Look Ma! No Hands!

Its been a while, I know. And from my heart, I send you my deepest condolences. I should tell you, however, that a lot of things have changed since the last time I posted here. 

1. A while back, I mentioned I volunteered at a senior's home. One of the men there (I think I told you about the man who had cancer), past away around the end of August. I miss him a lot.
2. I stopped volunteering at the senior's home. Being there, with all the memories of the people that I grew to love was starting to get a little more difficult than I could handle. After two years there, I finished up. As a bonus, they sent me a little gift card to my local movie theater, which was kind of them.
3. I'm in the process of getting a new volunteering job in my area. People, I've learned, are insanely difficult to work with. Don't give up, though, because you'll find a good enough person sooner or later.

And, probably the biggest change of all...

    4.   I GOT A THERAPIST! (cue cheers)

That's right, friends. I got myself a wonderful therapist who helped me through so many of the terrible thoughts that started coming back to me and it was all amazing and life started looking up again!
Then, IT happened.
One night, I missed an appointment. It was all just one big miscommunication and an accident, totally unintentional. So, she was called. And called. And called. But she never called back, never rescheduled an appointment and I haven't seen her now since October. It kind of stinks that the one woman that was kind of like my life preserver left me to drown. Little did she know, however, that she threw me enough rope to pull myself back to shore. I still have to fall asleep at night with the television on to cope with hard thoughts, but I've learned how to deal with my anxiety during the day. She was also the one that convinced me it was a good idea to leave the senior's home, and I think that was a wise decision.

In this post, I've talked so much about myself, I haven't given you much advice. Here's the thing: Keep on keeping on. I've heard that before, I can't remember where, but it's pretty awesome, isn't it? My therapist left me for a reason, but I had her long enough that I can deal. I can handle myself pretty well on a day to day basis, and some of that is because of her. But the rest is from the strength of myself, my friends and my family. We kept on keeping on, and didn't stop living because of nothing. Life isn't amazing right now, but it is so much better, you wouldn't believe.

I have some awesome tips for tomorrow, so don't you worry your little soul about that. Elizabeth's back, friends!

Kisses and Hugs (I've never liked xoxo),
Elizabeth 

Don't Be Mad...

I'm really sorry to everybody that reads this blog for help with their anxiety. I haven't really gotten around to posting an honest to goodness blog post about anxiety in a little while, so that's why I'm saying SCREW introductions! I'm going to jump right into what I have to say.

Anxiety is a pretty hefty mental illness and from what I can tell, it isn't mentioned as much as other mental illnesses. Only 1 in 10 people suffer from this, which is only 10%, for those of you that don't like Math. So for you newcomers, that's what I'm talking about when I say "What do I do when I wake up in a panic?" (Panic is short form for "panic attack" or "anxiety attack", by the way).

Trust me when I say that I've dealt with that on MANY occasions. Mostly it's because I've woken up from a nightmare, or I've woken up and then fallen into a panic when really, all I want is to fall into sleep. I'll always be the first to tell you when something is hard for me, and this topic is VERY difficult for me to do.

When I wake up in a panic, I take what seems to me like a cowardly path. I turn on my television and fall asleep to that, or read a book until my eyes can't stay open anymore. I wish I knew better what would work for me, so I can deal with it on my own, but unfortunately, I can't find anything that works for me, because, if you've never dealt with a panic before, these thoughts are taunting.

Here's what I know you're SUPPOSED to do. I may or may not have mentioned before that, when I was younger, I went to group therapy for support in my journey with anxiety. I kept the workbook for that close and near to me, just in case I needed it. It doesn't exactly work for me very well now, but it could work for you if you need it to.

Chances are, people that don't understand anxiety will tell you that your fears are just that: fears. They might've said you'll get over them, or that you need to take things less seriously. As you and I both know, that's much easier said than done. What I want you to do next time you've started to panic is this. 

1. Take a deep breath and rate your fear on a scale from 1-10.
2. Think about your fear and think about the reasons your feeling this way. What happened? What could happen? Why isn't this very likely?
3. Take all your answers and create a more realistic thought. Focus on that and re-rate your fear on the same 1-10 scale. Has this process brought your fear down?

