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By Andrea Lanier, Group Facilitator previous page/next page
Just lying in bed, after awaking, her thoughts would turn to predicting and evaluating what type of bad or terrible day she would have. This could be triggered by something as simple as the realization that the weather would be cold and wet, and the day dark and gray, with the conclusion that this was just awful and that the coming day would have nothing good to offer. Or she might have predicted that it would be impossible to complete all of the things for which she felt responsible on that day. Negative predictions such as these were causing sensations in her body and conclusions in her mind that made it impossible to function, as she would have liked.
After a while, she feels ready to start her day. She proceeds through her morning routines of brushing teeth, taking a shower, and getting dressed. Just as she finishes and starts to prepare her breakfast, she feels an increased pressure and throbbing in her head and face, the inside of her mouth feels dry and tingles and burns, her arms feel shaky, and she feels a little dizzy. Patiently, she slows down to focus on her tasks and on regulating her breath, which has become shallow and rapid again. While she slices an apple, she looks at the apple and she feels it in her hands, and she observes the process of her activity instead of letting her thoughts go off to something not in the here and now. At the same time, she thinks: "Moderately slow and deep breathe in - and even slower and deep breathe out."
She makes sure that her breakfast, as well as most the food and drink she consumes, consists of foods low in sugar and refined flour products to avoid the rush of glucose and the subsequent drop, which aggravate her symptoms of anxiety. But even with the modest amount of immediate energy released by her fiber- and protein-rich breakfast, she feels better immediately, and thus energized she enjoys starting her daily tasks. Not long however, and this energy has evaporated like a dream that was never real. If she had only taken a brief moment to focus and calm her mind sooner, she might not have been so tired so soon. But, after only a little over an hour, she is in need of a relaxation break, signaled by her body by a general sense of fatigue, an increased throbbing in her head, her ears ringing, but mostly by her degenerating concentration. She sits down for a little while "to calm the wild horses in her head." She returns her focus to the present, breathes deep and slow, and releases her body from the accumulated tension. She has learned that she has to trust this process.
The symptoms of discomfort she experiences with GAD are her signals to check her thoughts and her behavior, to assess whether her thoughts and/or behavior are in her best interest. Therefore, it is so very important that she avoids pushing past signals from her body to slow down and stay focused. She needs to avoid pushing faster and faster all the time to "get things done," and she needs to avoid pushing too much activity into too little time. She also needs to avoid feeling responsible for everything and everyone. She does not think that she "worries" very much (which is a primary characteristic of GAD), but she automatically takes to owning any problem that she might solve. If a friend in church is sad, she feels the need to "fix it." If a peer in college has difficulties with class material, she needs to help. If she has a creative idea, it needs to be realized. - On and on "the horses run."
On the other hand, she is easily able to let go of all the things that she cannot control, something that is usually difficult for persons with anxiety disorder. Therefore, she does not experience any anxiety about them. It is the sheer number of things that occupy her mind that, individually, can be controlled or influenced, but combined present a challenge. As a consequence her mind and body is constantly over-stimulated. After too many years of over-stimulation, she suffers from chronic tension.
Furthermore, when she pushes past her body's signals for a needed relaxation break too often, she will experience an increase in symptoms that gradually become more challenging, sometimes to the point of becoming disabling. She then experiences painful tension in her entire body. Then, her head aches a lot, and she feels dizzy and nauseous frequently. Sound seems to explode in her head, and she feels irritable. She feels fatigued constantly, but unable to rest. The pressure, throbbing, and ringing in her head become continuous. Her brain seems to function in slow motion, her ability to concentrate becomes severely impaired, and her head feels as if she were suffering from influenza. Sometimes, her legs and arms feel jittery and weak. Finally, once her symptoms have increased to this stage, it is very important not to become fearful of the symptoms. She has to carefully counter thoughts that might predict her self to feel terrible forever, and that what she feels is too much to bear. She has to trust in her coping skills and to listen to her body when it tells her to slow down.
Challenging periods such as these are eventually relieved by an increased sense of well-being, which tends to raise her hopes that "somehow, there will be an end to all this some where, some time." But the good times do not last, and she feels disappointed when she has to use more of her coping skills yet again. Staying patient and maintaining her attitude of acceptance of her condition and her self that she has learned to cultivate and to maintain is so necessary for coping with GAD and similar disorders. However, when her experiences of anxiety with its numerous physical expressions increase, patience and acceptance do not come easy.
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