When Your Anxiety is Truly Monstrous (Part II)

Anxiety is the #1 mental health issue in our world.  Countless books have been written about anxiety;  I have my favorites as I am sure you have yours.  For those who struggle with chronic and intense feelings of anxiety, life itself is burdensome by the mere act of having to "do" life and relationships each day.  Anxiety is also quite confusing.  We "know" we aren't really in a life-or-death situation when someone says "No thanks!" to us about something we really wanted them to do for us or with us.  Yet when we struggle with high anxiety, that type of negative response to our request(s) can immediately send us into a mental tailspin.  "Why NOT!?  It's not a big deal!" or...conversely..."Sniff Sniff...as usual what I want from you doesn't even matter.."  

Yes, monstrous anxiety significantly impacts "everything".  This level and degree of anxiety is like being stuck wearing a pair of triple thick "I AM ANXIOUS!" glasses we cannot take off our heads no matter how much we try!  The anxiety we live with distorts EVERY BIT of our present day reality and interactions with others!  No matter what is said or what is done, our anxiety is like the filter on those lenses of our triple thick glasses we can't remove!  "Hmm...he just said blah blah blah to me...IS HE TELLING ME THE TRUTH!?"  "...I wonder why she's so quiet today....SHE MUST BE MAD AT ME FOR SOME REASON!" etc. etc. etc.  Chronic and intense anxiety also reduces us down to King and Queen babies (narcissists).  We can only see our "own" pain and suffering;  our empathy isn't so hot when it comes to genuinely empathizing with the pain and suffering of others.  One of the classic respones I hear in session is "Well, nobody understands what I'VE been through because until you have had BLAH BLAH BLAH happen to YOU, you don't get it!"  Yes, the chronic and intensely anxious really DO believe "nobody knows the pain I'm in..."  As if there's a cosmic and hierarchical standard that deserves top billing!  "And here we have Joe!  Joe has SUFFERED THE MOST compared to anyone on planet earth because Joe's wife left him for his best friend, took his kids away from him, AND cleaned him out financially in the divorce!"  This is the attitude that keeps us stuck in our anxiety, depression, and self-absorption.  At some point, we have to DECIDE to walk towards the danger we feel inside ourselves and do what's right anyway...and in any given moment!

Today's blog post is about what we can do to more successfully manage and treat our own anxiety...and what treatment methodologies are proving to be most successful in treating the monster of chronic and intense anxiety over time...

When it comes to treatment, clinician Dr. Bessel Van der Kolk, is one of the most highly regarded experts on trauma and its successful treatment.  As he states in his book "The Body Keeps the Score", one of the fundamental functions we DO have control over to help calm ourselves down while at the same time bringing ourselves back to life physiologically is through.....OUR BREATHING!  Why do we always forget that?  "I had a panic attack and I had to call 911!"  "I couldn't breathe!  I thought I was having a heart attack!"  "I got so upset that I fainted!"  

I don't know how many times a person has to hear this truth about the practice of breathing slower and more deeply before it "clicks" and he/she/they actually start doing it!  I have blogged about the importance of breathing countless times over the last several years.  I talk to clients who struggle with chronic and intense anxiety about this issue very regularly.  I have handouts I provide.  I demonstrate various forms of breathing so that a "cycle" of in-and-out breath takes ten seconds to complete.  (Note:  It is literally impossible to feel panic and/or anxiety when you can complete six or fewer cycles of breathing per minute of time.)  Instead of breathing in with one's mouth closed...and out with one's mouth open which is the standard for breathing better...I see clients trying to breathe in with their mouth open and out with their mouth shut.  EEK!  This is not how it works!  We have to focus...and we have to focus on our breathing!

