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Balance issues/boat sensations/dizzyness/vertigo

Bananas00 said:
it’s actually the worst year of my life. Burn out with severe anxiety and insomnia, and then this extreme anxiety lashing out preventing me from working or doing anything… I really need a smooth period in my life… and now I’m panicking about what is going to happen with me, i can’t really take another work leave. I just want to feel normal again. It’s the worst period of anxiety I’ve ever lived and the longest…. :(
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Being forced to work might turn into a good thing. It will re-calibrate things. Even though right now it feels like you CAN'T possibly. You actually CAN.
Anxiety can't kill you. It sounds like generally speaking you like your firm and you like your work. You are crippled with anxiety of the "WHAT-IFs" right now. Anxiety and that feeling of impossibility of everything gets worse when we are idle. Way worse. Getting back into your work routine might be a good thing. It's hard right now because you are 100% focusing on how you can't possibly do it. That there is no way you can do it. And what in the hell are you going to do. But Just. Do. It. Try getting re-excited about your work. Instead of reading about symptoms on the Internet, read legal journals. Read up on your field. Get your attention back to where it belongs.

Remember, your body is meant to work automatically. Like a heart beating. Like breathing Like your kidney and liver and every other part doing what they do. It doesn't need us giving it attention. We have to stop trying to micromanage our body. Let it be. It knows what to do. We f--- it up when we intervene. Like some know it all colleague butting in. It doesn't need us. We can let our bodies do what they do -- it's actually good at it when we stop paying attention to it -- and then WE, our higher thinking, can do the fun and interesting and work parts of our life. Focus on that instead.
 
I really understand you. A few months ago I started having again really bad anxiety with dizziness as one of my worst symptoms. Really difficult for me to understand why this happens. It should get better soon
 
Booble said:
Being forced to work might turn into a good thing. It will re-calibrate things. Even though right now it feels like you CAN'T possibly. You actually CAN.
Anxiety can't kill you. It sounds like generally speaking you like your firm and you like your work. You are crippled with anxiety of the "WHAT-IFs" right now. Anxiety and that feeling of impossibility of everything gets worse when we are idle. Way worse. Getting back into your work routine might be a good thing. It's hard right now because you are 100% focusing on how you can't possibly do it. That there is no way you can do it. And what in the hell are you going to do. But Just. Do. It. Try getting re-excited about your work. Instead of reading about symptoms on the Internet, read legal journals. Read up on your field. Get your attention back to where it belongs.

Remember, your body is meant to work automatically. Like a heart beating. Like breathing Like your kidney and liver and every other part doing what they do. It doesn't need us giving it attention. We have to stop trying to micromanage our body. Let it be. It knows what to do. We f--- it up when we intervene. Like some know it all colleague butting in. It doesn't need us. We can let our bodies do what they do -- it's actually good at it when we stop paying attention to it -- and then WE, our higher thinking, can do the fun and interesting and work parts of our life. Focus on that instead.
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Feels good reading this. Thank you. Wanna mentor me? ;p
 
My dizziness has subsided significantly recently, after learning to fear the symptoms far less. Also lowering my overall anxiety has helped, since dizziness is closely linked to anxiety.

It has taken some time, but I did this by mindfully and non-judgmentally observing my dizziness. I began to notice the tremendous amount fear associated with these sensations (true of all my TMS symptoms). Through a process of self-soothing (reminding myself that I'm completely safe and the symptoms are not dangerous), and either being indifferent to the symptoms or literally welcoming the dizziness, the fear began to subside. I would imagine the symptoms were like feeling buzzed from a pleasant drug. It completely reframed it. This technique probably wouldn't work if you're having a bad episode. Then, you'd want to self-soothe and comfort yourself.

I realize these techniques aren't new or revolutionary. They're pretty much standard TMS stuff. But I wanted to pass them along and let folks know this stuff really works!

Reducing overall anxiety is a broader topic. But many of these same techniques help, as do exercise, deep breathing, and mindfulness meditation.
 
Cap'n Spanky said:
My dizziness has subsided significantly recently, after learning to fear the symptoms far less. Also lowering my overall anxiety has helped, since dizziness is closely linked to anxiety.

It has taken some time, but I did this by mindfully and non-judgmentally observing my dizziness. I began to notice the tremendous amount fear associated with these sensations (true of all my TMS symptoms). Through a process of self-soothing (reminding myself that I'm completely safe and the symptoms are not dangerous), and either being indifferent to the symptoms or literally welcoming the dizziness, the fear began to subside. I would imagine the symptoms were like feeling buzzed from a pleasant drug. It completely reframed it. This technique probably wouldn't work if you're having a bad episode. Then, you'd want to self-soothe and comfort yourself.

