Questioning...

ALL · ‎30-10-2014

Hi, I’m just wondering, does anyone with anxiety ever questioned whether they actually have it or not? is this a part of it? I have been diagnosed with it but I just can’t seem to come to terms with it, and I keep questioning if I am forcing myself to be this way, or I could control it or the professionals were wrong. I tried to reason with myself that everyone’s experience is different and if I could have stopped I would have, but it’s hard. Sometimes I can feel myself loading more anxiety on, like it’s addictive in some way. This just makes the questioning worse! I assume the questioning is a part of anxiety???

NicoleP · ‎30-10-2014

Problem with diagnosis is that it is subjective. If you have diabetes, they can test for it. If you have a broken leg, they can do an x-ray. But with anxiety it is that you can't do a test as such. Also, it can vary from day to day, hour to hour, situation to situation. I would suggest that I tend to be an anxious person but my anxiety only takes hold in certain situations. As I was told recently, the label on the jar is not the jam in the jar.

Anyhow, whether there is a label or not doesn't really concern me. What concerns me is how I react when I am put into anxiety provoking situations and how I react. It is that reaction that impacts upon my ability to fully enjoy my life at that time. Therefore, I may or may not fit the diagnosis of GAD, but if anxiety is impacting on what I want to do with my life, then it is a problem and I need to do something about it. Does that make sense?

Kezza

ALL · ‎30-10-2014

Hey Kezza,

I totally understand that, because I have good an bad days. but I do know that I often have it every day at some stage, and so its having an impact on my life.

its a hard thing to diagnose, but for me I think that im using it as a way to accept it and move on, as I like definitive answers. so im just going to stick with it.

thankyou for your insight

ALL

white knight · ‎30-10-2014

Hi everyone,

Re: "Fake it till I make it". never heard of that one. I love learning this stuff.

Kezza- Re "What concerns me is how I react when I am put into anxiety provoking situations and how I react." Yeh, that art of taking a breath before we react, or say you have to go to the loo to give you time to think.....doesnt happen with some of us yet others do it automatically.

I'll give you a recent example but not quite the same. In our small community I advertised a free BBQ give-away. A guy rang and said he'd love to take it. He arrived yesterday arvo. We were having a sausage sizzle on our new BBQ so asked him to join us (too friendly me). After a short time this man criticised us for drinking zero no sugar soft drink, eating too much meat and when cockatoos arrived at our bird feeder he insisted we shoo them away as they "are not the kind of birds you should encourage to feed, they are destructive".

I felt a rare feeling of anxiety in his presence. But I could not bring myself to criticise him after all I wouldnt come across as friendly. He went on and on about alternative medicine for my blood clotted legs and told how he beat cancer with green vegetable smoothies. My wife took off next door to the neighbours.

After he left my wife asked me why I didnt object about his forceful behaviour. I joked with her, asked her why she didnt object. She said because he was so forceful he made me nervous. I replied yes, I felt the same. Kind of semi-threatened.

I think most people would have told this guy to go jump. And most people would have just got him to take the BBQ and go, rather than invite him in for food.

Sorry for the long drawn out account. But it interests me why we do what we do....and dont do what we should do. I think anxiety plays a part.

NicoleP · ‎31-10-2014

Hi WK

Consequences is the answer that comes to mind. I am scared of the consequences of my actions. If I do something that people don't approve of or like, I find that I end up paying for it.

In this situation, this guy knew he was right. His opinions were fact. Therefore, the more you try and refute them, the more insistent he will become. If you tell him to go and jump, it ends up looking bad on you. It is a case of put up with it and don't put him on the list of people to have around again.

Kezza

dougall · ‎31-10-2014

Hi I wonder if people with anxiety are too nice for their own good. My ex husband is quite rude to people sometimes and says I don't care. He is one of those people that intimidates, not intentionally, he does security so he has to have an air of intimidation about him. I am the opposite and talk to anyone and everyone when I have had a drink. I am over generous and can't see anything wrong with it. I am the one with anxiety he doesn't. I wonder if it is because I care too much for people. I don't care what they think of me I just want them to feel good.

white knight · ‎31-10-2014

Hi Kezza, I'm starting to understand you more now.

Is it because you think left of field? eg to the left of what most would decide and hence pay a price for those decisions? At the same time you cant see the harm and to change the way you think and decide is to make yourself "one of them" a sheep in your eyes? Taking away your individuality and therefore your confidence? Robotising is a word I just made up?

I'm trying to come to grips with this because if it is along these lines I certainly do feel similar. It is a sanitising of one as a person.

NicoleP · ‎31-10-2014

Hi WK

I certainly do think that we think along the same lines and I often find that you are posting things that really resonate with me.

I think that you said that you have a high IQ - I have a high IQ and can often see what others can't, am very organised and tend to run things like a well oiled machine- it tends to annoy people.

What I struggle with is the responses of other people. If someone treats me badly, I am expected not to react but it feels as though the minute I do something that other people don't like that there are consequences. I can't handle it when I get the negative feedback so I spend a lot of time and mental energy analysing situations so that I don't get myself into trouble. However, it often seems that no matter what I do I end up in trouble. So like the guy at your BBQ, he was opinionated and self righteous and you had to just take it. But if you had of said something to him, then there would have been consequences.

I find that if I don't do what other people want they pay you back with complaints, facebook posts etc. That is what brings me down - I am not accepted for who I am and am expected to be someone else. I don't know if my behaviour is exactly left of field, but I seem to attract negative feedback that other people don't. For example, 3 of us cleaned up the runners club. Two people decided to get rid of a weight bench and set by taking it home. I told them that I didn't think that it was a good idea and that I didn't want to be any part of that decision. That night on facebook there were a series of posts about how I had given the weights away - no mention of the others. That pretty much seems to sum it up. If I do it, it is not OK but if other people do it, it is OK.

Does that make sense?

Kezza

white knight · ‎31-10-2014

Hi Kezza, Oh yes, we are on the same plane.

From those situations and the hurt I've experienced AND my high level of sensitivity, I've withdrawn half way from society. My wife laughs at this because inviting that guy in to share our sausage sizzle flies in the face of that theory). But by and large my living location is in a town of 150 people in the hills 2 hours from Melbourne.

I have tried twice before to reject society altogether. To live without income in the bush, among my chosen company- animals, as they dont hurt me.

It took me a while to realise that half way was good. A safe distance from masses of people. Facebook contradicted that. Facebook meant I might as well be in groups of people in the city. It backfired badly, I found I could not escape the odd nasty comment. Closed my account 2 months ago and frankly never looked back.

NicoleP · ‎31-10-2014

Yes I think we are very much in sync. Is sensitive a bad thing? I see it as caring. I would rather be sensitive/reactive and honest and therefore be considered to have a mental illness than being a bully, dictator, liar or a self centred opinionated individual who thinks he can attend a friendly BBQ and use it as an opportunity to force his ideas onto others.

Kezza