Crisis n Opportunity

Today I received some anxiety provoking news. I was checking my voicemail and listened to a message from my doctor asking I call him regarding the results of my recent MRI. I not only have a long term love affair with panic attacks but I am also a classic O.C.D head case. My O.C.D is especially triggered by medical related issues. I have been having health problems and of course I have reason to be concerned about this news. But the O.C.D side of me starts questions that begin with, "what if," and end with a particularly agonizing death. This time I chose not to respond this way. I felt myself falling into the "what if" mind trap. I remembered all the things I have been doing in the past several months to improve my mental health and lessen the more glaring symptoms. I have been exercising and eating right, and going to AA meetings and individual therapy. I even meditated for 55 minutes the other day! I do not want to get off track after having worked so hard to get back on track. It helps to remind myself of the things I am doing right. If you are dealing with challenges in your life, perhaps remind yourself of the positive changes you have made in your life; positive affirmations promote us to continue taking care of ourselves no matter how impossible it may feel to do so in the moment. I chose to take care of myself today after I heard this voicemail by going to the clinic and praying on the way there. I recognized as blessings the chance to talk to two professionals. These counselors encouraged me and gave me insight and direction. Mostly they helped me because they reminded me simply by taking the time to converse, that I am not alone unless I choose to be. It is hard for me to reach out for help in the midst of an O.C.D anxiety crisis. I am not used to doing so. I usually try to isolate and deny it as if I could wish it away. However I didn't react this way today. Without help today I would be defeated, locked up in my apartment trying to pretend I am not there. That would be rock bottom for me today and I have come too far to go back there. Whatever you are facing remember there is hardly any longstanding challenge you can overcome withOUT help! I never wanted to reach out for help because I was too proud for people to see me feeling weak and afraid. However in my epic panic attack one month ago I felt naked before the world. And I discovered Unconditional acceptance is real and it is amazing. Whoever you are, if you are feeling weak and afraid and you want to hide, don't!; ask for help and you will be amazed and wholly accepted. One of the counselors I spoke to showed me the Chinese character for crisis contains the character for opportunity. This character is characterizing my morning thus far. In the past this message from my doctor would have been a crisis with no hope for opportunity in it. Without praying and reaching out for help I would not have discovered the opportunity within the crisis! It is there and with help I found it today! I urge anyone who is overwhelmed and feeling anxious about a crisis to ask for help. Do not let pride or fear prevent you from doing so. I have faced my more serious challenges alone for the past 37 years. I am not doing this anymore. So far I have found the world to be a much more hopeful and welcoming place than my O.C.D and anxiety led me to believe it was. I still have anxiety about this unresolved medical issue, but I am feeling blessed because as I wrote this entry I have received two phone calls from friends. I will call them back after I am done writing. My O.C.D wants me to be alone all day sending me around and around a gerbil wheel of what if questions ending in death. My anxiety wants me to pace and fidget and fidget and pace and move ever closer to picking up a bottle of unprescribed clonopin. But I am not my O.C.D and I am not my anxiety. I am a person who has found the opportunity inside the crisis. The opportunity to grow from this crisis so that I can perhaps help even one person empower themselves in this way. Just remember you are worth the bravery it takes to embrace your crisis having faith there is a blessing of opportunity within! Also, it may be possible to do this alone, but the victory is far more meaningful when you involve others. Now I am excited about fully accepting the crisis for now I have total faith that therein lies the opportunity, jen

