Day 4 Anxiety from being "stuck" in moments

The most disheartening thing a doctor has told me about my symptoms is that my acid reflux will be slow to recover from and there’s no timetable. I keep the “no timetable” in mind because it makes it so much harder to see a light at the end of the tunnel. If I don’t know when I’ll be well, how can I work? How can I get out of the house, see friends and loved ones? When do I get my life back? Because I struggle with feeling that this moment is forever, this lack of a timetable causes me a lot of anxiety.

Does anyone else have experience being "stuck in a moment" -- feeling bad but also not really being able to wrap your head around the fact that you won't always feel like this? I miss the forest for the trees and get stuck thinking: I'll always feel nauseous, I'll always feel anxious, I'll always be sick, things will always be hard.

What do you do to deal with this?

 

I review my experience and remember how many times the Doctors were WRONG and pretty much delete their opinions.

1985 "You risk paralysis if you ever run again " WRONG
1993 "You have to keep your core tight to stay out of pain " WRONG
1998 "You will never work in hard labor again" WRONG
1999 "You Should have been in pain your whole life" WRONG
2010 "If you don't get your gallbladder out right now you'll be in pain and eventually have to go to the emergnecy room" WRONG

You get the point. I could probably fill several pages with admonitions and predictions of theirs that have been wrong. I do go to Doctors when I am ill. I follow their instructions UNLESS they are the predictive and condemning type. Many doctors have helped me in the short term with infections and stuff, BUT they have been extraordinarily incorrect on the long-term stuff.

They see us for 5 minutes, read a chart and make a diagnosis that has weeks and months worth of implications???

I think they are so afraid of litigation from lawsuits and malpractice that they take the MOST conservative, safest diagnosis on everything. They are wired to be schleprock. Think back in your own life and you'll probably find you have the same experiences.
peace

 

Yep. But as you do this work, and as I think we talked about on the Chat today, you'll learn to recognize that these thoughts are efforts by your primitive brain to keep you fearful and unaware of your dangerous emotions (it would rather keep you in pain and afraid because it's supposedly "safer"). And you will learn to talk back and fight back.

I still have those days, especially in 2020, believe me!

~Jan