Some things I'll never know, and I had to let them go.
I felt like group went really well for me today. Last week we talked a bit about the rollercoaster effect of anxiety, reaching a peak with the physical symptoms and coming down. This week, we went on to discuss cause and effect with thinking errors that precipitate the disorder. She had us do exercises in what they call a "thought journal" format, which includes:
Situation (that makes you nervous) | Thoughts | Feelings | Actions | Outcome
I actually liked the idea so much, as a way to challenge our negative/incorrect thoughts, that I stopped at a party store on the way home and picked up a small notebook to do my own, regular thought journaling in, since we were each only instructed for the group to do two examples from our own lives. When I'm in the attack, I feel like I don't have actual thoughts. The physical symptoms just start up from nowhere, and my only thoughts are about those. About feeling like I'm going to throw up, about worrying about people seeing me having an anxiety attack and wondering what's wrong with me. The thoughts are supposed to cause the physical symptoms, but I feel like the opposite happens to me, especially at work. That makes challenging the thoughts really difficult for me. But I hope with the journal in front of me and being able to focus objectively on the situation, it will be easier to recognize the thoughts that are slowly ruining my life.
She also went out of her way to point out that we're not psychotic. Haha. We did one thought journal example on the board, seeing how we go from point A to B and on. If our thoughts are negative, then it makes sense for our feelings to be negative. If our feelings are negative, it makes sense that we would try to avoid them or escape from them by avoiding the situation that's causing them. We're using our logic to assess or make sense of the situation we're in or what's happening to us, because that's what human beings do. The problem is that our thought processes are fractured, which screws up everything else. So we're not crazy, merely neurotic. Not sure whether I find that comforting or not.
Either way, I'm looking forward to doing this journal thing. This is really one of the first cognitive exercises we've gotten into, which Dr. Larsen really swears by everytime I see him for my meds.
My biggest worry, is that the situation I most want to journal about is being at work. The only specific negative thoughts I can think of are anticipatory anxiety (e.g., "I'm going to have an anxiety attack if I go to work"). What we're meant to do with this, after we write down our thoughts, feelings, etc., is to then challenge the negatives thoughts by asking, "What is the evidence for this?" and "What are the odds of this happening/being true?" Well... I've almost never had a job in which I didn't have anxiety attacks daily for months, plural. So... I'd say the odds of it happening are pretty damn good. :-/ How do I fix that? Yes, I could say I can get through the attacks, because I've done so in the past. But I'd really prefer to just not have them. Can't I do that instead?
Addressing my anxiety is making me anxious.
Situation (that makes you nervous) | Thoughts | Feelings | Actions | Outcome
I actually liked the idea so much, as a way to challenge our negative/incorrect thoughts, that I stopped at a party store on the way home and picked up a small notebook to do my own, regular thought journaling in, since we were each only instructed for the group to do two examples from our own lives. When I'm in the attack, I feel like I don't have actual thoughts. The physical symptoms just start up from nowhere, and my only thoughts are about those. About feeling like I'm going to throw up, about worrying about people seeing me having an anxiety attack and wondering what's wrong with me. The thoughts are supposed to cause the physical symptoms, but I feel like the opposite happens to me, especially at work. That makes challenging the thoughts really difficult for me. But I hope with the journal in front of me and being able to focus objectively on the situation, it will be easier to recognize the thoughts that are slowly ruining my life.
She also went out of her way to point out that we're not psychotic. Haha. We did one thought journal example on the board, seeing how we go from point A to B and on. If our thoughts are negative, then it makes sense for our feelings to be negative. If our feelings are negative, it makes sense that we would try to avoid them or escape from them by avoiding the situation that's causing them. We're using our logic to assess or make sense of the situation we're in or what's happening to us, because that's what human beings do. The problem is that our thought processes are fractured, which screws up everything else. So we're not crazy, merely neurotic. Not sure whether I find that comforting or not.
Either way, I'm looking forward to doing this journal thing. This is really one of the first cognitive exercises we've gotten into, which Dr. Larsen really swears by everytime I see him for my meds.
My biggest worry, is that the situation I most want to journal about is being at work. The only specific negative thoughts I can think of are anticipatory anxiety (e.g., "I'm going to have an anxiety attack if I go to work"). What we're meant to do with this, after we write down our thoughts, feelings, etc., is to then challenge the negatives thoughts by asking, "What is the evidence for this?" and "What are the odds of this happening/being true?" Well... I've almost never had a job in which I didn't have anxiety attacks daily for months, plural. So... I'd say the odds of it happening are pretty damn good. :-/ How do I fix that? Yes, I could say I can get through the attacks, because I've done so in the past. But I'd really prefer to just not have them. Can't I do that instead?
Addressing my anxiety is making me anxious.