Anxiety and Sensitised Nerves

Someone asked if I'd share this in a public post (this is from a private message we had).

As well as taking Citalopram, I found understanding about anxiety was a big breakthrough for me and helped me recover.

Years ago I read all of Dr Clare Weeks books and it was the first time someone had actually made anxiety seem so simple to understand.  I wanted my doctor and medical team to talk to me the way she talked to her patients but they didn't back then.  I was frightened of the word 'mental' and wasn't comfortable having therapy, which was carried out in a cold, unwelcoming victorian hospital, and the whole experience just made me more anxious and frightened than ever.  I knew I wasn't mad, I just had this feeling that I didn't understand, these thoughts that brought this feeling on and nobody once told me it was anxiety.  Never.  One doctor suggested I had Obsessional Neurosis, another said depression - was I neurotic?  What were all these feelings, why did I have them, where do I go ........ these thoughts churned around my head daily, adding to my anxiety, strengthening those frightening thoughts ....... and I found the answer in those books ..... I had anxiety.  Everything I felt and thought was all due to anxiety.  Fix the anxiety and the rest would be fixed too.  Simple.  Though it wasn't that simple getting out of it.

But just knowing that sorted all the confusion out in my head and instead I could just concentrate on one thing.  I see many people doing what I did - always searching for an answer, panicking and questioning every symptom, they get confused and go round in circles searching for an answer - just as I had done.  The answer for me was in those books (plus the other newer book I found this year and I can't mention here).  To me, they were simple answers - and a simple route back to normality - though that simple route was not easy.

Those books talked about sensitisation which I found interesting.

When you suffer with stress over and over, your nerves become a little sensitive over time.  This means that they start to become 'trigger happy' and emotions start to become more exaggerated.  Your nerves cannot sustain this sensitivity forever and needs time to calm every so often ...... but what do we do?  ... we continue to push ourselves more, add more stress and make our nerves more and more sensitive, pushing and pushing them until they can't cope anymore until they break down, resulting in an outpouring of adrenaline and anxiety.

For a 'normal' person, if they'd had that anxiety feeling they'd be able to cope with it, but to a person that's been working those nerves to the maximum and feeling those emotions more and more, they will probably respond to the anxiety differently - with fear.

So our nerves are now screaming at us - the heart is pounding, we sweat, shake, and the anxiety is raging around our bodies and we feel absolutely terrified of all these new feelings.  We are over reacting to a physical feeling, but our emotions are already exaggerated, our bodies tense and alert and we start to fear this.  Our body is super sensitised .......... everything we feel and think is over exaggerated.  We hold our bodies tensely, fighting this 'thing', we clench our teeth, hold our stomaches tight ........ it is so tiring.

We simply need to reverse this, to bring this sensitisation back down to normal, and that is by relaxing towards the anxiety, release the tension on the stomach, release that clenched jaw, ....... just let go of tension and float along.  We should not react to the anxiety with tension, not fear it ....... and this will in time make our nerves calmer, soothing them so eventually they'll return to normal which will then bring all our reactions back to normal too.

The body needs a rest.  We rush about and hold it so tight against fear which adds to the problem.  If you held a heavy weight for a long time then your muscles would soon tire and would scream at you they wanted to rest.  This is the same about tensing to anxiety.  Stop rushing about, slow down, let go of those tense / tight muscles, relax, slump ....... but don't just sit there, but instead whilst relaxing you must at the same time carry on about your day as normal.  Slowly.

This is why 'normal' people don't have this reaction to anxiety because their nerves are at a normal level.  When your nerves are heightened they will respond to anything and everything - its like they're alive and buzzing around your body.

Along with medication, helping to treat anxiety is to first understand that everything you think and feel are all due to anxiety.  All the 'what if I did this', 'what if my anxiety doesn't go', 'what if I'm this' and 'what if I'm that' ........ all these questions and many more that go round and round in your head all day creating more anxiety, and questions that are never answered.  I had my fair share of them.  People start to avoid things and places because they feel anxious - but it isn't these places they fear, but it is the fear itself they fear.  They fear that feeling so avoid places because they know they'll feel it there ...... and so the association with places starts.

Its the same with scary thoughts.  We fear our thoughts, and so our mind goes looking for more.  They produce anxiety and so we then try to avoid these thoughts which just exaggerates them.  We should instead let those thoughts be there, let them flit in and out, relax towards them and carry on with whatever we're doing.  The anxiety will build up but it will also pass too.  Over time ..... much time ..... your body slowly becomes desensitised to the place, thought or whatever it is and relearns not to be frightened.  You're reversing the process.

It was this that I began to understand.  For a very long time though I couldn't get started on this as I expected to feel relief immediately.  I'd think 'but I let those thoughts come and go and they still frighten me' ......... but I didn't understand that yes they would still frighten me, but I had to let them, relax, carry on.  It wasn't until I started taking SSRI's that it all began to fit together and I could see what Dr Weeks meant, could see it was just anxiety I had and how to relax towards my fears.  Yes the medication helped me recover but I think 16 years of anxiety I just couldn't do it with just a book back then as I had too many habits to deal with.

Anxiety is physical.  Nerves are physical and they become 'jagged'.  They just need to become smoothed out again.  

Take away the hurdle of the constant questions, there is no need to over analyse each symptom ...... they are all there purely because you have anxiety.  Once the anxiety starts to ease, so to will all those symptoms - so why waste time trying to sort them out.

Nurture the body with good food and gentle exercise too.

Take life at a slower pace - we all are so used to rushing everywhere, fitting things in - and its good for us for a while.  Too much pushing it and those nerves start to get overworked.

Just slow down and let go throughout your day.  Nobody can see anxiety coming and you won't know until is too late and you get your first panic attack or taste of anxiety.  When that starts its quite shocking as we don't ever feel anything like it so that's why it becomes frightening.  Those sensitised nerves will make you over exaggerate everything and they just need to be reversed.When the Citalopram started to kick in, I found understanding all this just helped sort the jumbled mess in my head.  I found one path to follow, I didn't need to question anything anymore as knew all the symptoms would ease along with the anxiety.

They did.

18 likes, 67 replies