So....breathe in through your nose with your mouth closed for as many seconds as you can stand.  Use the second hand on your phone or watch to count.  Then you can either pause...and hold your breath for as many seconds as you can stand...before you exhale out through your mouth (with your mouth open however much you are comfortable with).  Try to make sure your exhalations are for a longer amount of time (seconds) than your inhalations.  If you don't want to pause between breaths...then breathe in through your nose for a count of 4 seconds...and out through your mouth for a count of 6 seconds.  That's the goal.  If you can do this for 3-5 minutes when "upset", I guarantee you will be LESS anxious and no longer panicked afterwards.  

Look up "square breathing" if you prefer pausing between inhales and exhales.  Some people also like to be more "physical" as they breathe better.  One such method borrowed from yoga is to stand up, place your hands over your heart and begin to inhale through your nose.  As you are continuing to breath in, move your hands from your heart to your forehead, and then reaching up to the sky as you say to yourself, "Heart to God, Mind to God, My Life to God" in time with your hand movements.  By the time you are done inhaling and your hands are reaching for the sky, you can then beging to exhale through your mouth as you slowly stretch your arms and hands like a circle going back down to your sides.  When your hands reach your sides, you should have completed your cycle of breath.  Do this six or fewer times per minute for 3-5 minutes.

Yes, breathing better works to treat chronic and intense anxiety.  It always has.  If you need other options to consider before you start practicing...they are plastered all over the net.  Just do it.  Until you make this a good "new" habit of yours, you will continue to extend your personal suffering.  Just a reminder...

Next post, more treatment methods that are proven to reduce anxiety...

When Your Anxiety is Truly Monstrous...

I listen to a lot of personal narratives.  Of course I do.  What's consistently amazing to me is when someone tells me how they cannot remember a time when they weren't extremely "afraid" or "high strung" or "anxious" inside themselves.  "I'm in flight or flight all the time!  That's my life story!"  "I can't stand it that I work so hard to appear normal at my job, only to go home and freak out over every little thing!" Or..... "I get this from my mother.  I watched her crap herself constantly because she had to have everything "perfect" for my dad by the time he came home each night.  And when he did come home, none of us knew if he would be "good" that night or not because he was so unpredictable anyway!"  

For some clients, the earliest root(s) of their personal struggle with anxiety began with the proverbial unwanted mix of genetics.  Mental health issues and disorders are in large part inheritable, though the debate still rages on as to the exact root cause(s).  Doesn't matter if you were born into the best or the worst family system;  genetics count for a whole heck of a lot!  And what about genetics vs. epigenetics?  Speaking of which, epigenetic patterns are equally powerful factors which impact a person's way of interacting with the world around him/her/them.  Epigenetics are the patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving that run through family systems throughout the generations.  Epigenetic trends are often discovered through paying attention to "family stories"...but also by the creation of family genograms.  More on that later on in this post.    

So let's look at some very early examples of how anxiety can come to roost in a person's life.  Consider the example of being a born "screamer" as a newborn baby.  Did you ever think about this? Some infants seem to adjust quite nicely with the ebb and flow of life around them---while others squirm, scream, and squall their way through their first year of existence.  What were you told about the kind of baby you were during your own first year of life?  For those babies born who are "highly sensitive", everything from digestion to lighting, sound, texture, smell, and taste can cause significant and chronic distress.  And we wonder why babies end up learning "basic mistrust" after their first year of life?  You and I would too if so much of what we experienced felt more "bad" than "good" during Year One!  This is how genetics and genetic predispositions can create anxiety without any help from anybody from the moment of one's own birth!

Then there are the epigenetic- driven patterns and influences.  So if our newborn "screamer" baby is born into a family that also yells and screams its way through issues and problems---how will that work to soothe and calm the highly sensitive infant?  Newsflash:  it will not!  Highly sensitive or not, past patterns of functional AND dysfunctional behaviors DO have an impact on how we "respond" to life and people as soon as we make our debut onto the world's stage!  Now imagine how any infant's life would be impacted if baby's primary caregiver was alternately neglectful (of the baby's basic needs), and/or abusive?  Even babies can develop the same "thousand yard stare" common to war veterans suffering from PTSD!  Why we don't connect these dots relative to our own familial experiences is mind boggling to me.  So many of us really DO prefer to live and function in denial than face this kind of historical information to help ourselves heal, change for the better, and grow as a person (maturity-wise) over time!

