Dear Hamza:

Welcome back to your thread more than 9.5 months after the last time you posted here!

“I am feeling 95% better and normal again, though still suffer from intrusive thoughts / memories of her on a daily basis. Where do I go from here?“-

– How about quality, professional psychotherapy, one that will include treatment for intrusive thoughts?

“I feel shame that despite saying ‘I’ll get back to you’, I never got back to her, and wonder what she thinks about me. On the other hand, I also am starting to feel indifferent about the whole thing and thinking of never reaching out again… I am confused and stressed and anxious about what I do next. Do I block her. Do I remain indifferent and just forget about her..“-

– although you feel indifferent at times, overall, reads to me that you are not indifferent. Seems to me that psychotherapy that will address your obsessive thinking (about her) is the place to go, at this time.

I have suffered from OCD much of my life, so I know how draining it is to obsess about someone or something…

I am glad that you are feeling a lot better some of the time, and hope that you will feel way better much of the time.

(I will be away from the computer for the rest of the day).

anita

Dear Seaturtle:

I wanted to add to my last night’s short message: I wish you a good last weekend of acting in the Shakespearean play you are part of, and a good Friday-Sunday with your mom. Keep it light on the relationship front with B (shouldn’t be difficult since you’d be so busy), and calm yourself whenever you feel too stressed, so that you don’t overreact to people and situations.

If you find yourself stressed or too intense in regard to your mother this weekend, you are very welcome to take time-out from her (press Pause on the conversation/ excuse yourself and go to the computer), and as you suggested: journal about it here, on your thread. I will be glad to read and reply as soon as I am able.

anita

Dear Caroline:

How have you been feeling in the last 3 days since you posted?

Last Monday, you wrote: “I feel like… I am not capable to… save myself. To be my own parent“.

First, it takes getting acquainted with your inner child. Here is from John Bradshaw’s inner child worksheets available online, no cost ( (www. scribd. com/ inner child worksheets):

“Questionnaire for getting Acquainted with our Inner Child- Complete the following with as many answers as come to your mind:

1. As a child, I heard that my most significant faults were……   2. As a child, I felt guilty for/ when…..

.. 5. Messages I received about money were…  6. I felt rejection when…   7. I felt fear when…   8. I felt anger when…”.

There is much more in the worksheets, in the section I quoted from, and in other sections. If you want, if you can, you are welcome to fill in parts of the worksheets here, on your thread.

anita

Dear Luna:

I am well, thank you and you are welcome, a pleasure to communicate with you.

(I am adding the boldface feature to the quote): “It was really comforting to know that I’m not alone in my experience of emptiness… I wish that yours find peace and joy during these hectic times….  keeping hope and seeing the light in friendships today is inspiring when everyone seems to lose patience and clarity of what really matters: Genuine and healthy human connections“- You express yourself so well.

I believe that it is emptiness, or as I typed it, emptiness with a capital E, that is behind these hectic times we live in, the violence, the wars. If only genuine and healthy human connections were common, beginning inside homes as children grow up, the world would be a different place. Emptiness (lack of genuine and healthy human connections) creates sickness, impatience, confusion..  and wars. Genuine and healthy human connections create patience, clarity and peace.

It reminds me of the 1984 fantasy movie The Never Ending Story. In it, The Nothing is a force that was destroying the magnificent land of Fantasia, a force representing the consuming despair of people who lose their hopes, dreams, and meaning in life.

For me, The Nothing is synonymous with Emptiness.

“I’ve spent the past month reevaluating my relationships and it has gotten to a point where I’m just drained from it. I’m very much aware that I need new energy into my life…  by one sided friendship, I meant that I felt like our friendship was at the bottom of her priorities… I have given her a chance to get together and talk on her own timing but she didn’t show up“-

– genuine and healthy human connections invigorate, energize, revive, rejuvenate or comfort and calm the distressed mind. Too many human connections (between parents and children, between siblings, between husbands and wives.. between coworkers, between strangers on the street and in the supermarket, between people online, etc.) drain, misuse, abuse or create positive expectations that are not followed through.

“With so much love and peace… love and compassion“- may love and compassion in our words and behaviors lead to peace in the hearts and minds of the people we interact with, and in the world as a whole.

anita

Dear Luna:

Welcome back to the forums!

You asked for “words of comfort if not some wise insights… Your insights would be most appreciated in how I can overcome the emptiness I feel right now. Your experiences are most welcome” in regard to a friendship that has faded out for some time as the two of you pursued different ways; a friendship that was one-sided in many ways, but you have put a blind eye to the one-sidedness because you needed her. You fought for what the friendship was before fading out, but the more you fought, the emptier you felt. You decided to move on from the friendship, but she hasn’t moved on. You didn’t give her a proper explanation to moving on because you feel it’d be unnecessary at this point.

My response is about my personal experience (some of it may- or not- resonate with you), and it will include words of comfort, best I can.

I know Emptiness. The no-one-is-there-for-me Emptiness. This I-am-all-alone type of emptiness, such that took me into countless going down the rabbit hole mental experiences that further confused me.  I tried so hard and for so long to understand and was not able to understand enough to bring myself up from the rabbit hole.. into the light, so to speak.

