I was in New York a couple of years ago, and I found a top therapist there. He told me a technique which brought the world back in a sense. It was a lot of work but the brain was changing unbelievably fast. For instance, I don’t notice things around me. However, with his techniques, I was getting too much like others, I was spotting things in the room I had never noticed before. I wasn’t thinking all the time. Social Anxiety was dying. In a sense, I was becoming a very different person. And, I was scared. Because the brain was changing very fast, and these changes were happening in a matter of days.
However, something else was also happening. The anxiety kept rebounding, and came in bursts rather than being spread out like before. It would hit me like a physical sensation in the body. I couldn’t cope with the feeling so I gave up on the therapist. The whole experience was mind boggling. He was basically able to reprogram the brain that way. He was telling me other techniques like grounding to cope with the anxiety the way it was hitting me. So, what was happening was that, anxiety was happening in bursts, and the bursts were getting stronger. I couldn’t cope, so I gave up. But, it was like magic, my whole persona was changing.
No, really, he was a top therapist. He was telling me techniques and I was working with him on them. He was the cream of New York and was applying new techniques on me. He told me that it does happen that anxiety comes in bursts and becomes a physical sensation. So, he was telling me ways to cope with it. Like if that happens, touch the wall, the ground, or the body…but it was frigging tough to follow and do what he was saying.
Attention, focus were improving, as well. I wasn’t in my head all the time, and could feel the world. It was a very different experience.
Huh the outcome was that I couldn’t handle it. My personality was changing in a sense. The Social Anxiety was going away, I was in the moment, I was able to notice each and every detail (meaning the attention span was improving), etc, etc…It was a different world.
This is what a top therapist can do. He can reprogram the brain. But, these guys charge an insane amount of money.
That sounds very interesting. Can you tell us a little about the techniques? Did he have a name for them? Are they described on the Internet anywhere or in a book?
Basically you have got to look around the place you are at. Then see the colors, the textures, etc, etc…if you do this, you will realize that it is very, very hard and, secondly, the brain will change after awhile. It changes believe it or not-- you start looking at the external world and stop thinking, worrying, being negative. I will give this a go again, but I had three sessions, and there were probably more things he could have imparted to me. It is a lot of mental effort.
I’ve come in touch with this before, as part of mindfulness, and in a book on self-treatment of dissociative disorders. I never could get it to work for me. I tried again a few minutes ago, for several minutes, watching and touching and moving, listening, breathing, trying to soothe myself and so on.
I’m apathetic and have a lot more “numbing and dissociation” (p.2 of the PDF) than anxiety or difficult feelings.
I tried it and for those days it worked for me. Sometimes, a good therapist will try various things and something may work for you. Mindfulness is interesting. I know someone with social anxiety who is now able to give speeches because of mindfulness. I haven’t tried it, but always wanted to.
This seems like pre-manic phase while I was off APs and on two ADs.
Anxiety and depression had disappeared. Few people even told me I have changed a lot.
Let me tell you the difference. In mania the attention span reduces. I was actually feeling the world, noticing the details, etc (attention was improving)…I realized how much in the head I am and why I see that others notice minor details around them. When you externalize the world rather than internalize it, you notice things around you. As a result anxiety decreases.
I have been trying the techniques since the last half an hour, and plan to do it half an hour daily for now.
It takes a lot of mental effort to do this.
I think some people have accepted that medications are the only way out. It is not the case. Therapy, training the mind works, But, one has to find a knowledgeable and capable therapist.
What is a pre-manic phase? I didn’t know this existed before.
I stopped taking Klonopin at that time (after taking 2 mgs daily for 7 years). As a result anxiety had rebounded and strange things were happening to me. I couldn’t cope with the anxiety as I was getting so much anxiety and the therapist was trying to decrease it, so it was hitting me at the body very hard. It had become very hard to cope with it at that time. Besides that, after Klonopin withdrawal I wasn’t in my senses. Some of the strangest things were happening to me, and I didn’t know these things could happen with Klonopin withdrawal.
I am not sure what else to call it. Since I never went hypo/manic. I stopped antidepressants quickly since I know of this side-effect. And have family history of bipolar.
This is what I was experiencing as well. I changed within 3-4 months so much that I couldn’t in 10 years. Part of me liked this and other was fighting this change you can say. I am shy and badly anxious but during that time I became strangely extroverted. ■■■■■■■ and manipulative in some cases.
Cognition and what you called attention span had actually improved in my case.
Well, in my case, the more I was exercising the mind, the more it was happening. Like I did this yesterday for half an hour, and the world came back to me. But, it is so hard, I frigging stop it. I cannot do it.
This happened to you for three to four months? A pre-manic phase was 3-4 months? I don’t know why you quit antidepressants, I think they were working. I say this because when I am manic, my attention span decreases. Mania, like psychosis, damages the brain.