Eco anxiety in Perth

[Bookgirl]

Hi, we are in the middle of a horrible heatwave here and its causing me a lot of anxiety thinking about the future and generally just stressing out about it all.  Just seems so insurmountable and i feel overwhelmed.  My 15 year old son gets angry at me for being pessimistic but its hard to be optimistic when its over 40 degrees for a long time.  I just feel like i am sinking right now.

[Eagle Ray]

Dear Bookgirl,

I read an article on the ABC website yesterday that sounds like the same one. Yes, it is concerning that the level of heat has exceeded projections. But my understanding of the article is that a significant portion of the heat increase has been identified as due to climate change and El Niño, while there is a margin of heat above that they cannot explain at the moment. I think it is important as much as possible to understand that uncertainties often arise and uncertainty is the one constant we always have. We cannot control the future, know with certainty how things will unfold nor know exactly what every aspect of current data means. I think it can be really helpful to reach a point of acceptance about uncertainty.

It seems what is happening is your nervous system is having extreme reactions to each piece of information you are exposed to. I do understand this as I have a very sensitive nervous system as well and have often had strong reactions to things. I do get that the magnitude of issues like climate change can feel overwhelming. But that is where I have found coming to a point of acceptance has helped - acceptance that climate change is occurring and accepting that uncertainty exists around how it will unfold. It is a much bigger issue than me as an individual therefore I cannot carry that issue as an individual. I have to put down the weight of it so to speak. I can do smaller things within my capacity to help but I cannot carry the weight of the world on my shoulders.

I wonder if you are able to recognise the things that were helping you to cope this week before you read this article? Can you identify what you find calming and reassuring as a counterbalance to the things you are finding triggering? It may help to understand that your synapses are firing dramatically in response to triggers sending your nervous system into a spin, and then seeing what activities and approaches might calm these responses and the level of reactivity.

One of the things about rumination is it tends to spiral. It can lead to the same neural patterns activating over and over thus building and strengthening the same pathways in the brain. What you really want to do is build some new pathways that move away from negative spiralling. Some things that may help include mindfulness meditation or just practising being mindfully in the present moment, or engaging in creative activities which can help take us out of rumination. Creative thinking and immersion in creative tasks build new and different neural pathways. It gives a different focus and can change how we feel. For me photography does this and in the past it was music which I used to play and write. Both have helped me greatly through times of difficulty.

Perhaps working out a plan of strategies with your psychologist for when you get these reactions may help?

I hope you start to feel better again soon.

Take care,

ER

[Bookgirl]

I know i have major panic attacks. My immunised son got chickenpox this week and so i have been running around after that. My husband is on a work contract and i am worried about him not getting extended. He has been made redundant a few times and as he is over 60 its hard for him to find a job. Everything seems out of control sometimes.  Then i moved to a new job where i am the boss and often feel out of my depth. This is only acting so i feel like i should go back to my old one but then no one is complaining so i feel like i should try.  As i said. Sometimes its too much. Spent most of the day in bed today. I need to try as you say to work on strategies that work but i keep going back to old patterns of behaviour from my childhood which i am working on it but its so hard sometimes,

[Eagle Ray]

Hi Bookgirl,

I do understand that it's hard and you have a lot on your plate. It's understandable you are feeling overwhelmed. I have found virtually all my struggles go back to childhood so I think it can really help to address that. I have had a very severe inner critic all my life and felt very frightened of the world and other people and those have been involuntary states that come upon me. So I get how panic attacks just happen and it is definitely not your fault that they happen. I am finding by gradually working through things from childhood with my psychologist that shifts are happening within me. They are gradual as would be expected as what happened in childhood is very ingrained. But those shifts are happening, which includes me not as easily collapsing into severe self-criticism, or if I do I see it much more quickly and start to practice kindness to myself and say encouraging things to myself. I wonder if that would help for you, that you can comfort your inner child so to speak to reduce the level of anxiety?

The psychotherapist Pete Walker has a website with info on complex trauma. I was wondering if it may be helpful for you processing childhood stuff. He equates obsessive/compulsive thinking and behaviour as often associated with people who had a flight response to childhood circumstances, and dissociative responses with people who went into the freeze response a lot in childhood. They are only typologies which you can choose to agree with or not, and may or may not fit your situation, but I have found some of his approaches and ideas helpful in my case. I have some of the obsessive/compulsive things happening (flight) but my biggest symptom is I am dissociative (freeze), because freezing was my dominant response in childhood to things that happened. I also have a significant fawn response (trying to meet others' needs) which is a sign of co-dependency in childhood. I am in the process of learning to unlearn that now.

