Dear Lookingforpeace,I guess by now you have had a look through this website and found there are umpteen different sets of symptoms all under the heading of 'anxiety'.
I can only speak for myself. Apart from obvious and easy to identify symptoms such as panic attacks
and physical responses (headaches, tremors etc etc) there can be what I
call 'a distortion of thinking' which can be very hard to recognize and
deal with. . This manifests itself in really believing something, probably very unpleasant, is going to happen when in fact the chances are that it won't. This
not only causes the horrible experience of worrying about what is going
to happen (perhaps you could call it dread) with one's mind going round
and round in unproductive circles.
Unfortunately it also leads to the
temptation to take some sort of rash action when it would be much better
to wait to see what eventuates and only actually do something when it
is really needed.
I've never found a complete cure for this
tendency which happens to me on a frequent basis. I do know that three
things can help me - at least a bit.Firstly knowing from a
lifetime of experience that I am am very prone to unreasonably
anticipate the worst may help me keep things in proportion.
Secondly talking about the situation with someone whose opinion one respects can
sometimes give more perspective - and has the side benefit that the very
act of interacting with another can take one's mind away from being
wholly preoccupied with the problem with - a measure of distraction.
Thirdly I find deliberate distraction - I use reading - helps.
Anyway I do hope that you find something on this excellent website which gives you a measure of peace.Croix
