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By Andrea Lanier, Group Facilitator next page
Introduction
The following is a story about living with Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD). The goal of this story is to show what it might be like to live with anxiety, and what type of coping skills may be helpful relative to these experiences.
The subjective experiences of anxiety vary from one person to another. While some readers may be able to identify with most of what is told here, others may have a different combination of experiences, perhaps they are at different stages with respect to coping skills that have been learned. Furthermore, variations of experiences are possible because each person has a different ratio of components that may facilitate the experiences of anxiety. Anxiety disorders usually arise from biological, psychological, and social factors in a person's life, but the amount of each factor in relationship to the others is likely to vary from one person to the next.
GAD has the following characteristics according to the Reporter published by the ADAA (1):
Excessive worry, occurring more days than not, for at least 6 months.
Unreasonable worry about a number of things.
An inability to shut off your worry.
Restlessness, feeling keyed up or on edge. Being easily tired.
Concentration problems.
Irritability.
Muscle tension.
Trouble falling asleep, trouble staying asleep or restless/unsatisfying sleep.
Anxiety that interferes with your daily life.
The coping skills used by the person(s) of this story are:
Cognitive Behavioral Techniques (such as thought countering) as discussed by David Burns in his book Feeling Good (2).
Relaxation techniques that can be learned through biofeedback, with the help of guided relaxation tapes, or through the practice of progressive muscle relaxation.
Deep and slow breathing that can be achieved through daily practice.
Meditation practice as taught by Jon Kabbat-Zinn in his book Wherever you go there you are (3).
The Story of "Rena"
Two-thirty in the morning, suddenly, she is wide-awake. The discussions with friends from the previous evening are replayed in her mind, unintentionally. Like horses running wild, her thoughts are difficult to calm, even in her sleep. She does not know whether she has just been sleeping or has been wide-awake. Anyhow, she would have preferred to stay asleep. - She doesn't look to the clock. She knows what time it is. It happens almost every night around this time. But unlike just a couple of years ago, now she only stays awake for a little while. She has learned to regulate her breath to become slow and deep, and years of meditation practice have prepared her to be able to let go of thoughts running through her mind and to return her focus to her breath. After a while, she sleeps again.
Not long however, and her breath becomes rapid and shallow. Her closed eyelids twitch, and so do her fingers. To the observer, it appears that she is resting and sleeping in her bed. But to her, this sleep, filled with dreams and nightmares, is little different from the intensity of daytime activities, and often just as tiring. And while she has learned to use coping skills to influence her experiences and reactions during waking hours, the nighttime experiences of her dream leave her tense and ill upon awaking.
When the sound of the radio awakens her, and she becomes aware of herself, she does not stir. Immediately upon awakening, her thoughts keeps wandering off on their own, to plan, to predict, to judge, and to despair. But she has become sensitive to the physical tension caused by these thoughts, and she uses this tension as a cue to patiently and gently direct her focus back to her present environment and time.
The physical sensations she experiences used to frighten her: the pressure in her head; the tension, the throbbing, and the tingling in her face; the ringing in her ears; the tense and nauseous feeling in her body; sometimes dizziness. But now, as she lay there, she continuously returns her focus to her breath; and she focuses on one muscle group of her body at a time, slowly, surely, repeatedly, and patiently - and she lets them relax.
As she thus prepares to start her day, thoughts continue to intrude. So again, she practices on letting them go. It took a lot of long and patient practice to be able to influence her breath, her body, and her thoughts. When she first started to learn how to cope with her challenges, after a diagnosis of Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) and Panic Disorder a few years ago, she often awoke with panic attacks and disabling symptoms of anxiety.
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