When you top off  familial historic contributions with traumatic birth-related experience(s) of which there are many (including being born prematurely, addicted, and/or with congenital and/or cognitive impairments!)---anxiety can definitely "show up" in a person's life from literally "Day One" of existence.  I don't know why we ignore these things when we are about to have children, or are raising children, or are "done" raising them.  Children are not pets.  They are not objects.  It takes a whole lot of maturity and personal sacrifice to raise children ESPECIALLY when they make clear how being here isn't easy for them physically, mentally, emotionally, and/or socially speaking!

In psychotherapy, we often create genograms for clients who claim "I don't know how I got to be this way..."  Unlike family trees which focus on superficial data, genograms focus on our own family's historical epigenetic patterns going back generations.  It's profound to see a client connect the dots of family history with one's own life "now".  "I never thought about how successful my family was on both sides until just now!"  "Yikes we sure had a lot of gamblers in my family!"  "Wow!  No wonder I've been anxious my whole life!  Look at my mother's side of the family!"  "Well no WONDER I'm that way;  so many of the women on my dad's side were this way too!"

Some clients resist the genogram exploration option as part of cognitive behavioral therapy.  The reasons are varied, but when I hear "I don't remember much about my childhood", I will very often suggest interviews with the parents, siblings, and/or other first degree relatives.  Many times the best sources of data to help my clients understand their chronic and intense anxiety are the people who lived with him/her/them early on!

When a person's anxiety is linked to their own issue around poor self-image, saying to me things like "I already know my family was A, B, C, or D;  do I really have to do a genogram and see it all in written down?"  Yeah, you do.  Why?  Because what you can't see, you can't acknowledge and then work to correct in your own life and time.  After all, chronic and intense anxiety is NOT a wanted state of being unless it is only temporary and has to do with eustress.  In case we forgot, eustress is that stress (or anxiety!) that is what every human being would experience before achieving something positive and/or "big" so to speak.  Eustress is what stimulates, energizes, and motivates us to go out there and "do" our very best work and/or to make the positive changes we want in our own lives.  Eustress is what we feel before we get that gold medal at the Olympics, receive our 30 day sobriety coin, take our last final exam before graduation, speak publicly in front of 200 people, etc.  Distress, on the other hand, is what causes ongoing personal suffering just because we are "here"...and because we have become comfortably familiar with it as state of existence we have no idea how to better and more effectively manage.

For people with chronic and intense anxiety, life feels like one never-ending "fight flight or freeze" scenario being played out repeatedly with various people, including those we believe we are "closest" to.  And if we aren't "that" way trying to get through our days, we can feel alternately depressed to the point of inertia.  "I don't even get out of bed some mornings and for sure have gone out without having taken a shower or brushed my teeth.."

This is one hell of a way to live!  

Seriously, people who are addicted to certain choices and behaviors that basically numb them to the realities of present day life DO struggle, each and every one of them, with chronic and intense anxiety.  Beyond the cause(s) mentioned at the beginning of this blog post, there is another primary cause associated with distress-based anxiety.  Can you guess what it is?  As Sigmund Freud put it in the late 1800s, "this man suffers from his....memories."  After all, aren't we ALL living in the psychiatric unit of the universe right now?  Trauma is universal!  Watch tonight's evening news if you doubt me in this regard!  We have all experienced it whether directly or indirectly.  If we don't believe that, we are truly kidding ourselves.  Trauma is a right of passage, just as would be attending our first day of school.  Yet for SO many of us, our trauma history represents a life-long death sentence we believe we are stuck with for as long as we live.  