Practice this, make sure that you write this down somewhere if you think you'll need it. This isn't my process, it actually belongs to the Cool Kids program that I think originated in Europe, because it all sounds very British, but that's not important. What's important is results.

Anxiety is a nasty hobknocker (I'm trying to be British here), but you can defeat it. Believe in yourself, believe in your strengths and have confidence that everything will be fine. As one of my favourite bloggers, Kandee Johnson, says:

"You are more beautiful than you know, more talented than you think, and more loved than you can imagine!"

And though you may not think that has anything to do with this now very cheesy post, it does. Because confidence, love and overall strength is what beats anxiety everyday.

Your Sappy Friend,
Elizabeth 

Drop Me a Line!

Howdy Folks!

My head isn't really in the right state at the moment to write a post about dealing with anxiety or any of those things. In fact, what I really want from you today is kind of a big, but worthwhile, favour.

Sadly, you cannot see the traffic that this blog is getting. Basically, it's getting none. Well, except for you, but you know what I'm getting at. Anyway, this means that people OBVIOUSLY aren't sharing this blog with other people. Now let me start by saying that I don't want this blog to be super popular, trust me. Hopefully, I'm not coming across like that. I want my other blog to be frequented, but the fewer visitors here means less people with anxiety.

That being said, you can't fool me. I know there are more people in the world with anxiety that need help. I want to give them as much help as I can. Yes, I know, this blog post isn't doing anything. But if nobody reads this blog in the first place, my blog isn't going to help ANYBODY, period. So that's where you come in.

If you have anxiety, tell me about if. E-mail me at ifyouknowyourecrazy@hotmail.ca if you want to tell me things, or if there are things you want help with and maybe things I should cover in my blog posts. If your friend has anxiety, or any mental illness, tell them about it! Like this blog's Facebook page, and share your favourite blog posts with people. I want humans to get the help they deserve, and this is a free way to do it. By no means do I want a lot of views, I just want to help a lot of people.

Your Helping Hand,

Elizabeth

Long Gone and Moved On

Okay, so perhaps my title isn't all that great for this post. It probably is a little bit offensive to some people, and for that, I'm sorry. Kind of. 

Here's my thing, though. With my anxiety, I tend to get really upset if somebody that I love dies, or is sick, and I don't always know the best way to deal with that. I know a lot of you are probably reading this and thinking "Doesn't everybody get upset about death and illness?" Yes, yes they do. 

See, I volunteer once a week at a senior's home, so I tend to get really attached to some people. About two years ago, when I first started there, I met a really nice woman and her and I became really fast friends. This past October, she died. I was literally shattered. I didn't know what the hell I was supposed to do, my panic attacks started to come back, I didn't want to volunteer anymore and I just wanted my best friend back. Now, there's a man that I've become really good friends with who's sick and isn't in the very best condition. He's well into his eighties, so there's a chance he might not make it, which makes me unbelievably upset. I have a sickening feeling I'll start to panic, and I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do about that yet, but here's my semi-formed plan.

1.  I'm going to take deep breath when I begin to get that feeling in my stomach. You know the one, like you're going to vomit.
2. I'm going to tell myself that these thoughts aren't wanted and that I can't deal with them right now.
3. If that doesn't work, I'll change my negative thoughts to positive ones. I'll start to think about the good times I've had with the person I've lost or feel I will lose. 
4. If that still doesn't work, I'll sit down and write a poem or a new blog post or a short story. Whatever I think will help me will do just fine.

So, that's what I'm probably going to do if I start to freak out tonight. It would be really helpful if you made a game plan too, if you think you might to start to panic, or even just in case. You can use mine if you want to. Remember that Step 4 is personal for me. I don't mean you can't use it, I'm just saying that it would be better if you chose something that would help you, like maybe vlogging, or reading, watching television or simply listening to some music. Anxiety is a personal thing, and you can deal with it in your own special way.

I know I'm probably only reaching out to one tenth of the population, but I just wanted to let you know that I believe in you and I love you and think you're such a special person. I know this because everybody is beautiful and special and unique and WONDERFUL! So believe that in your life and follow your dreams.

 

 

Lots of Love,

Elizabeth