Something my counsellor has taught me...

Everything we experience makes us who we are. For some of us, certain parts of our lives affect us more than others and become a strong part of our habits and subconscious thoughts. As many of you know, a part of my childhood still lives with me in my daily life and I tend to rely on that mindset when I am uncomfortable or anxious. However, this kind of behaviour is not useful for me because I am not a young child any more. I don't want to be stuck with the low confidence level and worried reactions that I had when I was that age. For example, when I am driving alone I have the voice in my head that I am not old enough to do it and this is the voice I have doing a range of challenging things, purely because I had a trauma at a young age and it's almost like I am stuck in time. This voice, is not the voice of a 20 year old, but of my former self. It's strange how traumas can still make you act in certain ways. But this is normal for people who go through problems like this because you have lived like that for so long. In my case, it must be around 13 years of reinforcing those voices and habits!

My counsellor showed me a few diagrams, which showed me how we have a parental part of us, an adult part of us (our current state) and our child self and all three parts make up who we are today. These three parts are split up further into sections, and for some of us, one section will be stronger that another. In my case, my child state is strongest with criticism (probably because I felt I needed to be in control at that age)  and my parent state is strongest for nurturing over others (because I certainly give myself a really hard time!) The aim for me to increase the nurturing of myself and to give myself an easier time and weaken the subconscious voice of my younger self, because I'm not her any more. I'm an adult who is fully capable to take on what ever comes my way. 

I hope this make sense! 
Amy Xx

Guest post: Neil

An Anxious Comedian Attempts To Talk About It

Public speaking is terrifying. All my life, it's been one of my worst fears... and as someone who has also lived with anxiety for much of my life, that's saying a lot.
But it was also something I've always been drawn towards. This poses a problem. If I don't get up on stage and speak or do standup comedy, I feel weak and pathetic for being too scared to do something I want to do. But if I do, then I have to face my fear of public speaking.

In the end, I decided if I was going to suffer either way, I might as well DO the thing rather than sitting around miserably wishing I had.

For years, this was the arrangement. I'd get up on stage, make jokes, have fun... but one thing remained off limits: talking publicly about my anxiety. This added to the pain my anxiousness caused me – I was too scared of it to even talk about it.

Partly, I think I subconsciously believed that talking aloud about anxiety – even only acknowledging its existence – could somehow make it stronger.
This is wrong, of course. So now I've decided to take that power away from anxiety. I'm sharing about it publicly, to show my anxiety that I don't fear it anymore – and hopefully to help others to do the same.

One of the things I've learned is that opening up is important. And through this I was invited to give a TED talk about my anxiety, where I shared the other important part of what I've learned: that it helps a surprising amount to compare anxiety to custard. Allow me to explain: http://tedxtalks.ted.com/video/Walking-on-Custard-How-Physics


Okay, so if you've seen the video then you'll know a few more things about me... including that I apparently can't operate very simple slide-changing machinery.
But let's ignore that for now. I want to talk more about openness. Like I said, it feels so natural to keep our troubles a secret. We're afraid of judgement, of vulnerability, of being hurt... of so many things.

We shouldn't feel bad about finding it hard to talk. It's natural, it's common, it's human to struggle with vulnerability. But it doesn't have to remain this way.

Bottling anxiety up gives it extra power, and sharing about it takes that power away. More than that: our openness helps others to be open themselves. Each time we share our troubles, we take a small step towards creating a world where more people feel free to say "I feel that way too!"

The more I've spoken publicly about anxiety, the more people have said to me: "Me too!"
Of course, it's crucial to choose how, where and who we share our struggles with. Openness is important, but so is feeling safe.

I think that often the very first step to reduce the power of our anxiety is to begin talking about it with someone that we trust.

It's a long journey from there to peacefulness, but it's a long journey I hope we can share with one another.

Neil Hughes is the author of 'Walking on Custard & the Meaning of Life: A Guide for Anxious Humans'. You can find him at www.walkingoncustard.com or talking nonsense on Twitter as @enhughesiasm. He likes it when you say hello.

Guest post: Mary's story

Anxiety: A Half Life

I am thirty years old and I have had anxiety since I was fifteen; I’m assuming there must have been some kind of trigger but I’ve never been able to pin it down to one specific moment in my life. Perhaps that’s not important anyway.

Anxiety feeling out of control but having to be in control. It’s being afraid but being unable to name the fear.

I have had anxiety for fifteen years but it feels like forever, I can’t remember how it feels not to have anxiety anymore and I’m terrified this will always be my life. For the last ten years I have been agoraphobic, for six months out of those ten years I couldn’t leave my bedroom, for the last two years I was making progress, getting out with my husband, visiting family – I even made it on a bus!  - but then three months ago I was in town with my mum and had a BIG panic attack, you know the kind where you think you’re going to pass out and be sick? Lovely! As you can imagine I was devastated, it was the first time anxiety had made me go back home in two years and since then I’ve been struggling to do the things I was doing so well at...walking the dogs, going out to town with a friend...so I did what I should have done a long time ago – I asked for help.

I had done this once before in my old town but the mental health service was...less than helpful. I was basically told if you can’t get in to see us we can’t help you – not very helpful for someone suffering with agoraphobia!

Luckily the new county I live in has an excellent mental health service and I was put on medication, which after a bit of trial and error began to work and appointments were made for me to begin CBT which best of all could be done over the phone!

I have been on Fluoxetine for a month now and so far I’ve had CBT three times; I’ve learnt that when I thought I was doing well I actually wasn’t because I was using ‘safety behaviours’ such as my MP3, bottle of water, tissues and always having someone with me which meant I wasn’t letting my brain deal with or learn how to cope with anxiety. So now I go out every day without any safety behaviours, so far I can only get to the top of my street but it’s such an achievement for me and my therapist is really happy with my progress; my next aim is to get to the shops by myself and then I’ll be going in a shop, alone for the first time in...far too long!

It’s hard and it’s horrible because the only way you can get over it is by letting yourself feel the anxiety which is the hardest thing in the world. It’s like if someone was scared of snakes and the only way for them to get over the fear was to stand in a bucket of snakes for one hour...but will it be worth it? YES!

Mary Hoyle

tree-trunk@hotmail.co.uk