Stress Center Peer Support

Ok so after making a post in a thread, I figured it was necessary to create this. In the beginning and even for people who have had alot of experience with this, it can be difficult to do this on our own and we can use the help of others to really understand and appreciate the power of these steps. Feel free to post anything you feel you need some help with or post something that you felt really worked for you. We're all in this together and we can all learn from each other.


Mike

Alright I'll start.

Here is my situation. I started this program 4 years ago and I did very well and it helped me change things and the main things that i wanted to address were starting to happen but then i stopped practicing what i learned and I went back a few steps. There were some limitations that i couldn't help but run from and they still cause me to have anxiety.

Accept--> I still have these limitations, they do scare me and they heavily affect my life right now and this is alright. Everything that i am today is what i have picked up along my road of life. There is reasoning behind why i have these limitations so it's alright. These limitations are only limitations because my mind has attached certain emotions to memories of past situations and I get these anxious feelings when I encounter similar situations. That's all it is.

Positive--> What i'm really afraid of isn't the situation as much as it is the feelings associated with the situation and I am learning & practicing the skills that will allow me to work through and change these feelings. It may take sometime as this is a new habit that i am trying to form but it is completely worth it and every attempt I make is going to make me that much stronger.

Humor--> It's really funny because I tend to say things that don't make so much sense when i go and socialize and then people look at me funny and laugh. Wow I don't even need to do drugs because I already get the same effects from the anxiety...I get spacy feelings, bewilderment and I say stupid things and embarass myself...I also get the munchies as well.


Neways I invite anybody to join and if you cannot do the humor part of it then don't worry so much, just try the first 2.

Mike

This is good Mike,
I love the way you look at it. Humor is what keeps me going, my therapist thinks that sometimes I make fun of myself too much. Well, I don't feel that I am knocking myself down any, I just wish I could see the humor at the moment when my panic attack hits - at that moment laughing is the last thing on my mind.

I will share one funny thing I did last week when having a panic attack.
I helped at my kid's school and met another mom there. I went to help the next day and got the panicky feeling,as I started to feel very bad I happened to see that mom again and she didn't even seem friendly but I told her : " Wow, you're back!!!" Seemed like a good conversation starter to distract myself but latter I felt stupid and than I just had to laugh.Of course she was back, her kids are there too. She didn't even answer - which makes her rude.

Anyhow, I am on week two and I feel much better, my biggest problem are the panic attacks and sometimes I am almost housebound [Accept for very few things that I am able to do myself} but I was able to start facing some of the situations and I see a lot of progress, the hardest thing is to go and do it. what worked for me is to tell myself that this time I won't scare myself. And it really helped I had one panic attack coming on yesterday but I just ignored it and it left as fast as it came.
I wish good luck to all of us.