Just some advice from a fellow sufferer

[BrokenArrow 52]

Guys I think I really hit a break through today. I used to sit in front of the computer all day. I started having really bad headaches and eye issues. Really blurry vision and just all around head and neck issues. Well I realized last night that I need to stop spending so much time alone. I needed to reach out to my wife and even to my kids. Keep in mind my oldest son is 2 so it's not like I can really sit and have a conversation with him about my anxiety issues. He is still great for keeping my mind off things. Today when I got up ( which was at about 12 because I stay up really late so I sleep pretty late) I decided to set a timer on all of my online activity. I allowed myself 100 minutes of online time per day. Every time I come over to the computer and sit down I start the timer. Well right now it is approaching 4 o'clock and I still have 68 minutes of internet time. Which for me is really good. I used to sit on it from the moment I woke up until the moment I went to bed. I can already feel my eyes acting better. The redness has gone way down and my headaches that I had every day went down. I feel better about myself because I have been doing things with the kids and with the wife. You don't have to do anything major. You don't have to go anywhere. You can sit there and read a book or play cards or even watch a movie together. The best thing I have found to work for me so far is to be ( even a little) active and surround yourself with people that will force your mind to think about other things. The worst thing you can do to yourself if force yourself to be in your mind all the time. If you really break it down, our own mind is what we are the most afraid of and we seem to trap ourselves in it. Most of the time I don't even have panic attacks until I force them on. I start having a panic attack ABOUT having a panic attack. I wake up in the morning and I think to myself when is the attack going to start and I start freaking out ABOUT freaking out. I think that is a lot of our problems. We sit there and we think about freaking out. We all know by now that our problem is anxiety but we all have anxiety ABOUT anxiety. Even though we know it is an attack it still doesn't feel good. No one wants chest pains or leg pains or stomach pains or whatever it may be. So we get scared. Maybe its not even scared, maybe it's annoyed and we push these feelings on by thinking about them. Today I have noticed that if I push happy thoughts into my head I don't have may problems. If I think about the show on TV or what I'm gonna have for dinner tonight or what my 2 year old is doing, I don't leave room in my mind for the negativity. I have had a stomach pain here or there today, but it was a ton easier to just ignore it and keep playing with my family then if I was sitting by myself and I had nothing else to do but focus on it. Take it from me guys... if we can program our brains to be scared of everything, we can reprogram our brains to be happy. We just have to put more effort into the happiness then we do into feeding the anxiety. Anyway, I'm going to hop back off the computer for a while and make us some lunch. Keep going strong everyone. We got this!

[Missy2626 251]

Way to go BrokenArrow!  I'm so happy for you...keep up the good work and the positive thoughts!!

[walkingwithGod 169]

Well said and so very true!!