Fear

@Jandie after any kind of negative experience, shock, trauma etc it will shift you energetically and you will feel a noticeable change in your personality. I work with something called assemblage points which were known to shamanic cultures. When the assemblage point relocates across the body you will experience changes in your demeanour that produce unwelcome personality effects like fear.

Another thing you may wish to look into is an illness called "pyroluria" which often accompanies psychiatric conditions. Its recognised in the USA and some psychiatric clinics treat it as a large bulk of their clients deal with this condition. Its slowly gaining recognition here and can be easily treated. Pyroluria produces fear and social anxiety. Go to the blog "Every Woman over 29" by Trudy Scott and read all about pyroluria. You will be surprised how easy it is to heal and get fear under control. It features disproportionately higher in the psychiatric community and is an emerging recognised disease.

Finally fear is housed in the kidneys so you may wish to consult with a healer. Many of these psych meds put pressure on the kidneys so there may be herbs you can take to strengthen the kidneys or use DIY meridian therapy to strengthen the kidney meridian on your body. Balancing chakras is good, you need a stable foundation to work from so chakra practices which focus on healing and aligning all chakras specifically the root chakra will stabilise your body so you are secure in yourself and free of fear

@Jandie and @April8 your stories are VERY familiar to me.. going from great inner strength and high levels of responsibility and something breaks.. then living with constant existential dread and lack of self-confidence.

Perfectionism often plays a huge part, you can never reach the standards you set for yourself and after a while self-criticism takes hold and then you undermine yourself. Nobody else is thinking this of you, it's all self-generated. There are many theories about how this all starts from childhood etc, but I think ultimately the only thing that can work is letting go of unrealistic expectations, accepting that life is far from perfect, and try to build yourself up with positive self-talk rather than tearing yourself down.

It might be helpful to think of the mind and body as working in similar ways. If you exercise intensely every day this is not good for your body in the long term. You need the occasional rest day to let your muscles etc repair. If you never rest, eventually you'll injure yourself and at that point the only thing that works is to slow down and let your body repair. I think the mind has similar limits. You can push and push and push and eventually you overdo it and pushing more will only make things worse at that point.

I'm on a forced break from corporate life, it can be a very unsupportive, thankless and toxic environment. Trying to figure out what comes next.

@tyme Hi Tyme 🙂

Thank you so much for taking the time to response to me. I really appreciate it.
It is somewhat uncomfortable to open up to a group of people but also quite refreshing. Especially being able to do it on an anonymous basis.

I cannot imagine the pressures that would come from being within the corporate world or how it would feel to be thrown from it. It must be really difficult.
I’m glad you found this site to help you through it.

I didn’t expect quite as many people to respond to me but it goes to show that we aren’t alone with our struggles and that can be a calming thought.

Thanks a lot 🙂

Hey @Krishna 🙂

Thanks for the response.
Your situation sounds very similar to mine. Especially the debilitating anxiety part.
For many years, I felt like I was within my life, living the story and not really questioning anything about the existence part of it. I did suffer from childhood vertigo and had bouts of anxiety but I always managed to get on top of it.
I was prescribed anti depressants at 12 years old due to severe bullying and have been on and off them since with some success.

I have been able to achieve things in my life that I never really thought I could due to pushing myself mentally and knowing it would be worth it.

Even this time last year, I was doing really well and felt like everything was happening for a reason and everything was in the right place.

Unfortunately I had an experience that propelled me out of that mind set and I ended up in hospital.

Since then, I have tried many techniques to try and get myself back to the person I know I can be such as; deep breathing exercises, cold water showers, positive reinforcement (trying to combat my own negative thoughts and defeat them), psychology sessions, reading books on anxiety, and literally just speaking to myself in my head to convince myself that I’m okay. This is exhausting.
Some things have been helpful but there hasn’t been anything that has propelled me back to myself, so to speak.

Anxiety is my constant companion too 😞 and it’s so tough when I have such a support partner and parent and I just feel like I drag them down.