There is certain amount of alone-ness that is simply too much to bear. Togetherness (aka love) is a real, non-negotiable human need. Love and Light are synonymous. Acute alone-ness/ loneliness and darkness are synonymous.

How to overcome the emptiness, you asked. My answer: reach out to others, as you have done here, on your thread, but be discerning: some people you reach out to are too preoccupied with their own problems.. or rabbit holes, to have space for you. Some people have agendas that won’t fit you. Some people project into you other people in their lives and react to.. what you didn’t mean to say, etc. Many are angry.

Right above, I tried to reach out to you, to present to you my understanding and see if you share it.. and maybe we can have a meeting of the minds, or better yet, a meeting of the hearts.

Words of comfort: May your emptiness be filled with (chosen) togetherness, a togetherness that will fill your life with light!

anita

Dear Lisa:

What a WONDERFUL, pleasant surprise to see your name and your post first thing this Wednesday morning! And even better- to read that you are doing better than before!! I am thrilled about you being back here and looking forward to read from you again, whenever you feel comfortable posting, if you do. (I want you to do what’s right for you in regard to posting and in regard to every other part of your life!)

And thank you, I am well and better since you are here this morning!

anita

Dear Mr. Ritz:

You are very welcome.

“I will try to place myself in the OP as you call it. I think it sounds difficult to do, but I will try“- try it when you experience smaller distress than anxiety attacks so that you get experience and have a bigger chance of success when an anxiety attack happens. There are online worksheets on mindfulness skills, emotion regulation skills/ distress tolerance that include information and guidance on how to pause between a difficult emotion and the overreacting to it (getting consumed/ overwhelmed by it). One way to pause is to remove your attention from the center of the emotion.. to a distance away, and observe the difficult emotion from that distance.

Post again anytime, Mr. Ritz. I would like to read from you about how things progress.

anita

Dear Mr. Ritz:

You mentioned taking various psychiatrist drugs aimed at treating major depression (SSRI antidepressants) and anxiety disorders.

“I need a Klonopin about every 2 days.. . I’m trying not to get a tolerance to it where it won’t work anymore, so I avoid taking unless I just can’t stand the anxiety anymore“-

– Klonipin (Clonazepam), is a highly addictive benzodiazepine prescribed for anxiety, seizures, etc., it is supposed to be prescribed short term because it is very addictive. But I was on Klonipin for 17 years, taking 4 milligrams of it every single day. In the last couple of years of taking it, I tried to get off it but the anxiety I felt while withdrawing was too intense (way more intense than the anxiety predating psychiatric drugs), and I failed to successfully withdraw every time I tried. Finally, I succeeded withdrawing  back in October of 2013, ten years ago. I will tell you how I did it in a moment.

“Woke up today with a fast heartbeat and a knot in my stomach….not reason, just another panicky day… this anxiety has been going on for years“-

– Back in 2021 I had a unique experience, one I didn’t have before: on my daily walk in the forestry area where I live, I heard and then saw what looked like a big, beautiful dog with white and grey fur. It passed me on my left, running and panting,  and then, it made a sharp turn and positioned itself in front of me, looking at me up and down, not moving otherwise.

There was no one there, on that private road at the time. It was just me and it. It was then that I realized that it was not a dog but a big, strong coyote. It was looking me up and down, checking if I was a good idea to pursue as breakfast. I figured its friends were hiding near by and it could be a group killing. It was a potential predator-prey moment, a very long moment.

Looking back, the fear that I felt then, in that real-and-present danger situation, was very different from the anxiety I felt for decades. At the time,  I wasn’t aware of my heart beating or of any physical manifestations of fear. I was singularly focused on the coyote, and not at all on my physical sensations. It felt like being suspended in time, as in a different world, a very raw, very real situation.

I had nothing on me to protect myself. picked up a stick and threw it at the coyote but he didn’t budge. Eventually, a vehicle drove by and the coyote ran away.

The reason I am telling you this is that as a result of that experience, I realize what anxiety is about, that “no reason (no clear and present danger situation), just another panicky day anxiety:

When anxious, we are focused on- and scared of- our physical reactions to fear: the heartbeat, the change of temperature, the racing of thoughts, etc. When scared in a real-and-present-danger situation, there is no thinking, no noticing of physical sensations: we are afraid of the real danger out there, not of how fear feels inside us.

You wrote back in May 4 this year: “my heart was beating fast and uneven, and I was hot and sweaty. I took a Xanax”- reads like indeed it was your physical reactions to fear that scared you, and therefore, you took Xanax.

Back to how I stopped Klonipin back in Oct 2013: I was on the last day of taking a very small part of a Klonipin tablet,  after a very gradual withdrawal over months. It was evening and I felt the beginning of an anxiety attack, feeling that I was getting consumed by the attack and that no way can I survive it and that I have to take more Klonipin right there and then.

It is then that I remembered an exercise I read about and I did it: I went (figuratively, of course) to a place in my brain that wasn’t panicking, the Observant Part, if you will (you can call it OP), and from there I observed the panicking part.. and as a result, I was no longer panicking.

Maybe, just maybe, what I shared above an help you somewhat.

anita