths from ancient Greece.

I also took Buspar for a few years, then during one terrible time I suffered from depression and Effexor was a life-saver. I have had an “as needed” script for Xanax that lasts for years, but I always have it filled. I don’t mess around with these symptoms, they’re scary and they can kick my butt.

But I dance with them. There is a rhythm and a beat that I can relate to. Many times I can embrace the symptoms and out of them I can create some dynamic response to life and love and fear and risk and pain. And that is the dance. It is a spiritual dance for me now. I know that I’m alive, that I’m human, that I’m scared a lot of the time, but I’m not alone. I’m dancing.

In comes the feeling, the symptom, the pain and the conviction that I’m about to die. And on the best days we swoop together through my studio, throwing paint, gluing glass, paper, beads, sticks and stones to canvases that express this mood. In that frantic effort to catch my breath or slow my heart I smoosh clay into fantastic shapes and fill it with items that poke, prod, stick and pierce the softness. I write stories about death, grief and terrible loss. I write about healing and crying and unlikely groups of people coming together to solve a problem or withstand a devestation.

I dream, I flow, I get scared. I take care of myself - I eat as well as I can, I exercise, I limit my exposure to triggers. I dance with this disease. And in the process of this dance I am living. With abandon. This is my story, and I’m sticking to it!