Medication has been a bit of a nightmare path for me since hospital.

Deep breathing does help to ease the anxiety somewhat.
Do you have any tools you use daily to help you?

thanks 🙂

Dear Jandie

Anxiety makes you feel isolated but please believe you are not alone. It’s the illness making you feel that way.

I too suffer with anxiety and depression. They seem to feed on each other.

Please keep safe and get some professional help. We are in this together and with many others who also struggle.

Hi there @nervouswreck

Perfectionism definitely is something to do with what goes on with me. And yes, I do believe it’s been right from childhood.
I would strive and push and had a fantasy-like childhood, extremely happy child.
Then hormones and social changes occurred as I got a bit older and I fell into a deep depression, spending the majority of my teenage years barely speaking at all.

I have always been the type of person who likes to reach for the stars, with people around me thinking, I believe, thinking I’m somewhat crazy. I always felt like I had this high level of energy that others couldn’t be - or didn’t want to be - around for too long. It is lonely.

So I definitely hear you when you say it could all be related to perfectionism and the expectations placed on self.

As I got older (now in 30s), I pushed myself to do things to excel and reach these impossible levels. Some of it paid off, I did reach amazing levels of self satisfaction, but I have crashed back down. And now I don’t know where I’m going.

A lot of the time these days I have been feeling like I just completely want a break from my mind (it’s like being in a washing machine sometimes)
or to just find that person within that believes in things so much.

I’m really sorry to hear that you’re on a forced break. I can imagine that corporate lifestyle can be unsupportive and thankless, it must be so hard. Mental health is still not regarded the way it should be and I’m sorry to hear you’re struggling 😞

I feel people can be great for people but also the opposite. Getting out in the environment and away from people has helped me in the past.

Thanks so much for sharing, do you have much support in your personal life, if you don’t mind me asking?

Jandie

Hi @Jandie, I'm very fortunate to have a supportive partner and parents. Like you, my childhood was great. I also have the same guilty feelings of dragging them down, or even just letting them down in terms of expectations. I feel like they have high expectations for me and that's a source of pressure.

Thankyou for the kind words, and I'm sorry to hear you had troublesome teenage years. It sounds like you overcame those hurdles convincingly in terms of achievements, maybe inter-personal relationships still need some work? I need to work on mine, I get so caught up in what I need to do that I don't pay enough attention to those around me (family, friends, neighbours, local community etc).

Getting out into nature is wonderful, I love it, it can be a very conducive environment for deeper thought and healthy introspection. I do feel that social bonds will help all of us though. Taking time to smile and wave, say hi to someone, ask how they're going and listen to their story really makes me feel more in touch with those around me. That's also why I enjoy it here, chatting to people and hopefully helping them makes me feel better about myself and my role on this planet.

Hi @Jandie I start my day with breathing exercises 4 2 6 followed by mindfulness of the in and out breath through my nose. All this helps to settle the vagus nerve. Of late though I have a new challenge being that I wake each morning about 5am with a huge surge of cortisol leaving me shaky and buzzing. Not a normal cortisol awakening response. It seems my anxiety lurks in my subconscious while I sleep and my brain gives me a huge kickstart in the mornings. It’s horrible, debilitating and frightening at times. This has only started happening in the past 6 months. Once I’m up and moving, it settles somewhat, enough for me to leave the house for a brisk walk. Oh gosh, there’s days where I can do nothing but cry. That helps too xx 🙏

Hey @Krishna ,

That sure does sound scary! I hope you find ways to self-soothe. And certainly, crying has it's part too.

I still like to use the Smiling Mind App. I find that helps.

Yikes @Krishna, I’ve had that too! Only for about a week when my stress levels were through the roof.. I put it down to starting an SSRI rather than the stress but maybe both had a factor. It’s an even more horrible feeling being jerked awake like that than the constant existential dread and anxiety I was feeling all day. But like you, walking it off helped. Then I was just left with the constant existential dread and anxiety!

I hope you find relief from it. Was the time leading up to the 5am awakenings particularly stressful?