Dear Zenith:

I wish the title of your thread could apply to your anxiety, as in Passing anxiety. It’s a habit of the brain, by this point: the habit of getting anxious. What are you anxious about this afternoon?

anita

Dear Zenith:

“My brain started telling me that I felt less anxious in India and its more lonely here. So I am worried about if I should settle here or go back to India and take care of my parents. How will I survive this anxiety when I get old? I am in my mid thirties lol. My brain started getting worried about future.“- (1) Time to talk back to your brain, says I,  and tell it (kindly) that you need to focus on surviving anxiety today. Tell it that you’ll take care of future anxiety after you learn to take care of today’s anxiety, (2) I remember that you’ve been sending money for the care of your parents, so there’s someone there, in addition to your sister (and others) to care for your parents’ physical needs..?

(3) Remember the mix factor I mentioned earlier: mix some negative memories of your visit to India with the positive memories, so that you do not get into nostalgia (remembering only the positives and missing those too much). Here are some negatives from June 16, two weeks into your visit: “It just triggered my religious OCD. Everybody in my family are more religious and ocd is telling me that I am a bad Muslim… I don’t have the peace of mind… I did talk back to ocd instead of running away from it. But the voice in my head still persists. Its making me anxious and hard to sleep through it“- which brings me back to talking back to your brain/ OCD: as calmly as you can, tell it the truth and reject its untruths.

anita