As Dr. Michael Yapko, an Australian psychologist has stated in his online (youtube) presentation about trauma, anxiety, and depression....how is it that some people experience horrific and multiple trauma(s) and completely fall apart in all ways imaginable---while others demonstrate tremendous resilience and genuinely learn to move past it?  Dr. Yapko's early work decades ago was within an inpatient psychiatric unit where he heard countless trauma narratives from his patients.  I also trained in an inpatient psychiatric unit;  I do recall those trauma survivors that left our unit and did continue their own work of healing, positive change, and personal growth once discharged.  I also remember the survivors who chose a much different path.  Choosing to be and remain "stuck" in our past or present traumatic experiences definitely impacts our own ability to more effectively manage our anxious lives over time.  As many war veterans have articulated, "if I get better, then I am a traitor to my friends who didn't make it out alive like I did."  Wow, but this is a common way of thinking!

Dr. Bessel Van der Kolk, author of "The Body Keeps the Score" is probably the most time-honored clinician in existence for his work on trauma by explaining the effects trauma has on the mind, body, and spirit.  I recently downloaded his book to play in my car;  it is an amazing reference in explaining how "trauma" was historically identified and then treated within our country to the present day.  For example, did you know that PTSD (Posttraumatic Stress Disorder) was not even identified as such by the American psychiatric community until 1980?  That was because until that time, "Shell Shock" was limited to describing war veterans with the symptoms of PTSD.  As Dr. Van der Kolk further states, female survivors of childhood incest were believed to represent one in 1,000,000 women in this country.  At that time, there were 100 million women in the U.S.  Since Van der Kolk had seen 47 female survivors with chronic anxiety and depression who were also sexually abused by a family member as children, he wondered how nearly half of all SA survivors in this country found their way to his office!  We had so much to learn and acknowledge about the impact of trauma on ALL of us back then!  And "back then" wasn't that long ago for our present generations still here on planet earth might I remind!

As I will often remind clients, "Watching graphic horror movies will NOT help better manage your chronic anxiety, okay?!"  We can be so clueless when we chase those dragons without realizing.  I recently heard of a ten year old female who is addicted to horror films.  Listen parents, the horror films of "today" are NOT the same as the horror films pre-1960 okay?  Frankenstein, Dracula, and the Wolfman HAVE been replaced with entities that are the stuff of true nightmares that do NOT abate themselves easily---if ever!  And then you wonder why your kid(s) can't sleep, have become even "more" anxious, and are exhibiting other disturbing behaviors you can't easily explain?  Come on!

Chronic and intense anxiety is truly the ball and chain nobody wants to be shackled to for months, years, or decades.  And yet...it remains the #1 mental health issue in our world today.  That's never changed.  Maybe if we change how we "do" our own lives for real...and for sure...we will find that it IS possible to lesson and reduce the place anxiety has held in our lives for far too long.

Next post, the treatments that are proving to help those who suffer with chronic and intense anxiety...

How America Got Dumb(er)...

In case you haven't noticed, America gets dumber with each passing generation.  Just to be clear.  As one example, there was NEVER a time when school teachers said to us baby boomers, "Oh don't worry, one day people will spell any which way they want to and the rules for understanding, writing, and speaking in English won't matter anymore!"  Nor did they tell us, "By the time you are in 2nd grade, you will be better educated about gender identity and sexual orientation options than how to perform basic math calculations.  For example, do you know what "quad-sexual" means in 2022?  Well it doesn't have anything to do with fooling around in wide open spaces inside you or your friend's ATV.  These days, it means being sexually involved with men, women, animals, and shrubbery.  I am not kidding.  When we have to objectify everyone and everything so as to attach labels like this...we are both doomed AND dumber as a country big time!

