😮 How weird, my name changed from chokko to my real name.

anita: thank you very much for the insight. I will talk about it as soon as my therapy starts (it still hasn’t started yet…)
That’s exactly that.

I’ve never viewed that experience as something that could influence my anxiety in the right now. Many people tell me that my death anxiety is “hiding” something else – or is it caused by such a traumatic event? I don’t know. But I know I still ressent my parents for that, even though we’re in good terms now.

I really hope therapy will help me understand my anxiety and dealing with it. To be honest I’m not quite confident because the person I’m seeing right now is not really fit for me if I can say, but I will see if I can change or something. I believe it will help me, but not in the immediate future, especially since the actual therapy takes a lot of time to be put in place, and the professionals are not really reassuring.

Thank you very much for your kind words. I will hold them dear when the anxiety is striking. Right now the fear of death has returned and makes me depressed, but it’s not actual anxiety so I can deal with it more easier.
Again, thank you.

Anita: no problems about it! Take your time to answer me, if you do. You’re nice enough to take time to try to help, you don’t have to worry if you take time to do so!
And yes, they locked me up.
Well when I try to speak to them about it, they get angry – mostly because I’m very reproachful about it when I talk about it, so it gets on their nerves. My dad told me I was a huge pain in the ass at that time, surely because I prevented them from sleeping and, well, surely do whatever parents do when they are alone in their room. But they never really told me WHAT I did wrong.

Kumudini: thank you for your answer! It really brings me courage!

Anita:

thank you very much for your reply. I’ve been doing some of these unconsciously, right now my anxiety is very low, but I still haven’t built much confidence into my ability to endure anxiety, but knowing it takes time make me know that even if I still feel anxious, it will eventually get better.

My childhood was not much:
I’m very close to my parents and overall family, I have an older sister which is one of the most important person in my life. When I was 8, I had anxiety when I went to sleep, for one or two months maybe, and I couldn’t sleep alone so I slept with my parents and they ended up being fed up with it and I remember being shut down in my room at night, and since I cried I was eventually shut down in the cellar one time. Everytime I bring up the subject today, my parents said it was my fault… But I was 8.
I remember starting having anxiety again at 10, at night too, but I fell guilty for no reasons, I felt that I HAD to tell everything to my parents: when I was doing “bad” stuff, etc… I remember feeling extremely guilty about discovering my body and stuff like that and I eventually told my mom about it after having a panic attack. The anxiety went away because I started believing in God and I prayed every night (it added to my guilt, but helped the anxiety somehow).
Otherwise I was a happy child I guess, well I can’t remember right. I had a best friend which lived next to my house until I was 12, and I spent most of my childhood being a tomboy and playing with boys. Things changed when I was a teen and my relationship with my parents became very tumultuous at that time, but I guess that’s normal for teenagers? Now I’m quite close to them, as I still live with them (well at least on the weekends since I study far from home on the weekdays)

anita > thank you very much anita. Can I ask you how old where you when you started your process?

Also, I think my anxiety is striking back because of the mourning process. I feel like it was tightly linked to my grandfather’s health after all… I think I might have put myself at his place subconsciously and so I’ve felt the process of experiencing death as if I was as close to it as he was.

Also alicialynne, if you’re still reading this, sorry again about my earlier post. I think I was kind of venting and reading your message made me panick. I’m sorry I came out as so harsh.

Anita: thank you for you answer! You clarified a lot of things. I should really practice that, it won’t make me overcome my fears, but at least it will help me not thinking about it 24/7…

Nina Sakura: thank you very much, I will search about that 🙂

Once again I thank you for taking your time to answer! Even though I’m still struggling with anxiety (and lately especially depression), I’m glad I’ve learned techniques and met different points of view. Thank you very much.

Viktolis: thank you very much. I find it quite hard to understand due to many terms I’m not familiar with, but the few I understand makes me want to learn even more about Buddhism!

*

Anita: I can’t really state when it begin, I just know that I was prone to death anxiety when I was 8 or so (normal enough for a kid, I think?), and that I really, truly, and immensely feared the end of the world when I was 10 or 11 (I firmly believed that the world would end in 2012, and I read the book of Revelation and since I was a child, it quite shooked me up at the time). I remember being prone to intense anxiety and praying everyday, relying on God to ease me (I did not follow much doctrine, and I’m not a Believer anymore).
It came back 3 months ago (I wrote “2 months” before, but it started in September) because I had a panic attack, everything was pilling up in my life, I broke up with my ex boyfriend, classes were starting again, I was quite stressed at the moment of the panic attack because I was driving (though my anxiety really started being crippling when I went in a city quite far from my own to see a friend), I had a bad experience with drugs (sigh) some weeks before, and since that panic attack I started having derealisation, which made me ponder on everything about life and doubting everything metaphysically speaking… So I started doubting my existence, and my death anxiety, which I believed was buried deep in my subconscious, came back and hit me in the face, just like some switch was put on “on” or just like if I realised how absurd existence was.
There is also the fact that my grandfather is ill and slowly dying: I managed to get my anxiety better in October, and when I went to see him in November my derealisation and fears came back right again, so I think it may be linked, though I am not sure and I feel like I’m rejecting my mental state on my grandfather.

*

Peter: thank you very much for your answer. I like your mindset! I like to create metaphors to set my goals and reassure me, and I really like yours. When I started having bad anxiety in september, I was really thinking of ending it all because why not, since I’m gonna die anyway? But when I was feeling hopeless, I started imagining life as if I was in a train: I know the journey will end, but there’s no point in getting down before its end. Sometimes the landscape gets dark and ugly and I’m afraid it will stay like this forever, but sometimes the landscape is beautiful and I’m glad I stayed here to get to see it. Thinking like that lift my spirit up until intrusive thoughts strike again, but I will keep your metaphor in mind as well. I really really like it.
I read this book a while ago, but I forgot most of it… I will refresh my memory by giving it a look again once I finish reading Life of Pi by Yann Martell. Thank you!

*

Nina Sakura: I’m currently seeking help, but the process is quite slow, unfortunately! (I started seeing a psychologist in October, but the therapy still hasn’t started yet. I will have another appointment next week, though.)
I’m not a very athletic person (like… not at all, actually), but you’re not the first person to tell me to do that. I really should start having a physical activity, but I’m unmotivated, and the cold temperature doesn’t help. (I think like I’m justificating my laziness, haha). I often write my fears down, when you say “journal your thoughts”, you mean every thoughts, even the positive ones, right?
Thank you very much for that piece of wisdom.

*

Sorry for the quite long message, and thanks everyone for taking the time to answer me. It really helps me!

• This reply was modified 8 years ago by Amandine.
• This reply was modified 8 years ago by Amandine.