Have an inexplicable fear? How do you beat your paralysing fears and insecurities?

a reply to: athousandlives
I had a friend, a friends sister? A friends girlfriends sister? That was afraid of flowers. She would run away if you held a flower near her.

a reply to: athousandlives

As my user name suggests this has been an issue for me for a very long time. I've panicked to the point of collapsing in public places and had to be taken to hospital by ambulance, that's how severe it can get for me.

I tend to avoid, avoid, avoid, as a way of maintaining my sanity, but there is other help out there. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT, has helped a lot. Medications like Lorazepam have certainly been helpful when I start to panic in public. And of course, having a few drinks of alcohol before I enter certain situations has often been a solution, but not often the best choice.

I've made some important changes in my life that allow me to function. First off, I moved to a location that has everything I need within a few blocks.

Large grocery store on my street, two blocks to get to where I work, several 24 hour stores and restaurants within my two block safe zone, as well as a public library, art gallery, barber shop, and more than one pharmacy. There is also a hospital about four blocks away, my doctor's office is near the hospital, and my dentist is about three blocks in the other direction.

Of course not everyone can up and move like I did, and it's very expensive living in the heart of a large city. For me though, it became a necessity to make changes or become a recluse, and I didn't want to be that guy that nobody has seen for years because I won't ever leave my home.

That's my story, but this is about you, and I urge you to visit your GP to talk about this. They can refer you to people that specialize in anxiety and phobias, suggest medications that are fast acting when you hit a crisis, or recommend other medications that are longer term to help you cope. Once you take the first steps, I won't kid you, it's journey that can last a long time. There will be visits to psychiatric specialists that will help assess your needs, and they are the ones that will get you into groups like CBT, fine tune medication use, and work with you as an individual so you get a better grasp on your condition, and how best to understand and control it.

We are all different, and the path you take won't be the same as mine, but I know there is help out there. Some find comfort in religion, some seek the advice of strangers on a board like this, others hide, and some just power through it in such an amazing way that you would never know it's a problem for them. Unfortunately, some also fail and let the disease control them, please don't be that person. If you have any questions, or I can offer you any further information, take advantage of having someone like me with similar issues to reach out and ask.

Good luck with this, it's not easy, but remember a couple things. There is help, and on-line shopping is the the greatest achievement mankind has ever invented for people with anxiety disorders.

a reply to: anxietydisorder

That is a great post, thanks for the reply and sharing.

I've actually done a MBCT, Mindfulness based cognitive therapy 8-week course (is that what you mean?) in 2014, but for depression, which I had some pretty bad instances of as well. I think it has helped in that sense.
Pharma meds is something I wanted to avoid, for various reasons, although I recognise they can help to an extent, if properly administered.
It seems to me that most doctors or 'specialists' will just prescribe stuff and keep you on it without much further thought or interest in really assessing individual cases.
I'll send a u2u, thanks!

Those with a lot of fear are usually the most dangerous even in how they try to create fear which doesn't exist in who they fear.
There is a huge difference between fear and knowing what to do and what not to do for reasons those who fear are not capable of understanding due to fear.

For instance I see no reason to fear a spaceship which controls and creates pop up advertisements stranded with no fuel because they are trapped in place by two other spaceships who chose not to interfere but simply let those stranded know they are not going anywhere and they will slowly cease to exist surviving as they treated others. But had that been revealed to someone else alone they would have a lot of fear.

Just remember this:



If it doesn't auto-jump to the right time, skip to 2:15