A never ending battle that's for sure!
For me it has been a lifelong distraction to what is going on in the world and all round me. Anxiety interrupts the natural flow of thoughts and feelings. It makes sufferers miss vital tell-tale signs, that we all need to be aware of, to communicate properly with each other.
A scenario.....someone is chatting to us - just a friend - but they make a 'suggestion' - could be anything - to watch a specific DVD, to go somewhere at the weekend or to drop in and see someone. We have a fear of being 'told' or 'advised' to do something, as to us, that translates to being 'controlled' by someone else - a big problem for us.....a trigger for anxiety. Once that suggestion or advice has triggered the anxiety, we have a skewed view of anything else that is said, with adrenalin cursing around our body triggering 'fight or flight' and all sorts of other instinctive survival behaviours.
The emotional stamina needed to just 'be' in society when anything at all can trigger us, is exhausting. Since having EMDR therapy (see previous blogs) I have found being around people much easier, but when I do something different, I feel disorientated and restless and it takes time for me to 'settle' back into myself.
I experienced this today and felt disturbed by it. I am writing about it because seven hours later I still feel strange. Those of you who have read previous blogs will know that I go to Merton Meal and Market every Thursday. Today, as there was a dog show in the same hall the market is held, with stallholders from the market and obviously lots of other people around too, I thought I would go along and support the dog show organisers. I felt fine while I was there. I think that I probably just put my market hat on and nothing felt very different, at the time....
At home though, I feel dizzy, disorientated, tired, restless and, it's so hard to describe, it's like I have been fooled, by myself, into going to an event in the same place and with the same people but it was on a different day and not the event that I help organise....so I feel like I have been tricked and that maybe, as I wasn't where my brain thought I was (at the market) I was unsafe and didn't realise!
I realise, reading this back, how weird it sounds, but I know I am not alone. The toll that stress and anxiety puts on your brain makes life so totally exhausting. No wonder I have chronic fatigue!
Roll on the market on Thursday so I can get back to (as) 'normal' (as I usually am!!!).
For me it has been a lifelong distraction to what is going on in the world and all round me. Anxiety interrupts the natural flow of thoughts and feelings. It makes sufferers miss vital tell-tale signs, that we all need to be aware of, to communicate properly with each other.
A scenario.....someone is chatting to us - just a friend - but they make a 'suggestion' - could be anything - to watch a specific DVD, to go somewhere at the weekend or to drop in and see someone. We have a fear of being 'told' or 'advised' to do something, as to us, that translates to being 'controlled' by someone else - a big problem for us.....a trigger for anxiety. Once that suggestion or advice has triggered the anxiety, we have a skewed view of anything else that is said, with adrenalin cursing around our body triggering 'fight or flight' and all sorts of other instinctive survival behaviours.
The emotional stamina needed to just 'be' in society when anything at all can trigger us, is exhausting. Since having EMDR therapy (see previous blogs) I have found being around people much easier, but when I do something different, I feel disorientated and restless and it takes time for me to 'settle' back into myself.
I experienced this today and felt disturbed by it. I am writing about it because seven hours later I still feel strange. Those of you who have read previous blogs will know that I go to Merton Meal and Market every Thursday. Today, as there was a dog show in the same hall the market is held, with stallholders from the market and obviously lots of other people around too, I thought I would go along and support the dog show organisers. I felt fine while I was there. I think that I probably just put my market hat on and nothing felt very different, at the time....
At home though, I feel dizzy, disorientated, tired, restless and, it's so hard to describe, it's like I have been fooled, by myself, into going to an event in the same place and with the same people but it was on a different day and not the event that I help organise....so I feel like I have been tricked and that maybe, as I wasn't where my brain thought I was (at the market) I was unsafe and didn't realise!
I realise, reading this back, how weird it sounds, but I know I am not alone. The toll that stress and anxiety puts on your brain makes life so totally exhausting. No wonder I have chronic fatigue!
Roll on the market on Thursday so I can get back to (as) 'normal' (as I usually am!!!).
