So I lost my Medicaid a few weeks ago because they sent me a redetermination form that I never received. By the time they got in contact with my treatment team it was already too late, I’d lost it. So now I have to (well had to) reapply…a while ago. And I can’t bring myself to even get in my truck to head out there…can’t do it. Now it looks as though it is being done for me, as most things in my pathetic life have been.
It’s not the only thing on my list of things that must be done that I can’t bring myself to do, but certainly the most important. You see this is a pervasive, debilitating, life long anxiety disorder. I fear the world…it overwhelms me to the point that it all looks from where I sit to be absolutely insane.
Sure I don’t avoid everything, no one at the two clubhouses I spend my time at would assume I had such anxiety. Although this is because, I’ve identified it, it is not the real world, it is a judgment free zone, the most welcoming, sane place I’ve ever walked in the door. In fact the director of my first clubhouse even gave me a funny look once when I told him I hadn’t made it to an event because of anxiety…he said “Really? YOU???”
Yes…me. I have a crippling anxiety disorder. My schizophrenia or whatever it is, is really a non-issue, it doesn’t hold me back from doing anything these days. But my anxiety disorder is the worst of what I struggle with. It has been beyond the understanding of any mental health professional I’ve ever spoken about it with. It’s roots are to my mind probably too deep to be, well, uprooted.
If I wasn’t good at cultivating relationships where judgment is not an issue I would these days probably have zero friends. This has in fact been the case in the past, totally alone in the world but for my family. But despite having some good friends here and there I am crippled by this. Even walking into a store to make a purchase drains most of what I possess of what it takes me to do these things.
I rarely go out in public alone but to a store and back. Makes me want to scream out sometimes…scream at this mad world for making me feel rejected by it right at the get go.
P.S. - where is the mailman? I’m needing my mail right now.
There is a personality disorder diagnosis called “avoidant personality disorder”. I have it. I can relate very well to what you say. What works best for me is not to maximize my troubles. Ain’t no big deals.
On the comment of avoidant personality disorder the way you combat it is by doing more things. Silmar with fighting anxiety otherwise you end up feeding the anxiety. ie if you’re putting something off the anxiety gets worse as more pressure to do it gets put on you. If that makes sense. Definitely see if you can get more help with it and you most definitely are not alone with it.
i have only recently been okay to staying in town longer, seeing people in the street etc…
cbt is amazing for me.
but before this when i was doing this without medical help…i was going to see a hypnotherapist which helped me heaps, meditation, realising i could go outside and not have to look for fights because really no one was actually in truth interested in me…
anxiety is a bitch…but the world is actually a harmless place, we create this disasterous world inside our own heads…
know some one cares.
take care
I am aware of AvPd and relate a lot to the description, greatly even, but the way I see it, from the perspective of someone who suffers from very something similar I have to say that I agree with the opposing view of AvPd being a severe spot on the anxiety/social anxiety spectrum.
Thank you. Still avoidant of course, and I know that in order for any therapist or doctor to help in the…transformation it would indeed be to recover from my anxiety ills they would have to have got to know me on the spectrum of the friendship relationship rather than the doctor/therapist-patient relationship.
So I foresee that happening not.
Who knows what might come out of the blue again sometime and knock me into a better perspective on life…you never know.
This is a serious, but long post. I am feeling creative today and sometimes I like to come up with my own solutions for problems. It might seem out there at times, but I hope there is at least a grain of wisdom for you to find and help yourself with(this goes for anyone).
I used to visualize bad things happening so they wouldn’t happen when I was a kid. It was my philosophy of life.
I don’t know what anxiety responds to, but I have an idea. Maybe visualize yourself as a child who is afraid to touch a toad and the toad represents the specific place or environment you are anxious about. Then imagine a father figure or your father if you had a good relationship with him taking your hand and placing it on the toad. Let your skin feel the smoothness and roughness, its little heart beating. Allow yourself to let the anxiety pass as you realize that it is just another living thing. Look at your surroundings and realize that the people, plants, and animals are all living, just like you. Recognize yourself as a part of your environment. Remember that you are an animal too, and you have the right to not be self-aware and just be.
This seems like something Depak Chopra would tell you, but not as good as what he’d tell you. When I was a kid I had to learn how to deal with anxiety. My dad once put me over the chain-link fence into the neighbor’s yard with chickens. I got a scratch on my arm and I could feel my heart pounding. Also we were doing a rodeo trick called “buddy pick up” at my friends house. It is where one person rides a horse and picks up another person who is standing on a barrel. My dad rode out to get me, he didn’t let me sit on the horse, he just grabbed me Hollywood style, so I was perpendicular to the horse. He pulled back hard on the reins and the horse stopped short, which sent us both flying off. My dad landed on top of me, knocking the wind clear out of me (he weight about 200 lbs., I weighed about 78). My head was pounding and I couldn’t breathe. After all that I would just get afraid of situations where I could be thrown into the mix. I was light, so it was easy to have me do dangerous stuff. Maybe some safe risks can help you expand your comfort zone. I might go visit our local 19th century graveyard to take pictures and get over my fear of death.
It is a good idea to reach into memories of childhood, though I’m afraid my most serious anxieties are rooted in my teens. My teens were a wild ride and a very long time ago, but where I awoke from childhood perhaps quite a bit early than my peers, though certainly not those close to me. Spacy and maybe a little dissociated but early to rise in the sense of consciousness.
My anxieties in childhood were very different than those I currently struggle with. In my childhood my anxieties were based on from what I remember on things like elevators I did not like and when our boat’s motor broke down…that I did not like. But I also had my anxieties mastered as a child, or maybe they just got much worse in adulthood.
I was scuba diving by the age of ten though with no issues. Most people have at least some anxiety about scuba diving. So I certainly could keep a cool head as I can still. Some of my childhood memories like this are the time I was over 60ft underwater open ocean I was swimming behind my brother and he accidently kicked my regulator (breather) out of my mouth and it floated above me and took me half a minute to get hold of…but I was cool the entire time.
Where my anxiety comes in however is where I am 14 and my “other half” who I am attached at the hip to arrives up north, gets me more stoned than I have ever been in my life and then later in the week shakes and cries when I touch her…that is around the time I began to lose it a little.
Thank you though…what you wrote it was meditative.
I have a lot of anxiety issues - I take a ridiculously low dose of Klonopin on a daily basis - I do so because it sedates me at higher doses really. I should take some more when needed, and I think I am going to. I have a difficult time even going to the store for a little while, by myself especially. Anxiety and fear has always plagued me, even as a child.
Right now this is more of a hurdle or barrier than my mood disorder or psychosis