UN-conditional acceptance

I never ever thought anyone could accept me unconditionally. But this isn't the case. I had all the love in the world but feelings that I was unloveable prevented me from seeing this. Now the love is creeping in like a sunbeam through the blinds. The blinds have been closed a long time. But some kind of light is  getting in. In the past month I have received so many indications that I am lovable and that I am worthy of unconditional acceptance. The epic anxiety attack four weeks ago forced me to open my mind to the thought and open my heart to the feeling of unconditional acceptance and love. Sometimes it takes a bad course of life events to reveal who your true friends are. Well my bad course of events was internal and happened like a house of cards falling all at once and a lot of people went running from ground zero but a few remained to look for me. I will not name any names but only say you know who you are. There were a few people who saw me in my moment of absolution humiliation, total defeat by the army of my anxiety disorder and they stayed. They saw me with no way to run and nowhere to hide and they stayed. They saw me without any mask to hide behind, they saw my deepest secret which is that at my core I am full of shame and fear and am too ashamed and too afraid to look for any other more positive characteristics. But they saw me and they stayed and they weren't leaving and I knew they were friends. These people have been supporting me daily for the past month in particular. I owe a huge portion of my success to them.. This is to say that whatever your anxiety is doing to you these days, realize that you are not alone. Be honest with people you trust. Don't underestimate a friend's ability to accept you without conditions. People may really surprise you in their ability to understand, they surprised me anyway. Friends who are true friends see the real you. They don't see you through the lens of someone with anxiety disorder or eating disorder or bipolar disorder or addiction or alcoholism. They see you without a lens, as you are without these disorders. Because I am not my disease, I struggle with my disease but it is not me. If it weren't for these people who love and accept me and have seen me at my worst and stayed, I would never have found the strength to believe I am more than my disease and the courage to fight back with their help. It has been a month since that epic anxiety attack and I have learned a lot. I am glad I didn't just self medicate with clonopin because I was forced to employ other strategies. A big reason I have reached this level of success is that I have that acceptance and love of my friends and people on my team. My life with anxiety has taught me a lot over my lifetime. But the best thing it taught me so far is that the more it kicks me down to rock bottom the more aware I am of how much I am loved. I was at rock bottom lower than low a month ago and suddenly I was aware of people coming down to my level and lifting me up and helping me walk with their arms around me and this was love and acceptance and it was unconditional and it is working cause I am walking on my own now but with love from those who know me and knew me at my worst and knew I was not my worst and for them today I am especially grateful. p.s if you are dealing with anxiety today discover the feelings at the root of that anxiety and take a risk and tell a friend and see how you feel after that...

A month ago seemingly out of nowhere I was hit over the head with the anxiety board. There were nails in it. They hurt. They got stuck in my brain and one month later I'm still pulling nails out. I have been  a survivor of PTSD, drug addiction and ongoing mental health issues so it is no surprise that I have anxiety when it comes to social settings. The difference is that years ago I still had the power to hide behind a mask. Nowadays I have been so debilitated by my disorder that I am to shaky to hold a mask up to my face. I finally have nowhere to run and no place to hide. So a month ago when this anxiety attack hit me I discovered that I had long ago lost the ability to put up a brave front. I am on methadone by the way and I was standing in line to get my medication. Every inch forward the snake of a line inched I felt my anxiety creep that much closer to my master control panel in my brain. Inching along I felt everyone staring at me. Anxiety has a way of making me feel like I am at the center of the universe and all eyes of the entire universe are on ME! This irrational thought that I am the center of the universe caused an emotional reaction of FEAR. Fear of rejection when they discover I am not the big beautiful star that gives life and light to entire solar systems and beyond. This kind of fear hinges on the thought that if anyone ever knew who I really am I would be locked up on death row and hated for eternity. Deep down I harbor these feelings of shame that make any charming quality I exhibit part of a fraud to make people like me. It is no wonder with feelings of shame and fear so entrenched in me that I  react with anxiety when I am in a crowd of other people who could possible discover me for who I am. As I got closer to the front of the line the fear inched up the thermometer too. By the time I was in first place my hands were violently shaking. I have had shaky hands before but this kind of shaking defies explanation, defies gravity even. I was horrified as I looked down at my hands. MY hands looked like they were gesturing wildly as I articulated some impassioned ideas. However I had no passionate argument to give, I had nothing to give. I wanted nothing but for my hands to quiet down so that I could hold the cup of methadone and drink it. By the time I was at the window it seemed this one little pathetic wish would not be granted. By now my arms were shaking and when I saw my arms shaking my legs started shaking and then my torso and then my head and then my EYES! Yes even my vision was bouncing back and forth like the devil was playing catch with the devil's spawn using my eyeballs. And after all of this shaking my voice started shaking until it went away. By then I was unable to breathe. In the middle of this I spilled about 3/4s of the methadone and then walked away with my head down. I had truly reached rock bottom. Though I had 2 years sober, I felt lower than low. This new low based on the realization that not only am I on methadone but also now I am unable physically and mentally to swallow a cup of methadone. It is now one month later and I have worked through these issues to the point where today I went to the clinic and took my dose and walked away a little shaky but not debilitatingly so. I am starting this blog to spread the word to anxiety sufferers everywhere that there is a way out, a way through, a way over, a way around and then a way BEYOND the struggle to get through a day when your day revolves around managing anxiety disorder symptoms. I will offer what has worked for me over the years and recently. It is a personal journey; what works for me may have no use for someone else. But I do know that compared to a month ago, the status of my anxiety is like night and day. At my lowest point I thought I'd have to resort to getting a script for clonopin. But that didn't happen and that doesn't have to happen for me. I hope I can help others feel less alone and maybe offer some helpful hints on coping strategies. Take care and I will keep in touch….fearfully fearless, jenji powa