America also got dumber as the film and television industry evolved since their respective inceptions.  Remember, there were no films (movies) in existence in America prior to 1878.  At that time, it was a jockey riding a horse at a California racetrack that caught everyone's attention utilizing multiple cameras to create a flip-book like montague of the horse moving in a forward direction with its hooves rising up and down against the surface of the ground beneath it. Eadweard Muybridge was the photographer who created this film just a few years after being acquitted (by reason of insantiy) for the murder of his wife's lover.  How far we have fallen since that time.  Just as I learned in Marketing 101 back in undergrad, if it is "shocking" "scandalous" "titilating" and "exciting"...."it" succeeds in capturing our collective "attention", "interest", "desire", and "action" simultaneously.  It doesn't take any self-control or personal integrity to be intrigued and/or attracted to the wrong people, places, and things!  We already know how to do bad, easy, wrong, immoral, illegal, and fattening all by ourselves---just as we always have!  Since film and television have been used as electronic babysitters for so many of us who are from the baby boom generation, think about how that has devolved along with its media content as our kids...and our grandkids...have been exposed.  Remember when "Married With Children" was blasted for the way it mocked family values as one of the most popular television sitcoms of its time?  Wow...how far we HAVE fallen since Eadweard Muybridge's time!  

I knew something was going way wrong when I saw prime time television shows go animated.  When little kids believe they will be watching "cartoons" (or we dumb a$$ adults believe the same thing!), and instead get schooled on every imaginable human vice...we are ALL being made fools of big time. (Thanks for that South Park...and all that followed!)

What we never counted on is how the bad/easy/wrong/immoral/illegal/fattening becomes more intense and intensely offensive as the generation ahead shows up and grows up into adulthood.

When I was eating my way through childhood, I remember my classmates being somewhat horrified by the fact that I used money to eat out of vending machines at local area gas stations.  Think about that.  Back then, sticking money into a machine to each breakfast or lunch as a kid was truly scandalous.  Not unlike going into the local "comic book" shop and buying a pack of cigarettes, a Playboy magazine, and some alcohol as an adult.  These things were just not healthy to be doing or modeling to others, let alone in public.

Now...?  People can defecate and urinate anywhere outdoors and it's their right to, don't you know?  Individuals and families can park themselves on any street corner to knock on your car window as you are waiting for the light to turn...and suddenly you are the horrible person for calling the police to conduct a wellness check on the babies and small children stuck there in 80 degree weather all morning or afternoon.  What's next?  Being free to have sex with whomever or whatever in the median of 8 Mile Road?  Beyond becoming dumber, we have also lost our damn minds!

Baby formula for special needs' babies is now not freely available to purchase in this country because of a bacteria that got into the plant and formula where Abbott labs creates it (?) How long does it take to clean up the mess and then get this special formula back on store shelves?   How about "Who knows?" because we are too dumb to take proper and immediate action to fix the problem in a timely enough manner!?  Yet we better be able to immediately identify ourselves as "Pro Trump" or "Pro Biden" lest we are immediately pidgeonholed as being either highly intelligent---or with a below 70 full scale IQ.

In winning the battles, we still are fully capable of losing the war.  Each generation is provided with a new chances and opportunities to get things right, yet there are those more invested in just getting their own turn at making depraved, degenerate, and dysfunctional life choices to serve their own needs.

Good luck to us.  We are a hot mess.  We forgot about doing the right thing in our pursuit of power, pleasure, and avoidance of personal responsibility as a chosen lifestyle.  God help us all.  We sure do need Him now more than ever.  Just sayin'...

Until next post.....

A Letter to "Mom"...Mother's Day 2022

(This letter was written by someone who had a difficult childhood with alcoholic parents who were alternately emotionally neglectful and actively abusive.  I believe it is one of the most poignant tributes I have ever read, bar none.  I am grateful to have been given permission to present it, in its entirety, as today's blog post....)

