Mental Health

[rhubarbodendron]

I've tried yoga and autogenic training but both require concentration. While I am in an anxiety fit, I can't break through the anxiety enough to concentrate. Do you have any tips how to achieve that? It's so anoying to be just one step away from the solution and being unable to take that step.

 

[think]

I asked the same question to my mom when I was 10,, to focus your attention on a singularity type of an object is a way to improve concentration. I had asked about how I could balance on one foot for longer lengths of time. This lead to a way to change my perspective of time personally and how I perceive time changes at different and controlled rates. Mom said pick a point and focus. I did and lost focus on the fact that I was standing on one foot or leg.

 

[rhubarbodendron]

That works for me with minor problems, but an anxiety attack is so immediate and seemingly life-threatening that I don't manage to concentrate on anything else. It's a bit like the instructions for levitation in the Hitchhiker's Guide To The Universe: you throw yourself onto the ground, only you don't hit the ground but miss it by getting distracted by something at the critical moment.
Maybe I should start wearing a towel

 

[Gryffindorian]

That's the difficult part I'm still working on. It's pretty hard in a panic fit to step back mentally and analyze the problem from afar. Imagine a person in the process of drowning to calmly think "ah, I have water in my lungs and now my cells will gradually perish from a lack of oxigen until in about 15 minutes I'll be brain dead". Indubitably some people can do so, but it requires an inner calm and detachment which are exactly what people lack who suffer from anxiery fits (else we wouldn't have them at all).
And then there's also the problem of what I'd like to call secondary fear: after a while you start to be afraid of getting a panic attack.

I hope with the right treatment, you continue to overcome your anxiety. I once had a panic attack and ended up in the ER. It's amazing (and awful) how anxiety can have a debilitating effect. I have not begun therapy yet, since my next appointment with my psychologist isn't until the end of this month. I've only been practicing the skills in my OCD handbook. Lately, I've been feeling more tired, depressed, and irritable, but I just have to continue exercising and meditating, getting enough sleep, and eating healthy. I've been on Prozac for two weeks now and have noticed some improvement in the frequency and intensity of my symptoms, but I'm not quite there yet.

I had a scary incident this morning. I live with family members in the SF Bay Area where we share a house. My older brother has an "in-law" room of his own. He works the night shift, and because of our schedules, we hardly see each other during the workweek. Yesterday it was my day off, and I didn't see him at all. Around 11 a.m. on Monday, I ran an errand and noticed that his Toyota Camry had been parked in the driveway the whole time, from the time I left to when I returned around 12:30 p.m. This in itself wasn't unusual; although he usually parks his car on the side of the street, I figured he would leave the house and go to work by 2 p.m. I never saw him the entire time.

This morning when I was getting into my car to drive to work, I noticed my brother hadn't moved his car at all. It was still parked in the same spot as yesterday. So I thought, "Well, maybe he wasn't feeling well yesterday and skipped work last night." This sense of fear suddenly came to me. My brother, like me, is diabetic. What if he got hypoglycemic and fainted?!? He could be in a coma the whole time!!! Or what if he slipped and fell and was all alone in his room without any of us knowing??? He could be dead! I thought, "Here I go again, catastrophizing, predicting the future, jumping to conclusions." So to ease my anxiety and make sure he was all right, I texted him and asked "You okay?" Minutes later, he responded he was fine. Thank God. This is the kind of nightmare I've had to deal with lately.

 

[Gryffindorian]

@think , good luck to you. It seems to me you have a good handle on your symptoms for now.

 

[Gryffindorian]

I've tried yoga and autogenic training but both require concentration. While I am in an anxiety fit, I can't break through the anxiety enough to concentrate. Do you have any tips how to achieve that? It's so anoying to be just one step away from the solution and being unable to take that step.

One of the things I've learned about being mindful or meditating is that you're not supposed to clear your mind. It's impossible to achieve anyway. The mind has a mind of its own, and it will wander, wander, wander. What you can do is try to bring back your awareness to your breath, or whatever you're meditating on. All that it involves is being in the present moment and accepting thoughts/feelings without judgment. Have you tried mindfulness techniques?

