First, let me thank everyone who may read this that I have found reading and posting to this forum has been of great help to me. Thanks!
Well, on this beautiful Sunday morning (at least here is SE Michigan it's nice), I thought I'd share a story of what I considered a victory for me yesterday.
I rec'd my program Friday afternoon and decided to watch the intro and 5 steps to feel better fast video yesterday morning. What a great thing to provide people just starting the program! Well, anyway, it helped a lot cuz a big day was plannned by my wife and I that I knew would be hard for me.
I agreed to go to my wife's office with her yesterday to help her get caught up on some work so she'd not be burried on Monday (she'd been on a bus. trip during the week). I felt very anxious about this cuz her office is far from the house, it's not one of my "safe places", and I wanted to be able to help her like I said and not have a panic attack or something instead. Well, I felt anxious but ended up OK and able to keep my promise of helping her.
After working, my wife suggested that we stop in the large outlet mall next to her office for a little shopping. Oh crap! A mall?!! Since my panic attacks have started, I have not been in one. Now, I am a man, so I normally don't like hours and hours shopping
, but I do like to shop some. Plus, I needed a couple new dress shirts for work. I said, "OK, I think I'm OK for that".Now this is one of those very large malls where most stores are outlets, but it's indoors. To walk all around it, it must be 1.5+ miles. If you live in SE Michigan, it's called Great Lakes Crossing. It's one of the Mills malls. Like in Philly, it's called Franklin Mills or in Nashville it's called Opry Mills. Anyway, it's BIG and there were a lot of people.
As we walked to entrance and into the mall, I could feel some of my anxious symptoms starting (weak knees, a little derealization, etc.), but I plowed on. I remember Lucinda saying in the intro DVD, "Don't run from the panic. What is it that's really bothering you?". I kept repeating these things to myself as we strolled the mall. I got into the moment, trying some things on, etc. My wife ended up getting me a couple nice shirts for work from Brooks Brothers for helping her at work. What a treat! I can do this. Well, we continued walking the whole mall talking and enjoying a day at the mall like we used to. I was glad I did it and made it. I can't say I was "100% normal" through the whole thing, but it was good to accomplish.
The rest of the day we planned to exercise some and have some friends over for dinner and cards. I felt so good after "surviving" the mall that I didn't really feel much anxiety the rest of the day. (The rollerblading we did when we got home went a long way for that!)
This may not seem like much, but it felt really good to have a "normal Saturday" full of activity with my wife. That's the first one we've really had in the last 1 1/2 months. I really think just watching that intro DVD helped me yesterday. I cannot wait to see what the full program will do for me.
Thanks for listening!
"They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint." Isaiah 40:31