Afraid of THAT Feeling

Anxiety is fear without an object. It is often a free-floating sense of dread that can escalate into a full-blown panic attack. Thoughts of sliding into that lake of feelings associated with higher levels of anxiety are full of "what ifs" and "hope nots" It's a circle of misery that can cause your body to ache from being tense and tight.

You were once a "normal person", you think. But one day it all changed. You began to FEEL something that seemed different. You stopped and paid attention to that feeling. The more you focused on it, the more intense it because and the more intense it became the more you focused and the more you focused the more fearful and panicky you became. The experience was horrible. You ended up in the ER.  They said you had a "panic attack" or that it was "just anxiety". The experience was horrible. You were sure that either you were going to die, or that you were going insane. Whatever, it scared the daylights out of you and you secretly hoped that you would never feel that way again.

So began your life of constant self-examination. Looking for that feeling. Hoping that it would not appear. But, it did. And, once again you felt yourself sliding into that ocean of feelings. You ended up in the ER again. You actually though you were going to die this time. You secretly hoped you were not going insane.
But, you were terrified at the thought of something being very wrong with your brain, your mind. You hoped you would not have a "nervous breakdown" and have to be hospitalized and be on medications.

You began to have feelings of being outside your body or outside your family and friends. You felt alone and you thought no one could possibly understand what you were going through. This problem seemed unique to you. Dissociative. You felt weird, like you were in a movie and nothing was real. Derealization. You were sure that you were on the verge of going crazy.  More alert than ever, hyper vigilant, obsessive, compulsive, your life seemed to be totally out of control.

You wondered what happened to those days of freedom and play when you were a kid? You longed to return to that place and start over again. You were a prisoner to your fear of those feelings. You had them in WalMart and left your cart in the aisle and left. You were in church and suddenly they appeared. With palms sweating and heart pounding, you got up and left. You had a strange fear of being in WalMart or church and you avoided going to either place. Every time you had an "episode" in or at a certain place, you found it more difficult to return. Your world seemed to be getting smaller. You were running from those feelings. But, they always seemed to catch you. You were a mess. A frightened ball of nerves. Always looking for those feelings.

Then one day something happened. You heard someone say that 'if your were not afraid of that feeling you would be well'. "Wait a minute", you thought, "is that really the answer? Is it really that simple?" But, you remembered how it was before you had "that feeling" for the first time. You recalled how it scared you and how you hoped you would never feel that again. But, you did and that set in motion the entire problem. You heard that feelings are terminal. They had a beginning and an end. You recalled how you had thought on many occasions that the feeling would last forever and you would be like that forever. To think that fear of the feeling was the problem and that if you could get over that, let it go, accept the feeling as brief and that you were in fact not going insane and not going to die...if you could....if you could not run from the feeling, dread it....you could be well. Your eyes were open. You felt a new freedom. "Maybe", you thought, "this is worth a try." Then It happened. The thing that you feared began again.  The feeling came and your heart started its rapid beat. But, you had prepared some thoughts on a note card and you read them to yourself. You reminded yourself of all that you had learned and the feeling did not seem so intense and it hardly lasted near as long.

As time went by, you became more and more friendly with all your feelings. You accepted them as part of your life, never forever- but with a beginning and an end. Fear was normal. The feeling of derealization and dissociation hardly bothered you any more. Once in a while you had a "what if" thought and wondered if you were drifting back into the circle again. But, you were not. You knew that you were never going down that road again  because fear of that feeling had left.

You told someone about what you had discovered. They were interested and said that they "had never thought about it that way" before. "You helped me", they said. "Good", you thought.