"Mindfulness is simply being aware of what is happening right now without wishing it were different; enjoying the pleasant without holding on when it changes (which it will); being with the unpleasant without fearing it will always be this way (which it won’t).” – James Baraz

One of the things I've learned from the mindfulness class I'm attending is that meditation doesn't necessarily equate to relaxation, although that happens to be one of the effects. Our instructor said meditating is simply focusing on one single thing to the exclusion of all others. You may notice "negative" feelings and sensations as well while you're meditating - being tired, achy, sad, anxious, upset. That's okay. Like I said, acceptance without judgment seems to be the key. I myself haven't gotten to this part yet, but I know it's going to take some time. It's hard, I know, but you only get better with constant practice. Neuroplasticity suggests that the brain can form new neural connections when we're learning new things.

 

[rhubarbodendron]

I've never tried the mindfulness method. I'll try to read up on it.
What I've done so far is autogenic training. But when I am in the middle of a panic attack, the panic is so overwhelming that there is absolutely no clear thought left anymore. It's like being drowned in a Tsunami. It's that one step I can't manage yet: to break through this all-dominating fear. It seems to surround me completely and I can't find a gap in it where I could find a foothold.

 

[think]

https://g.co/kgs/PjOeOy

@think , good luck to you. It seems to me you have a good handle on your symptoms for now.

Thanks,..if by symptoms you also mean the social alienation yes,,, I have come to disconnect my selves from this. Seems that outside certain places of social intelligence there is the discrimination of a stigma in having schizophrenia and living inside a dome or sphere of hallucinations and delusions beyond normal realities that we find common between all of us. So depression being what it is, for me was more than 20 years or from 12 years old to about 50 years old of a 3-5 night a week Suicide idealization experience week after week month to month and year to year for those years now it's a memory of wasted time.. that I might not of survived. But did...this most likely added to the alienation and discrimination. I can say that things like this can be survived and nightmares and night terrors dissipate when dealt with either openly or between the inner selves..

 

[Gryffindorian]

Yeah, it's unfortunate that people with certain mental conditions tend to be stigmatized. Even the words "bipolar" and "OCD" get thrown around in everyday conversations with such negative connotations. It doesn't help that we're self-critical either.

The lecture on acceptance from my mindfulness class last night was quite insightful, but I would really like to know more and actually put it into practice. Our instructor talked about "the second arrow," an analogy to how we humans get caught up in our own insecurities, fears, worries, which only lead to more mental suffering. He said pain by itself can be managed, but habits like ruminating, catastrophizing, and worrying are not helpful.

 

[Gryffindorian]

I've never tried the mindfulness method. I'll try to read up on it.
What I've done so far is autogenic training. But when I am in the middle of a panic attack, the panic is so overwhelming that there is absolutely no clear thought left anymore. It's like being drowned in a Tsunami. It's that one step I can't manage yet: to break through this all-dominating fear. It seems to surround me completely and I can't find a gap in it where I could find a foothold.

If I may ask, are you on any type of medication for the panic attacks?

Mindfulness is widely used in modern-day psychotherapy like CBT and ACT to treat a range of anxiety disorders, using evidence-based research. And it's not an esoteric concept. It can be practiced by anyone, anywhere, anytime (with emphasis on practice.) I've finished reading the OCD workbook, and so my next step is to talk to my therapist about ERP.

Do you like self-help books? There's one I'm particularly interested in. It focuses on Acceptance & Commitment Therapy.

 

[rhubarbodendron]

I've been taking 20 mg Fluoxetine (i.e. Prozac) per day for the last 12 months. At the moment I'm gradually lowering the dose a little, attempting to sneak out within the next 12 months without major withdrawal problems. I think meds are ok in an emergency but in the long run it's better to get to the root of the problem rather than just suppressing the symptoms. After all, if you have greenfiles on your tomatoes you don't paint them red so that you don't notice them anymore but you energically remove them.

