I ran into an interesting discussion about anxiety attacks and how trying to avoid them could make them worse, etc. It makes sense in principle and I'm sure anyone with this problem who has been in therapy has heard of this. Once again, I am a bit fucked off that something that makes sense and works for some people cannot work for me and I have decided to tell why. I want to tell why the concept of 'making friends' with or 'welcoming' anxiety only makes things worse for me and why I cannot do that. The closest I can come to that is to just acknowledge that the anxiety exists. That is because of what caused it. My father used to beat me, threaten me, and purposely intimidate me on a fairly regular basis until I was fifteen years old. He did it for the express purpose of torturing me. I know that because he used to say so. He said that I was very stupid and worthless. He said that even the dog was smarter than I was. The dog was smarter because if he beat it enough, it would stop screwing up. Not so with me. I wasn't that smart, you see. But he said he would fix that. That the only thing I understood was fear, and that he would use it to teach me so I wouldn't be so stupid. He did this to me on purpose. It was not an accident.
There. Now you know. Welcoming anxiety would give him exactly what he wanted and it would cooperate in my disintegration. I refuse to learn anything from it. I flatly refuse. He doesn't get to decide what I learn from. Only I do. I will NEVER welcome anxiety. I spit on it. I spit on him, too. Sick fucker.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Hi Lynn,
ReplyDeleteIt sounds like if you embrace the anxiety then you will disintegrate. I hope that does not happen and that you can stay separate from the anxiety.
It seems so sad that you had to endure the sadism as a child. It makes one wonder about humanity.
hope all goes well for you
Graffiti
I found that with anxiety the drugs that are prescribed for it cause a rebound effect for me where when they wear off the attack comes back even worse.
ReplyDeleteI found that biofeedback was the most effective thing in combating the anxiety.
Mine got a lot worse for some reason after my paternal grandmother died in 2002. It's ok now, but I've had some bad bouts with it in my life.
I'm pretty sure that everything the medical establishment thinks that it knows about anxiety and panic attacks is wrong. For instance... have you heard this one "panic attacks always pass within a few minutes". Mine don't. Mine can last hours or even days.
ReplyDeleteThis is my take on the "embracing anxiety" thing. A lot of folks seem to think that the "fear of the fear" is what drives anxiety disorders. And maybe that's true for some folks. The thing is, I've found that anticipating anxiety or not seems to have very little effect on whether or not anxiety will occur. I think that at any moment I may or may not be triggered by something completely random and unexpected. (Random and unexpected to my conscious mind anyhow.)
Fearing or not fearing makes little difference to me because I am still capable of being caught so off guard...
I don't know if I'm making any sense at all here or not.
It's all clear in my head though...
If I come up with a nice analogy I'll share it.
-else
I like to think there is a unique solution for every one of us, and the problems that ail us, we just haven't found it yet. (Maybe it's the closet optimist in me?)
ReplyDeleteI like to think that the human spirit can prevail above the darkest abuse. Not talking about sanity. That's overrated anyhow. Peace, just peace would be enough for me.
Yes, Graffiti, it is sad what I had to endure as a child. I deserved to have better than that. Thank you for your comment. And you have my favorite avatar pic of you, too.
ReplyDeleteI think there are a lot of medications that have rebound and other bad effects, Lily. You are quite right that other means are better. I've become of a mind that medication is for emergency purposes for me.
I have had attacks that lasted for a long time, too, Else. That is a miserable thing. You said...
"...I've found that anticipating anxiety or not seems to have very little effect on whether or not anxiety will occur. I think that at any moment I may or may not be triggered by something completely random and unexpected. (Random and unexpected to my conscious mind anyhow.)
Fearing or not fearing makes little difference to me because I am still capable of being caught so off guard...
I don't know if I'm making any sense at all here or not."
BINGO! You make PERFECT sense, Else! This is the trauma connection. There are probably plenty of people who have anxiety problems that are not tied to specific traumas, but there are also plenty of people like us, too. Unfortunately, most treatments don't seem to be geared toward people like us.
