Dear kirstyd:
I re-read and read all your posts on this thread. Here are my thoughts:

The pattern: when you feel better you let go of your healing activities, push away the awareness of the anxiety still lurking under the surface, well this pattern is extremely common as we are all “creatures of comfort”- we simply avoid discomfort. When we feel good, why bother with anything that doesn’t? The long term approach of course, is the only approach that works long term. So you have to persist- through “good times” – with the healing and self care. Be aware, during better times that the anxiety is not gone. It is very much there and needs to be attended to.

As one suffering from severe anxiety (OCD, Tourette Syndrome are the earliest manifestations of my anxiety), I incorrectly thought that healing would mean no longer being anxious, being completely free, as if flying in a clear sky in total bliss. Not so. Healing is takes way longer than I ever imagined (and I have dedicated five years to it as in daily hard work) and requires unbelievable patience and gentleness with oneself.

The reason you think so much is because you are anxious: there is this excessive ongoing fear circulating in your brain. The part of the brain that Thinks is trying to find a solution to the problem causing the fear. It is looking for the danger: is it here? Is it there? That is the job of the thinking brain: solve the problem.

This is why it is necessary to indeed solve the problem. But first need identify the problem: where did this excessive fear originate from, when? Psychotherapy with a competent therapist (mine used CBT and Mindfulness) can help you a lot in this regard, gaining insight. A good therapist will also teach skills such as meditation, mindfulness, and so forth- seems like you have those skills.

If you’d like to discuss insight, I am willing. Let me know.

anita