Just had a look at that book link (thank you!!!!) and found a lot of familiar things. It seems that I have had Mindfulness lessons for the past 11 months without being aware of it (part of the prob being the different names therapies are given in different countries). At the moment my therapist appears to be introducing me to chapter 15: Compassion with one's own anxiety.

I'm not a coward - else I'd never have started the therapy. I like to face my enemies and stare them down. This new perspective of not fighting the fear but permitting and accepting it was difficult enough for me, but having compassion with my own fears is a concept stranger than any Doctor Who adventure and atm I am not certain how to handle that lesson. It's not easy to change a pov you used for half a century.

 

[think]

I remember thinking that I was not mainstream or normal psychologically it was ok since when I was 11 years old and had just sat at the top of a cliff in the woods alone contemplating Suicide for about five hours.. I knew that this was not the normal way eleven year olds did daily life . Not a shocker but being alone in my living room surrounded by voices chanting my name was kinda weird the first time...so in 1984 when I was first visited by voices I was in shock....at like 20 years old.

 

[Gryffindorian]

I've been taking 20 mg Fluoxetine (i.e. Prozac) per day for the last 12 months. At the moment I'm gradually lowering the dose a little, attempting to sneak out within the next 12 months without major withdrawal problems. I think meds are ok in an emergency but in the long run it's better to get to the root of the problem rather than just suppressing the symptoms. After all, if you have greenfiles on your tomatoes you don't paint them red so that you don't notice them anymore but you energically remove them.

Just had a look at that book link (thank you!!!!) and found a lot of familiar things. It seems that I have had Mindfulness lessons for the past 11 months without being aware of it (part of the prob being the different names therapies are given in different countries). At the moment my therapist appears to be introducing me to chapter 15: Compassion with one's own anxiety.

I'm not a coward - else I'd never have started the therapy. I like to face my enemies and stare them down. This new perspective of not fighting the fear but permitting and accepting it was difficult enough for me, but having compassion with my own fears is a concept stranger than any Doctor Who adventure and atm I am not certain how to handle that lesson. It's not easy to change a pov you used for half a century.

And that's exactly the main focus of therapies like mindfulness-based CBT. Rather than resist or try to eliminate anxiety or fear (or in my case, OCD thoughts and feelings), patients learn to live with them through acceptance without judgment. Fluoxetine, like many SSRIs, is effective in treating depression and anxiety disorders. You just have to give yourself time; you're already on the right track.

I had never heard of autogenic training until you mentioned it. It sounds like it's a verbal-based technique. I've read that OCD sufferers should avoid a mental health professional whose focus is on psychoanalysis rather than cognitive & behavioral therapy. "Talking it out" simply doesn't do anything to address the problem. (But I'm not suggesting that's the impression I get about your treatment.) For this reason, I want to try exposure and habituation.

 

[rhubarbodendron]

exposure is difficult in this case - the first (and hopefully last) panic attack I got was when due to a broken valve my apartment was flooded. My current house management is very nice and helpful but nevertheless I very much doubt they would appreciate it if we frequently staged such a scenario

My therapist is indeed using psychoanalysis as well since the root of my fears seems to lie in my childhood: getting randomly beaten and blamed for things I wasn't responsible for gave me a lifelong fear of being made responsible for everything that goes wrong. I managed to suppress it for decades but when my ex-landlady went insane and basically re-enacted this childhood trauma, I couldn't keep the lid on it anymore and the latent worry exploded into panic. Being suddenly unable to control myself made me very insecure and that made me fear the next panic attack. Classical vicious circle. It is getting better all the time, I'm just very impatient and would like to speed things up.

But I feel I hijacked your thread! How are you doing atm? Any changes to the positive lately? Do you get influenced by the weather? Many of my acquaintances get a winter depression.

 

[Clyde.]

The Four Steps - Brain Lock

http://www.ocduk.org/four-steps


May be of some help.

