Argh! Here There Be Monsters!

Now I apparently have a monster.

It's just been one of those times. I have had to up the frequency of my psychologist visits due to having a pretty severe rise in my anxiety and feelings of being overwhelmed.

She might have read a new article because today I was told, "Don't feed your anxiety monster!" Evidently my anxiety monster eats my resolve to do something, like leave my apartment, and grows each time I "feed it". Rowr.

I'm supposed to picture it and think of what it wants me to do and then do the opposite.

I am a big fan of horror movies and novels. I believe I have imagined every monster available on page and seen every one on screen. Yet at first my attempts to picture my anxiety monster provided me with a familiar purple dinosaur that the kiddies love. Then I thought, "Feed me!". Of course - Audrey 2 from Little Shop of Horrors! Needless to say, both these renditions leave me chuckling.

And that's okay. When you're in the throes of a panic attack and certain of impending doom sometimes a little chuckle helps.

So when my anxiety monster is telling me to stay on the couch, don't go outside, I will not feed it and do as it says. I will go outside and enjoy the glorious day. When it tells me not to write, that it won't be any good, I will write until I can write no more.

I'm sure there will be times when I fail and the little bugger will grow fat on my doubt and insecurities. But that won't stop me from trying to put him on a diet. I think I am having more fun with this than I had intended.

But - rowr - a monster. Makes me giggle.

If you have an anxiety monster I hope you succeed in starving yours. Perhaps this visualization could help you, too.

Boy, I sure am glad she read that article.

5 Ways I Wrestle With The White Bear

I recently saw an article on Psychology Today's site about how to get your brain to quit nagging you. It was about intrusive thoughts and ways to deal with them.

Referring to a test, the intrusive thought used was a white bear. Subjects were asked to either not think of a white bear or to think of a white bear.

My head is polar bear central!

Please click here to refer to the article. It is worth a read.

I'll go through the recommendations and how they work (or don't work) for me.

Invite the bear in

Embrace the intrusive thought and write it down or talk about it. Ha! yeah. All that does with me is justify the thought and give it dimensions I could only imagine it having before. My cat's idea to turn up her nose at her wet food becomes a horrible disease that will somehow spread to my dog and then to me.

Assign "worry time"

All day every day is "worry time"! How about I set aside 10 to 15 minutes to NOT worry! Wait - if I could do that then keeping the white bears at bay would be a cinch.

Immerse yourself

This idea is actually the only one that works for me. I have to get so involved with something else that the white bear is slowly pushed from my peripheral vision and out into the cold. The idea is for me to become so obsessed with, oh, I don't know, let's say watching the entire series "Breaking Bad", that I really forget what color that bear was anyway. I may see other bears! Oh, yes! But - they won't be the white bear that drove me to the Netflix in the first place.

Make a plan

This doesn't work for me for the reason that writing it down just makes me think of more little white bears to add to the first. And then I have a whole group of them. Taunting me.

Do it

While this would be good if my white bears were actual actions that needed doing, mine are more ethereal in nature. And since I have a PhD in procrastination - no, wait, I forgot to pick that up - I have learned that my timetable is not the world's timetable.

All in all the suggestions were very good for someone who doesn't suffer from my degree of crazy. For that occasional, worrisome little white bear, the ideas should work. Having just climbed out of bed after a two day jaunt through "Breaking Bad" land, I know that at least one of them, immersing myself, works for my jumbo size polar bears.

And now I have something cute to call my intrusive thoughts. White bears.

How do you handle your white bears?

Music And Mental Health

Yesterday my friend, M, and I were talking about how our mental health has changed as we have gotten older. He also has problems with anxiety. His is not nearly as bad as mine is, but that doesn't matter when you are in the thick of things.

One thing that has changed is how we view song lyrics now that we have suffered our mental health problems. What was once a great song can now be enjoyed with a greater understanding of its meaning, real or implied.

"Who Can It Be Now" by the group Men At Work (lyrics below) is one such song. When we were in high school it was just a catchy tune with memorable lyrics. Now, I can really relate to what is being said. Paranoia is part of the cocktail that is my diagnosis of Major Depressive Disorder and anxiety. The singer is clearly suffering from this and is not happy having his sanity questioned (There's nothing wrong with my state of mental health). "Is it the men come to take me away" shows the sad fear that paranoia brings.

Another song I enjoy for its take on health, mental and physical, is "Afternoons And Coffeespoons" by the Crash Test Dummies (lyrics below). It is funny, to me, that I now wear my pajamas in the daytime and my day can be measured with "coffeespoons", or doses of medication. I also find the mention of T. S. Eliot to be nice. I can only imagine that "Wasteland" is what the song writer was referring to.

Music was once very important to me as a coping, destressing, mechanism. Now I have a larger toolbox from which to choose ways to alleviate anxiety and racing thoughts. These include TV, DVDs, and games and audible books on my iPod. But music will always hold a special place in my arsenal.

Does music help you when you are anxious? Or just sad? Do you have any suggestions for me?




"Who Can It Be Now?"

Who can it be knocking at my door?
Go away, don't come 'round here no more
Can't you see that it's late at night?
I'm very tired and I'm not feeling right
All I wish is to be alone
Stay away, don't you invade my home
Best off if you hang outside
Don't come in, I'll only run and hide

Who can it be now?
Who can it be now?
Who can it be now?
Who can it be now?

Who can it be knocking at my door?
Make no sound, tip-toe across the floor
If he hears, he'll knock all day
I'll be trapped and here I'll have to stay
I've done no harm, I keep to myself
There's nothing wrong with my state of mental health
I like it here with my childhood friend
Here they come, those feelings again

Who can it be now?
Who can it be now?
Who can it be now?
Who can it be now?

Is it the men come to take me away?
Why do they follow me?
It's not the future that I can see
It's just my fantasy
Yeah

Oh, who can it be now?
Who can it be now?
Who can it be now?
Who can it be now?

"Afternoons And Coffeespoons"

What is it that makes me just a little bit queasy?
There's a breeze that makes my breathing not so easy
I've had my lungs checked out with X rays
I've smelled the hospital hallways

Someday I'll have a disappearing hairline
Someday I'll wear pyjamas in the daytime

Times when the day is like a play by Sartre
When it seems a bookburning's in perfect order
I gave the doctor my description
I've tried to stick to my prescription

Someday I'll have a disappearing hairline
Someday I'll wear pyjamas in the daytime

Afternoons will be measured out
Measured out, measured with
Coffeespoons ans T.S. Eliot

Maybe if I could do a play-by-playback
I could change the test results that I will get back
I've watched the summer evenings pass by
I've heard the rattle in my bronchi...