"Dear Mother:

Today is Mother's Day.  You have been dead now for over ten years.  Why is it that every time Mother's Day comes around, I feel guilty and I feel ashamed?  I have often joked with my husband (who you disapproved of since you met him, by the way!) that my real name should have been Hi-I'm-Joe-And-It's-My-Fault!  No kidding.  I can remember you reminding me of all the things wrong with me that I couldn't change. I can remember you screaming at me for all the things you thought I did on purpose to mess with you.  I can also remember you icing me out for all the things you expected of me, but that I didn't deliver on.  Sometimes I wonder if you mistook having a child for having a pet you believed you could transform into a blue ribbon winner under your instruction. 

I don't know why you were so obsessed with making sure I didn't do anything to shame or upset you.  How ironic!  You who made me go every couple of days to that party store on the next block and pick you up your Cutty.  I don't even know why that store owner let me buy that poison, let alone carry it home by myself.  He so should have gone to jail for that!  But of course he didn't and I cringed everytime I heard you yell out "Joey!  Time to run to the store for me!  My wallet's in my purse!"  Why wasn't anyone else home when you did that?  It wasn't like it was just you and me living there my entire childhood.

I know we had good times too.  As sad as this is to say, drunks can be so hilarious before the alcoholic buzz takes them over to the dark side.  You did make me laugh a lot, yet it was always at someone else's expense.  I didn't realize this at the time, but I was grateful you weren't targeting me in those moments.  Remember "Jake the Magnificant?"  ROFLMAO!  I still laugh at the thought of that guy!  If he knew what you would say about him behind his back, I think he would laugh with you because he STILL adored you so much!  Wow whatever happened to Jake I wonder?  Well, if he's still at it now with his "I am the greatest!" b.s., then I guess he's as happy as he ever was.

I wish you had been the greatest mom to me and my sister, by the way.  I guess you just couldn't do it being married to dad besides having us kids.  I don't remember you ever having any girlfriends you could talk to, or who came over to visit, or who you went out to see.  You put yourself last in the lineup of who and what mattered most in your life, with the exception of us kids.  I remember feeling so angry about how what the neighbors thought mattered to you and dad more than what Suzy or I thought.  And to think now how bizarre that was because the neighbors clearly avoided us in the first place!  Ours was the worst house on the block!  How come you two didn't even notice that?  The neighborhood kids would often say things to me whenever they saw me.  "Hey Blow-ee!  Doesn't your father own a lawnmower, or is he waiting to buy a goat to cut your grass?"  "Oh look, there's Blow-ee!  His whole family are losers just like he is!"  I have to stop.  As I am thinking about all of that, I find myself getting upset again just like I used to.  I can't do that to me anymore.  I just can't.

I have to, instead, look at what you gave up and what you sacrificed in order to create a family for yourself against all odds.  I know your own family as you were growing up was no bowl of cherries.  I never even heard the word "murder" until Aunt Pat told me that your dad was murdered by one of his most trusted employees at the store, leaving your mother with you just five years old at the time.  Aunt Pat was only a kid herself, but she was the one suddenly in charge of your care because of your mother's nervous breakdown.  Then with your dad being alcoholic, and your mother being bipolar anyway before his murder, you and Aunt Pat really didn't have much in the way of proper adult support and supervision.  I understand that.  It's how Suzy and I were raised also.  You did what you knew.  And what you didn't know, you didn't even think about.

In spite of all, I am grateful to be here. I can honor you for the life you gave me, instead of what would have been easier for you to do when you got pregnant with me.  I can be thankful for the fact that my childhood didn't kill me and that I survived it also.  I didn't experience any catastrophic accidents or incidents that left me with permanent physical scars or disabilities.  My mind works well enough.  I am not addicted to alcohol or drugs.  I myself am a good enough husband, father, and friend.

In spite of all, you taught me to do something different with my own life, which in essence saved my life and saved me from repeating the same old dysfunction you knew and grew up with going back however many generations.

For this and all the other reasons I haven't mentioned in this letter, happy Heavenly Mother's Day mom.  You were a wounded bird just like I was growing up, except you didn't know what to do to heal and change for the better.  Now, hopefully, you found your peace.  I know I am still working on mine.  Love you forever.  JD"