Free Yourself from Anxiety Read Online Free Page A

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    GROUP MEMBERS TALK ABOUT THE ANXIETY EXPERIENCE
    ‘When I was 34 my mother died suddenly when I was with her. It was a terrible event that made my anxiety much worse.’
A NDREA
    ‘Like many OCD sufferers I have an overwhelming fear of losing control.’
A NDREW
    ‘The Bully was ever present, turning my legs into jelly, causing my heart to race … and so on …Every sufferer will know what I mean.’
J ULIE
    ‘I checked each night to make sure that no knives were left on the work surfaces and as the thoughts became more insistent I transferred this uneasy feeling to all sharp objects.’
M ARGARET
    ‘It’s time to rise and time to shower.
Will all of today be controlled by its power?
When placing my feet upon the floor
They have to be right or it’s mental war.
Where’s the soap, has it been used?
Non sufferers would be highly amused.’
    N ORMAN   

5
Helping Yourself to Overcome Anxiety
    Dealing with most health problems involves a degree of self-help. Even something as simple as remembering to take your tablets is self-help. Someone with a joint injury may be given exercises to practise at home, a diabetic will be given dietary rules, or a heart patient will be given lifestyle advice.
    In the case of Anxiety disorders, the self-help element is crucial. The best therapist in the world can’t help you if you don’t co-operate with them, and drugs will only dampen the symptoms down to a level where you feel able to do the work that’s needed.
    Every time you talk your problems through with a sympathetic friend or family member you are helping yourself. Reading around the topic will help you to understand your illness. In some areas there are self-help groups, where people meet up to socialise and offer support to each other. Finally, there are the telephone helplines, run by volunteers who are almost all sufferers themselves – see Appendix 2 for more on these.
    So whatever treatment route you choose, self-help will be involved. This book, however, offers you a complete approach to self-help. You can use it entirely on your own, or in tandem with other help – but do please mention to your therapist that you are using it.
Qualities needed for self-help
    Anyone can apply the principles of self-help. It doesn’t matter if your Anxiety is mild or severe, new or long-standing. There is alwayssomething you can do to start yourself on the road to recovery. What personal qualities do you need?
    • Commitment: you may be at the stage of researching your options, with the intention of leafing through this book to see what it’s like. That’s fine, but when you are ready to start work it’s best to do so with the determination to give it a fair chance.
    • Time: you will need to set aside some time every single day for working on your recovery. The amount of time needed will vary from person to person and many of the tasks you undertake will not be too demanding, and may even be pleasurable.
    • Patience: there is no miracle cure or magic wand for Anxiety, and in the early stages your progress may feel painfully slow. If you stick with it you will find that you do make progress and it does get easier.
    • Motivation: how badly do you want to be free of your Anxiety disorder? That is what gives you motivation, and our experience shows that most sufferers have plenty of it.
    • Courage: you probably don’t feel courageous at the moment, but just stop and think. How hard is it to face every day knowing that you might have a panic attack, or that your phobia will haunt you, or your OCD will dominate every moment? Doesn’t that take some courage?
    • Support: many people don’t like to admit to having an Anxiety problem, but if you can find someone to support you it will help you through the difficult patches. In Chapter 25 we will give some advice that shows your chosen supporter the best way to help you. An alternative is to make use of one of the helplines that exist for just this purpose –