The Impermanence of Emotions (Intense Anxiety)

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Hey Debbie 🙂 I'll try that out next time I am in such a situation. Thanks so much dear for sharing 🙂
Really well done with this! 🙂
I've had intense anxiety due to a difficult neighbour who has accused me of horrible stuff, including having an affair with her husband (who was out of work who I'd offered work to, thinking I was helping them out.) In order to present absolutely no grounds for her claim I did not turn right out of my house (ie turn towards theirs) without company for a FULL YEAR. During which time she said nastier things to the neighbours – even saying to neighbours they were moving house because of me (At this point we question who has the mental health problem; sometimes it's hard to remember other people are messed up too!) … I thought to myself, as the forsale sign went up 'well I'll walk that way again when they're gone'. Except they changed their mind and didn't go. A year on I found I actually had developed a phobia of going past their house – the anxiety was enormous on the odd occasion I went that way with a friend, heart racing feeling intensely stressed. And I realised my avoidance was stupid (it's not like it made them be more reasonable anyway!) and damaging for me.
I've studied phobias in psychology, so I treated it like that (for a spider phobia first see a picture of a spider, wait until the automatic stress response subsides, then over weeks slowly repeat moving onto small dead spider, big dead spider and eventually you get to a tarantula!)…
For me I got on my bike, with my dog, and cycled rapidly past the place – that way the horrible anxiety was only brief. And I repeated taking my daily dog walk purposefully in that direction to get myself over it.
It's taken a while, and I'm still not delighted given all the nastiness from there, but I can now walk past their house without getting horribly uncomfortable and without my heart beat racing, and the other day I even managed to go and knock on their door when I saw a stray animal come out from their place (I thought it was theirs, but it wasn't).
Facing the fear and standing up to it is without the best way to conquer one.
I can relate to your anxiety Debbie! I was feeling so anxious to a point of exhaustion the past 2 hours or so, which resulted in that tight feeling in the chest and stomach. On top of that, hot flashes oscillating with coldness in the chest, and the only thing I was capable of doing at that point was laying in bed and then venting about my pain here.
Thanks for sharing your story and thoughts – you really are brave, and it's amazing how you're so persistent and motivated, even in a state of intense anxiety.
I can relate to your anxiety Debbie! I was feeling so anxious to a point of exhaustion the past 2 hours or so, which resulted in that tight feeling in the chest and stomach. On top of that, hot flashes oscillating with coldness in the chest, and the only thing I was capable of doing at that point was laying in bed and then venting about my pain here.
Thanks for sharing your story and thoughts – you really are brave, and it's amazing how you're so persistent and motivated, even in a state of intense anxiety.
Yes I've done Opposite Action when I was feeling like avoiding due to intense anxiety or depression… yes, absolutely. I've donde this several times since years ago… during these last 8 years… when I wanted to attend a concert and had nobody to go with… I went alone and didn't let that anxiety, fear and depression stopped me. It's hard, yesterday I did the same on a conferrence I wanted to attend. On the break I felt odd… out of place. But just standing and thinking that nobody is really focusing just on me (negatively)… I was fine. I'm not able of that ALWAYS, but on some similar scenarios.
Yes I've done Opposite Action when I was feeling like avoiding due to intense anxiety or depression… yes, absolutely. I've donde this several times since years ago… during these last 8 years… when I wanted to attend a concert and had nobody to go with… I went alone and didn't let that anxiety, fear and depression stopped me. It's hard, yesterday I did the same on a conferrence I wanted to attend. On the break I felt odd… out of place. But just standing and thinking that nobody is really focusing just on me (negatively)… I was fine. I'm not able of that ALWAYS, but on some similar scenarios.
I have also experienced, many times, that physiological responses to emotions can take a long time to catch up with my Wise Mind, phychological decision not to feed into them.
I have also experienced, many times, that physiological responses to emotions can take a long time to catch up with my Wise Mind, phychological decision not to feed into them.