I just thought I'd suggest that anyway. I can't put his actual web address here as we are not allowed to but if you google "Pete Walker complex trauma" it should come up, probably the second listing under his book. There are various articles on his website, some of which may have something helpful in them. I just thought of his take on things when you mentioned childhood in relation to the current struggles you are having.

I hope your son recovers quickly from the chicken pox. I had it when I was 11 and I know it's not fun. I hope your husband retains his job. I also hope you can find some confidence in your current job and find some ways to feel supported in that role. I am learning to back myself more and realise I am more capable than I often give myself credit for, so I hope you can feel some self-affirmation. It is often those who doubt themselves who are actually the competent ones.

Take good care,

ER

[Bookgirl]

Thanks, i will have a look at this.

[Bookgirl]

I really find i am struggling today.  Been like this all this year.  Hard to get out of bed.  I try and try to do things and take my mind off things but its so hard sometimes.  Its so hard when you are down a hole and nothing seems to help.  I feel like such a failure most of the time when everyone else soldiers on.  My psych said doing work is better than not because at home i would just worry (which is true). Still i am struggling.  Wish i could just get back to feeling ok for a while. Keep trying i guess but its so hard right now.

[Eagle Ray]

Dear Bookgirl,

You are not a failure. You are someone just struggling a lot with anxiety. I’m wondering if you can find an inner caring voice towards yourself? That is something I am slowly learning to do for myself as I have spent most of my life being quite hard on myself. I think if you can feel that inner-nurturance within yourself it can make an incremental but noticeable difference in how you feel over time. You can actually develop a part of yourself that is self-caring so when there are anxiety triggers you can support and care for yourself through it.

There’s a whole approach in psychology called internal family systems that looks at how different components have formed within us. Sometimes a certain component has not integrated so well into the whole and has a life of its own. This part may be an anxious child part and we can develop other components of self to take care of this vulnerable part. Often the non-integrated part is acting autonomously and outside our awareness a lot of the time, which can happen with spiralling anxiety. With the internal family systems approach we can start to see this part and begin to care for what is often this vulnerable child within us. It’s often linked to the dynamics we grew up with in childhood. The therapist who developed this approach is Richard Schwartz. In this approach all parts of the self are welcomed and supported. I just thought I’d mention it in case it helps.

I’ve found it helps me to feel more efficacy in being able to address parts of myself that seem to run out of control at times, with the fearful part of myself being the primary issue. I’m gradually getting better at not being afraid and can increasingly bring in my inner parent to reassure myself. I don’t know if you’ve ever worked on anything like this with your psychologist but I just wondered if it may help as another perspective.

Even while you are lying in bed, you could just try directing really kind, warm, supportive energy towards yourself. If that feels too hard, you could imagine someone else comforting you. I’ve found doing that can de-escalate stress and worry in my nervous system and I kind of let go. So often we are bracing ourselves against whatever is worrying us and when our body just lets go it can really make a difference.

Take good care and sending you kindness,

ER

[Bookgirl]

My husband is finding out whether his contract will be renewed tomorrow morning and i am freaking out.  In my life i have always been the one who makes things better. Who fixes things. And i am so tired with my son having anorexia, my mum having heart failure and lymphoma, my son's ongoing mental health issues that i support as well as everything i take on about climate change etc plus working full time.  I have a good job which is secure and make the most money but we need him to work too. He has been made redundant a few times and my father has too so its a big trigger for me to have this happen.  He is very hard on himself too and tells me what he does wrong all the time which doesn't help my optimism.  I know he has to find another job but he relies on me all the time and i cannot keep doing it because it is exhausting. I have trouble asking others for help because i never got that help growing up and so rely on myself. When i asked one of my sibilings for help with my mum's drs appointments he said i should just put them in home as we were all too busy. Like that was an easy thing.  I hope all goes well tomorrow but knowing my luck it won't.

