Day 7 Day 7 & 8 - I Think I'm Getting It

I made a lot of progress managing the anxiety I have been having out of the blue the past couple of weekends regarding fear of being restless, bored and alone with my thoughts and pain.

Using Claire Weekes techniques from this cliff notes version of her book here - https://www.calmclinic.com/treatmentclaire-weekes (The “Claire Weekes” Approach to Anxiety)

Also, Alan Walker's program over on the "Ask A Therapist" thread has been eye opening for me and I have really been connected with it.

This weekend I was able to relax with my own thoughts a bit and just ebb and flow where the day took me. I went shopping with a friend, went to the movies by myself, drank a beer with a friend by the fire (I haven't drank a beer in forever for many ridiculous thoughts/reasons over the last few months), did a lot of house/yard work, went hiking today in a hot/humid day and signed up for match.com! I was taking a run yesterday and just felt like I was ready to start dating again and move on with life. It was funny because the second I started having so many breakthroughs yesterday, the therapist I called a couple of days ago called me back and left a message for me to contact her if I am still interested. I saw this as a weird sign and just thought, "you know what, I am doing well just journaling my thoughts and using some new exercises, let's wait a while on that." There were a few times this weekend where I could actually feel myself lessening the pain with my mind/thoughts. Not eliminating it, but lessening.

Observations
- Still having this ear crackling/off balance/slight dizziness at times when I am randomly standing or walking but when I am exercising or focusing on a task it's not there. Therefore, I have been ignoring it and chalking it up to just TMS and my mind scanning for threats

- The head pressure/daily tension headache is still there, but I have been doing a lot better at just asking myself what is the root cause and not really letting it limit me or stress myself out. I am working on not putting so much pressure on myself.

- We had one friend throwing a fit about "not getting invited" to plans today which was nobody's intention and tried really digging deep to make everyone feel bad and I could feel my head getting a bit worse. Old me would have done everything to try and make things right and make sure I ended the day on good terms, but today I said to myself, "I cannot control others feelings/emotions, I can only control my own and how I am feeling" and just moved on from it.

- It's currently Sunday night and I have a headache as I type this, but I am not stressing and relaxing. Something I haven't done in a while. I'm trying to understand if the headache is stemming from "sunday scaries" or something deeper, but I simply can't figure it out.

 

Awesome post, MusicMan - there's a lot of good info there for others.