 

[Gryffindorian]

exposure is difficult in this case - the first (and hopefully last) panic attack I got was when due to a broken valve my apartment was flooded. My current house management is very nice and helpful but nevertheless I very much doubt they would appreciate it if we frequently staged such a scenario

My therapist is indeed using psychoanalysis as well since the root of my fears seems to lie in my childhood: getting randomly beaten and blamed for things I wasn't responsible for gave me a lifelong fear of being made responsible for everything that goes wrong. I managed to suppress it for decades but when my ex-landlady went insane and basically re-enacted this childhood trauma, I couldn't keep the lid on it anymore and the latent worry exploded into panic. Being suddenly unable to control myself made me very insecure and that made me fear the next panic attack. Classical vicious circle. It is getting better all the time, I'm just very impatient and would like to speed things up.

But I feel I hijacked your thread! How are you doing atm? Any changes to the positive lately? Do you get influenced by the weather? Many of my acquaintances get a winter depression.

Aww, hugs to you, @rhubarbodendron . No worries, I started this thread for the very reason that there are people out there like us who have to deal with these types of challenges every day. When I started to get spikes of obsessive thoughts last month, I was so overwhelmed with all kinds of feelings. I'm not one to run away from my problems; I wasn't just going to feel miserable, avoid people, shrivel up, and die. When it comes to our health, we all should be very proactive in feeling and being our best.

By the way, imaginal exposure or "scripting" is a method used in ERP for OCD folks. I tried a practice exercise from my handbook, and it was f***ing intense I got so anxious. But that was the whole point.

I'm pleased to say I've started to feel significant improvement in my mood over the past week. Practicing mindful awareness and acceptance is no easy feat, especially with a noisy, distracted mind like mine, but at least I'm making the effort, and that's important. Neuroplasticity, as they say. I exercise, eat light, try to get at least 7 hours of sleep, and meditate 15 - 20 minutes every day. I highly recommend this free meditation app. I've actually had it for months prior to my relapse; lately I've been focusing more on mindful breathing, but there are various tracks (some free) on Compassion, Kindness, Equanimity, etc.

 

[Gryffindorian]

^ Thanks for the link.

 

[think]

the government has an app that is free too, for iSO and Android called
Breathe2Relax I have found helpful... you can search for it and install on whatever works for you. it sorta syncs your breath and helps you focus on that. the key element in zen and zazen mindful meditations --- breathe ---

 

[rhubarbodendron]

unfortunately (or fortunately?) I have a cell that can phone and text and nothing else. Saves me a lot of viruses and being spied at.
Thanks for the link, Clyde, and welcome to the board! UCLA - jeez, it's been almost a decade since I last was there. Time flies!

Yes, when it comes to facing our fears we both have the same attitude, Gryffindorian In German we call this "grabbing the bull by the horns" I'm not sure about the corresponding American phrase but from what I've heard from my American friends they presumably grab the bull further south...

I think being absolutely frank with the problem is the best tactic. My colleagues are now fare more aware of myself and each other. The other day I ran the stairs up a bit fast and paused leaning at a door frame to get my breath - I promptly got asked by a colleague if everything was all right. Sweet
Also, rather a lot of my colleagues told me they, too, have depression or anxiety. Apparently about 30 % of us have some trouble or other. I was rather surprised about that figure.
My boss even made it the main topic for the annual safety talk (guess who he wants to be his ghostwriter LOL). But he's right: these drugs we take do effect our reactions when driving or using machinery and thus are a certain security risk we must take into consideration. Plus: in case of an accident we mustn't be given certain drugs. An Aspirin or a simple cough syrup can kill a person who takes Prozac. The more people know that, the safer are we all.

 

[Gryffindorian]

Certain drugs should be okay to use with Prozac. For instance, I'm also diabetic, so I take metformin to manage my blood sugar and lisinopril for blood pressure control.

In response to your other question (I really should practice mindful reading so as not to miss important content), I sometimes feel a bit down around the holidays. I've been experiencing it the past couple of winters. But then again, it could be attributed to stress, demands and expectations, especially when shopping for holiday presents for family and friends. Now that I'm learning more skills, I can also use them to cope with stress and depression.