[Bookgirl]

My husband's contract didn't get renewed but not for bad performance but because someone was coming back to that position. I feel better for that. Still it means he has to look for another job. Due to my childhood i feel like it is my responsibility to fix this.  I know it is not intellectually but emotionally i think if i don't do something no one will as that has been the pattern all my life so feel overwhelmed. I told my husband he has to really help me this time not leave it to me because "i do it better". I just can't do this by myself anymore. Its too hard.  It rained yesterday so that was something even if was freak rain up in the northern suburbs. 30 degree days continue which are lovely but too hot and it continues to freak me.  I am trying all the strategies suggested. In bed this morning i was trying to be comforting to myself and it helped a little. Thank you everyone for your suggestions. I am trying but as you know when the black dog hits its horrible and lifelong issues are the hardest to break.  Thank you for listening to my rants.

[Eagle Ray]

Dear Bookgirl,

I so understand what you are saying. I was brought up to only think of others' needs and take care of them but never my own needs. I have actually been invisible to myself most of my life and I'm only just beginning to see myself at all. This is the exact topic I discussed with my psychologist yesterday. I think you have reached crunch point where you cannot keep being the relied upon person by everyone else. They do have to step up and not expect you to be an endless source of managing, problem solving etc. I know it is really hard to break the pattern as I am going through that now. I am gradually learning not to feel guilty for asserting my own needs and putting myself first for a change. I hope maybe you can do this too and it does sound like you have been able to communicate some boundaries to your husband.

I think when we are taught to carry responsibilities for others when we are children it can lead to lifelong experiences of overwhelm as we feel we have to take care of others' needs, respond to their emotional states, solve their problems etc. I think that can then extend too to those bigger issues like climate change where we want to make it better somehow. But in both cases we cannot carry that amount of weight of responsibility. It is not humanly possible to keep doing so. So it's so important for you to prioritise yourself. I am finding that as I start to do this it feels extremely weird as I'm not used to it. But I also notice it gives me more energy and less stress. I can focus in on what I need for myself which is so beneficial and I function much better within myself. But I know it is a radical shift and it takes time to get used to it. I'm definitely still in process with it.

I do understand about climate change as I am seeing the impacts here as well. I'm a few hours south of you and it is incredibly dry and the impacts in the environment are very visible now. However, I'm finding I am now reaching a point of radical acceptance that that is what is happening. I went through a kind of grieving process as I'm very sensitive to the natural world and what is happening in it, whereas a lot of people go about their daily lives oblivious to the happenings in ecosystems, especially if they don't get out into nature. But I'm accepting the situation as reality now and that nature will adapt even though there will be significant impacts and losses. It does make it a bit easier.

I am so sorry for all the issues that are happening in your family, with your son, mum and husband. You may even be starting to experience some burnout and I think that can trigger a kind of depression response where the mind and body have just had enough. It makes sense you end up in bed. I went through similar things over the past decade and my health eventually completely collapsed, so it is so important you hand some responsibility back to others and protect your own boundaries and needs. I was left very alone in the care of my parents too and I know it isn't a simple answer of just putting them in a home. Sometimes that can work but it can be context specific. My dad had massive abandonment issues because of severely early childhood loss, neglect and trauma and so going into a home was a very triggering idea for him. He was about 1-2 weeks away from having to go to one when he died because his care needs had become so high. It is a real challenge to find the balance in how to manage the care of someone. You can get a thing called an ACAT (Aged Care Assessment) which includes things like in-home services, respite care etc. It is government funded and may be worth looking into.

Take good care,

ER

[Bookgirl]

I had a talk to my husband today about how overwhelmed i feel and he says he is going to help more.  I also arranged to talk to my friend tomorrow as she is always good at giving me a pep talk when i need it.  It is very hard as you say to break the cycle.  It feels weird when you prioritise yourself in fact it feels wrong.  I feel guilty for doing it. I feel guilty when i can't handle things even though no one can do everything.   Its only in the last few years that i have been having panic attacks and not been able to cope.  However as my psych says when things are terrible i cope.  When i had to take my son and mum to the ER and look after them in hospital i could cope.  But i have no faith in myself about coping with other stuff that may happen in the future.  Its hard to know what to do healthwise. My psych said i should not have time off because working takes my mind off things but if i am working i panic about things out of my control.  I have changed my medication in last few months but doesn't seems to be helping.  I have some stuff to help with panic attacks which helps a bit.  Not the solution i know but sometimes i just can't calm myself down. I do meditate etc.  Just one step at a time i guess.  Fake it until you make it?  I don't know.  My psych told me to have cold showers for panic attacks.  Not much help at work though.