I know exactly what you are talking about. To explain simply, take the example of being hit by a car. Then a person might have a phobia of cars or of crossing the street, but it's not really that simple. What if the 'car' that ran over the person was not a car, but a caretaker? And what if it was not an accident? What if the person was a small child and needed the caretaker for basic survival needs and could not afford to 'know' that the 'car' was really the caretaker? This child could not avoid this 'car' and still survive, so... the attention; the fear, is transferred away from the caretaker. The feared object then becomes the street where the 'collision' took place, the sound of brakes and tires, the sight of blood, the color yellow like the color of the shirt ruined by the blood, the smell of asphalt, the sound of children playing on the next block that provided the background noise... Was it an overcast, winter day? Was it raining? The enemy is the clouds, the cold, the rain. Water becomes the enemy. ANYTHING could be an object of fear for someone who could not afford to have a human one when they were helpless; for someone who went frozen inside from the horror and shock of this unbelievable situation THAT IS NOT SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN. How many times were they hit by this 'car'? In how many different environments?
THIS is what happens and it is why desensitizing to phobias does not work for some people. The list could be endless! It is why not anticipating anxiety does not prevent it from leaping out from the clouds (or a color, or a smell, or a sound, or any countless number of things) at ANY TIME. It is why a refusal of one's environment (internal or external) can sometimes feel like the only way. It is why embracing the anxiety (which embraces the abuse) does not work. Embracing it says to that child in the street: "You're making too much of this. Get up from there and quit that crying. Things aren't so bad." Embracing it actually says even worse, sicker things like, "YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO LIKE THIS." That is nothing but a lie. Children are not designed to like abuse, they are merely designed with ways to ignore it temporarily so they can survive. They are further designed to be able to find ways to tell the truth about it when they no longer depend on the caretaker. The problem is, very few people want to hear about what really happened. Everyone is about protecting the caretaker. This prevents the child inside from being able to untangle where the fear REALLY came from. It stops people from being able to assign emotions and reactions to their real sources instead of having them leap out from everywhere. I worry that it is possible after many attempts to tell the truth, and many retaliations from those who ought to have been able to listen to it, that the scrambled mess becomes so buried and frozen inside that it might not ever be untangled. This is a tragedy and a world wide disgrace. People need to get over themselves in thinking that parents are gods. They are not. We don't have to worship them. Most parents fuck up in some way or other, but some of them are just assholes plain and simple. I see nothing wrong with calling a spade a spade. I don't give a damn what title it's wearing. It's not right that the title should matter more than the truth when the truth can hold the key to freedom. But such is our society. We must just embrace our anxiety and the abuse we were dealt, and we must love it lest we offend the sensibilities of more delicate and unstable others (the apostles of the parent-gods). My sadistic father may have been a (greatly) magnified image of the sadistic society that produced him, but he was still an asshole.
Hi, Amanda. I like optimism. :-) I think you are right in that things can be very individual to the person and their situation. If people had more patience for this when dealing with the 'afflicted', then I think there would be more optimism. As you say, just because someone doesn't yet have a solution, does not mean that one does not exist.
Having lived in a world of violence and sadistic abuse from infancy until about 21, I know that there is a difference between anxiety and of and anxiety disorder, panic and being terrified for your life. Most people make the mistake of equating anxiety for what you mention and I experience. The key is that your life was constantly in threat and/or of bodily harm. That is living in a war zone not being just being scared or sensitive.
ReplyDeleteCC
Hi, CC. Very good insight. You said, "Most people make the mistake of equating anxiety for what you mention and I experience." I made that same mistake about my own anxiety. It was easy to do because many therapists made the same mistake for me first. One guy even said... He said I should bowl. I'm not kidding. He thought bowling would 'fix' me.
ReplyDelete"The key is that your life was constantly in threat and/or of bodily harm." Even if my life had not been in danger, I was a small child and perception is key. I guess my main point is that I think there are many people out there who suffer from anxiety disorders that really meet criteria for PTSD. If that person experiences dissociation, chances are they are not going to be able to march into a therapist's office and offer up the needed info. Sadly, therapists (at least most of the ones I've encountered) get pissed off when they discover that the problem is more serious than a hangnail. Then they want to go to the complete opposite extreme and blame and punish the client. They won't see that they do it to protect parents. They refuse to see. It is the blind leading the blind. In some cases it is even more ridiculous because it is the totally blind leading the visually impaired.