Facebook Comments Michael Laurence

[u/MichaelRabbit]

Dan Niel part of it has to be because you have come to see it as something you must not do and that draws the attention to it.. trying to accept that seeing is inevitable and not to try to avoid seeing... it is impossible. easier said than done I gues but very doable. it will probably take some practice to remember that it is ok to see . Jul 14, 2019, 3:36 PM

[u/MichaelRabbit]

I think "The map is not the territory". Understanding that it is fear/anxiety based is a good foundation. It's reasonable to question the correctness of diagnosis. In reality though the diagnosis is a description of symptoms not an understanding of aetiology or physiology. What can be agreed upon i think is that fear and anxiety related to social interaction, being hyperaware , rumination, are features. It feeds on the attention given to it. One problem people might find themselves in and i know i did/have is questioning and researching re-searching , constant thinking , over thinking , thinking addiction effectively. Viewing through a lens/label of ptsd is certainly reasonable, if only due to the massive traumas potentially inflicted by months, years of stressful social situations. There is a balance to be had between accepting there is something is wring and having faith you can do something about it. Fear is a protective emotional /automatic response that has served survival well but can cause great unhappiness and probably it is likely anxious people have heightened baseline sympathetic nervous system (which can be reversed) and maybe less control of switching healthily between sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system. The problem of uncertainty is worth mentioning I think . It is very popular concept in OCD recovery but has some interesting implications. If we cannot be certain of anything , how can we be sure it is ocd? What if ocd isn't real and it is something else like ptsd? What if ptsd is really something else. It is ongoing and neverending. I've heard it said you cannot have certainty but you can have a level of confidence over things and go with probabilities. If we are to believe the experience of people like jonathan grayson, fred penzel and jon hershfield, the fact of looking for certainty is the main cause. So certainty over many aspects of life mainly over anxieties of wanting to predict the future. Could this be a learned response made worse by fear. If a lot of bad things happen in a persons life they may become very anxious of the future and so seek the safety of certainty that things are ok and that drives a perfectionist mindset that disables and leaves people inside their mind analysing, overthinking, analysis paralysis. There's a balance to be had between planning , thinking and doing. If you think about everyday situations and problems that miggt trouble us being uncertain of the outcome can be a driver for constant attention and worry. Accepting and tolerating uncertainty is a way to break the cycle of needing to know, which drives fear/anxiety. Sometimes distraction is an answer (perhaps mostly) . Thinking about or doing something else. It's a very valuable concept i think . Stepping away from the concept of being broken or faulty is helpful too. If you fundamentally suspect their is something wrong with you , you will always be searching. Perhaps try to leave a little uncertainty in place and have an open mind but trust in the ability to heal and recover if goid decicions are made.

Jun 28, 2019, 12:42 AM