I realize these techniques aren't new or revolutionary. They're pretty much standard TMS stuff. But I wanted to pass them along and let folks know this stuff really works!

Reducing overall anxiety is a broader topic. But many of these same techniques help, as do exercise, deep breathing, and mindfulness meditation.
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thanks !!! A little update on my end: my dizziness symptoms faded a little…similarly to you, I decided to let them be and live my life with them… they now come and go… but they also left place to a extreme fatigue.. no joke I could sleep all day every day lol! I feel so lethargic. A few months ago I had the opposite problem aka not being able to sleep without sleeping pills. So strange. I’m not exhausted from being exhausted, bleh
 
Bananas00 said:
thanks !!! A little update on my end: my dizziness symptoms faded a little…similarly to you, I decided to let them be and live my life with them… they now come and go… but they also left place to a extreme fatigue.. no joke I could sleep all day every day lol! I feel so lethargic. A few months ago I had the opposite problem aka not being able to sleep without sleeping pills. So strange. I’m not exhausted from being exhausted, bleh
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Interesting you mention fatigue. My dizziness was closely associated with chronic fatigue. That and cold/flu like symptoms were sort of all bundled together. I was finally able to shake the fatigue and cold/flu symptoms a while ago using these same TMS techniques. But the dizziness was more persistent, (until recently).

I'll tell you. The aforementioned symptoms were not easy to shake. They were more challenging than any of my old pain issues. I really had to stay the course, immersing myself in the various TMS concepts and work. But again, it has truly worked!

All the best to you @Bananas00 This has been a great thread.
 
Glad to hear an update!
After a big bout of anxiety, fatigue is very, very normal. Your body has been through hell and back. Let your body get rest -- and then make sure after that you get back up. If you don't get back up, your lower parts of your brain will see that as an opportunity to keep you down.
 
Booble said:
Glad to hear an update!
After a big bout of anxiety, fatigue is very, very normal. Your body has been through hell and back. Let your body get rest -- and then make sure after that you get back up. If you don't get back up, your lower parts of your brain will see that as an opportunity to keep you down.
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W’
What do you mean by « get back up »?
 
Bananas00 said:
W’
What do you mean by « get back up »?
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By "get back up" I mean literally -- get up. Get out of bed and get off the couch and get out of the house.

What happens to a lot of people is when they give themselves a lot of needed rest, their mind gets used to that. And begins to make them feel like they have to stay down. Starts giving symptoms when they get up.
 
So. as you guys know I am just getting out of a work leave for burn out. Ive realized that just the fact of being at work fires all my anxiety symptoms, Work doesnt put any pressure on me yet... but its like my brain is PTSD from the burn out and sends me danger signals anytime i am at work. My symptoms decrease on weekends. And everytime I have a flare of my symptoms, of course I fear burning out again and I am feeding this fear loop. I am always tempted of withdrawing from work... my therapist told me that I burnt out because i wasnt listening to my body enough. But now I am trying to ignore the symptoms my body sends me since I think theyre all anxiety related. It doesn't really make sense. Meh. At the same time, I love my job and my office and it would make me really sad to drop it. I'm a confused little person.
 
Bananas00 said:
So. as you guys know I am just getting out of a work leave for burn out. Ive realized that just the fact of being at work fires all my anxiety symptoms, Work doesnt put any pressure on me yet... but its like my brain is PTSD from the burn out and sends me danger signals anytime i am at work. My symptoms decrease on weekends. And everytime I have a flare of my symptoms, of course I fear burning out again and I am feeding this fear loop. I am always tempted of withdrawing from work... my therapist told me that I burnt out because i wasnt listening to my body enough. But now I am trying to ignore the symptoms my body sends me since I think theyre all anxiety related. It doesn't really make sense. Meh. At the same time, I love my job and my office and it would make me really sad to drop it. I'm a confused little person.
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I can't tell you how much I relate to all of this! I love, love, love my work....but it also gives me danger symptoms.

Don't listen to the well meaning people who say, "listen to your body." -- First you have to get a better grasp of how part of your body (lower brain) lies to you.
Otherwise it's like an alcoholic "listening to his/her body" when it tells them to have that drink.
 
Something at your job is triggering your danger sensation. If you can figure out what that is, you can decide if it is something to overcome or change.
 
I dealt with a similar situation by getting staff support for the issue triggering my fear. It was a huge help and made it possible to continue working.
 
