Stress Center Peer Support

I hope someone reads this. I had a conversation with my wonderful husband this a.m. We talked about whether or not I really loved myself. When I think about it, it is so hard to say it much less feel it. I am so angry with myself for being in this condition! I am losing prescious time with my family and granddaughters because of where I am right now! I feel like I am not a good wife to my husband in this condition! I feel like I'm failing some great test God is putting me through! Talking about it this a.m. made me really think about it and I was wondering about everyone on the forum. Is anyone else out there feeling this way? Letting ourselves off of the hook is key! I am going to start forgiving myself and accepting myself and loving myself. God loves me unconditionally! why can't we do the same with ourselves. We have to begin sometime. Let's start right here, right now! Thanks for listening! Prayers to all!

Cathy,
I understand exactly how you feel!! I too feel like i've wasted my life with this condition, i also know that it was the main cause for my divorce. Forgiving myself was one of the hardest things i'd ever had to do. It took me a while, but what i did do was i asked myself that if i was on trial what would be the verdict. What i came up was that i would be found not guilty by reasons of insanity!! That's how i was able to forgive myself and realize that it wasn't completely my fault. Though i did this to myself, i wasn't aware of how i was really effecting myself and my wife at the time. You need to do something similar, then move on from it. Ask yourself, haven't i wasted enough time on things i've done in the past????

Good luck,
Bill

Hi,

I too, see this as a big problem with people with anxiety including myself, but I am getting better for several reasons. In fact, it's not that we waited until we got anxiety to beat ourselves up for having this condition, but not loving ourselves and treating ourselves as being worthy in the first place likely played a huge role in developing the condition. We then punish ourselves and with hold love for having symptoms from not loving ourselves and letting ourselves experience God's love!:(

Yes, anxiety needs to be addressed so that we can do the things we want to do and have joy and peace in this life time:). However, I know for myself, that I had to understand and experience God's love at my very worst with anxiety first before the real healing began:). Every time I based God's love for me on whether or not I could make it to the mail box, I set myself up for failure and condemnation. Yes, cheer yourself on when you accomplish something regarding healing from anxiety, but don't base your self-worth on your success. You already are a success in God's eyes. But, I thought I needed to perform to gain God's love and be worthy of love from others. However, now, I NEVER believe that God is testing any us with anxiety. I think it is also important to know that anxiety is not a sin that needs forgiving. God knows that a life of anxiety is filled with pain, and that those who are afraid are often not understanding and experiencing His unconditional love and giving that love to themselves. I believe in Jesus, and we are only required to accept His love into our hearts. Our performance in life never determines our value in His eyes. We are to experience His love for us, and then we act out of His love for us and our love for Him. We don't perform to get anything from him. Also, we will never be perfect. His love is perfect though:).

Anxiety disorder causes way too much shame for so many who have it when it shouldn't. Every human being has a weakness. Paul even said, "I will boast of my weaknesses, for when I am weak, He is strong." Paul isn't saying the weakness is good, but He's saying that it's nothing to be ashamed about because God can use Him even more in his weakness because God will get all the glory:). Just like one should not be ashamed to have migraines, one should not be ashamed for having panic attacks. Having anxiety and panic has nothing to do with our value.

I love to read self-help books, like many on here. I really recommend "The Search for Significance" and "Released From Shame". They are both Christian books. "The Search" is about our value based on God apart from our performance. In addition, I recently read "Released From Shame". One point of the book that I found comforting was that during my childhood I was repeatedly abandoned by those who were supposed to love me. I can't even count the number of traumatic experiences regarding abandonment. As an adult, and before I developed severe anxiety disorder, my son was diagnosed with severe autism. It was also regressive autism, meaning he lost skills such as speech, etc. I was an at home mom, so I was very alone as I watched my son regress and felt like the burden was all dependent on me. I began to feel extremely abandoned and this triggered severe panic attacks where I couldn't be alone with my son and without my husband. Although, I've gotten better over the years, it helped me to read in this book to never shame myself for feeling abandoned. Yes, I need to deal with it by knowing I'm an adult who can take care of myself and worthy because God loves me, but I shouldn't deal with it by shaming myself or beating myself up for the fact that I was just a helpless little child who wasn't cared for properly and then that came out when I went through something traumatic as an adult.

I do think that shaming ourselves can work sometimes to get us to perform, but I think it is highly detrimental over the long run. I believe that God would rather us experience is love and perform less than to perform greatly being motivated by shame if that makes sense. In fact, when we grasp God's love for us, we definitely perform, but we stop keeping count of our performances because we are living from a place of peace:)!

Take care,
luvpiggy