Anxiety is uncomfortable. It’s an undercurrent that brings about intense feelings that create panic. What matters is how you change your relationship with anxiety.
Anxiety isn't something 'you will never have'
But it's not realistic to think you can or will have a life without anxiety. Things crop up, they get out of hand, so it's important to co-manage it so you control it, it doesn’t control you It’s about creating a greater sense of space in your mind, and being able to find and work on a different perspective.
Anxiety attracts your 'attention'
Anxiety attracts your attention to something and is often based on fear that is irrational. You should pay attention to it. It’s not something to resist – that if you ignore it, it will go away. Ignoring anxiety, means it can at some point become troublesome, destructive. It’s something to acknowledge, something to deal with. It’s not something easily pushed away. You could learn to change your relationship with it, so that you're more comfortable with it – to find ways to deal with it.
Conclusion
It is a gentle reminder of the life you've had, the battles yet to fight and work on. It comes and goes, because that's what anxiety does.
Boy, I am familiar with anxiety, which isn't surprising because of the childhood I had.
I think it's funny but also sad, seeing that when most people are freaking out over things, it doesn't really faze me as I'm so used to bizarre things happening.
I already have PTSD so the first thing that happens is that I end up automatically dis-associating so I'm not feeling anything right then.
The biggest problem is those feelings are buried and end up coming out in odd behaviors, because I don't know how to process them normally.
It's something that DBT has helped with, but I have to pay attention to what's happening so that I don't have the outbursts that usually make things worse.
Thanks Randy. Yes, I get where you are with this. Where you should have had the input to help you work through your anxiety, you were left to fend for yourself.
Disassociation is very much part of anxiety. The more we deal with anxiety the more we will disassociate. Over time it's what we will continually do. It then becomes the new normal.
What you're describing is what I did as a child, also had anxiety to deal with through autism symptoms. I would continually switch off, I didn't know that was disassociation. I've learned something new today.
To understand is to learn. Look at how much we have both learned over the years. It's the reason why I write and why my website works. We help each other understand and overcome our difficulties.