Bananas00 said:
i really think it’s the fear to end up burnt out again
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Once we've have had an "event" happen, our bodies/brain can really good at at associating the place or circumstances where it occurred with danger.
A good example is with people who have panic attacks. If you had a panic attack while shopping for clothes at a certain store, you're body will fear going back into that store, or to shop for clothes. Or maybe shop at all.

I had a situation years ago where I felt sick while out to lunch with some people. I got hot and dizzy and nauseous and felt like I was going to faint. It was probably at that time from something physical but it has made it a challenge to go out to a restaurant for lunch with people. I'm always afraid I'm going to faint. That kind of extended to doing anything with other people. Always feeling like I might get dizzy and faint.

Your workplace has been tagged by your amygdala as being a place where burnout can happen. It's making sure you think about that every time you go.
From a non-TMS perspective (though I think still aligns well enough), doing the thing you fear most is the best way to make the fear go away.
You might need some little workarounds at first -- things that make the symptoms manageable -- but over time if you work on the TMS stuff (write out those anger and other emotions that you don't even know you have) -- the symptoms will lessen, the need for the workarounds will lessen, etc.
 
Booble said:
Once we've have had an "event" happen, our bodies/brain can really good at at associating the place or circumstances where it occurred with danger.
A good example is with people who have panic attacks. If you had a panic attack while shopping for clothes at a certain store, you're body will fear going back into that store, or to shop for clothes. Or maybe shop at all.

I had a situation years ago where I felt sick while out to lunch with some people. I got hot and dizzy and nauseous and felt like I was going to faint. It was probably at that time from something physical but it has made it a challenge to go out to a restaurant for lunch with people. I'm always afraid I'm going to faint. That kind of extended to doing anything with other people. Always feeling like I might get dizzy and faint.

Your workplace has been tagged by your amygdala as being a place where burnout can happen. It's making sure you think about that every time you go.
From a non-TMS perspective (though I think still aligns well enough), doing the thing you fear most is the best way to make the fear go away.
You might need some little workarounds at first -- things that make the symptoms manageable -- but over time if you work on the TMS stuff (write out those anger and other emotions that you don't even know you have) -- the symptoms will lessen, the need for the workarounds will lessen, etc.
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yeah that all makes sense. I still want you to adopt me haha. It’s like you understand me. Actually I had the exact same « panic attack » as you described while waiting for a client at a restaurant for lunch two weeks ago and since then my symptoms worsened. And I had like thousands of these lunches in the past and I enjoyed them. Now I fear them. Meh.
 
Bananas00 said:
yeah that all makes sense. I still want you to adopt me haha. It’s like you understand me. Actually I had the exact same « panic attack » as you described while waiting for a client at a restaurant for lunch two weeks ago and since then my symptoms worsened. And I had like thousands of these lunches in the past and I enjoyed them. Now I fear them. Meh.
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Twinsies!
Yes, it sucks. Try not to let it stop you. In fact force yourself to not let it stop you. You can get dangerously close to agoraphobia if you do.
If you can find some work arounds it really helps.
Here's what I did when I was at my worst:
- I wet a piece of paper towel before hand and secretly kept it in my hand. It gave my brain some comfort that I could wipe my forehead if I needed to.
- I ate a little something before the lunch so that my blood sugar was not at an all time low. That helped because other wise my brain would get a pang of a normal reaction/feeling of hunger or low blood sugar and would interpret that as something bad happening and that would risk everything going haywire.
- I would try and schedule the lunches for early rather than late. For some reason at around 1:30pm I get weak.
- In the days when we had cassette tapes in the car, I would have my motivational sales and achievement tapes in my car and if I showed up early I'd listen to them before going into the restaurant.
- If I was choosing the restaurant and had an option for a place with a buffet, that's a good way to get to the food more quickly. Something about sitting there before the food comes is when the panic brain is closest to spilling out. If I could get pretty quickly into food mode, I was usually all right.
- Pick my outfit carefully so as not to get hot and sweat. I remember at one point my AC in my car was broken for the longest time and I'd be hot and sweaty and uncomfortable by the time I was going into the restaurant!

These are just some samples so you get an idea of what I mean. What prevents your brain from going into fight/flight mode will be different from mine.

And since we are on a TMS forum, you can use these as a stopgap method so you can get through your work meetings -- while working on releasing those hidden emotions that are making us scared for dumb reasons! (Calling me dumb, not you.) That will bring you more long lasting relief so you won't need too many, if any, work arounds.
 
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