I'd like to share a story of hardship that will best help me explain "You Are What You Think". Having been with my wife for almost nine years and married for six years I was torn to pieces to find out one night that she had left me for someone else when asked why she told me she waited for me for four years to get help for my panic attack and Agoraphobia with not one complaint and this combined with other factors 1. I have been cheated on by love one in my life. 2. I'm now all alone 3. Betrayal and many other factors really took a toll on me. We work things out and she came back after only a small time apart. It was one of those deciding factors in me getting better. I had a lot of issues with trust and thoughts of what she have done when she was away. I started to become jealous and I didn't want her to leave home because I was scared she wouldn't come back.
You may be wondering what does this have to do with anxiety or agoraphobia? Well this really beat me up and I was full of negativity until one day I realized an old saying I learned in school from a motivational speaker "you can either get bitter or you can get better" I was jealous because I chose to get jealous. I was sad because I chose to be said. Were there issues? Sure, but I either had to change my perceptions or change what's going on. Hurt is the body trying to tell you something. You need to take your thoughts and look at them realistically.
If you feel like you'll never get over being agoraphobic than this is possible because this is how you choose to take your body telling you it's sad because not being able to go out and have a social life or being unable to work. What if you change your perception and when that feeling came along you did something about it. Let's say that thought came along and you said "what can I do to get out and do what I have to do to make this possible?" "I will not let this beat me!" Your agoraphobia wouldn't last more than a day or two or probably wouldn't even happen at all because you'd be able to make this decision from the start. You truly are what you think because how you handle your thoughts and reactions to your thoughts affect your mood, your thoughts themselves and in return affects everything around you.
I choose not to let these things bother me anymore so when I was washing dishes if I had a bad thought come along about my wife leaving me I would think to myself I'm not worried about it. This isn't denial because like I said earlier you need either change your perception of the situation or change in my case chose voice my concerns to my wife telling her this will take a while to gain back trust but to bear with me if I came off jealous and she understood. Once we talked about a few times I felt confident in her and I haven't felt jealous once. Just by expressing to my wife my concern and sitting and talking to her until I felt comfortable with her and the place I was in at the time it was all easier to take in and get over and move on. Once that happened it was easier to let free-flowing thoughts come in and out of my mind without affecting my day. You can't ignore what's on your mind even if the thoughts go way there'll always come back stronger.
There are no bad feelings even pain there are only reactions to feelings. I'm not saying to pretend or be in denial or fake it, that won't work. The difference in people who have beaten agoraphobia and you are they choose not to let agoraphobia beat them anymore. If you feel as if you never beat agoraphobia you won't. You don't have to get to the point of being sick and tired of being sick and tired before doing something about or agoraphobia. Changing your way of thinking is key in this. If you have scary thoughts identify that that's just what they are.
Tell yourself that's what they are and let them go and move on. Whatever your fears are surrounding anxiety instead of pretending that they don't exist or dwelling on them think of what the real problem is but what you can do to change the perception as-in maybe you're looking at this wrong or maybe it's just all in my head or just me. If it isn't you take steps necessary to change whatever is around you that is making you feel that way because what you're feeling is exactly what you feel. Only you can change how you feel and only you can change how what you think affects you. You can take a bad situation and except its bad and choose not to let that hurt you.
You can also take the feeling of anxiety and except that this worry is irrational and you choose not to let it bother you any longer and now I will face my anxiety and agoraphobia and work through it. Now your perception is changed and you have a new mindset that you understand what's going on and when you feel anxious you choose not to let it hold you back and your new outlook is to face it. You'll slowly start to see that works and you're now reinforcing a new behavior which is ushering out the old behavior and your subconscious will now accept this new behavior as your new outlook. How you think determines how you feel and you give what's around meanings. You give words meanings, you give thoughts meanings, you have your own sets of rules about what crazy and not.
Some people love animals and some people don't, so who's right? It's all what your beliefs are and what feelings you attach to animals in this case. When someone you love says something that hurts you it only hurts because you've chosen to give more weight to what that person says. If a person you hardly knew said the same exact thing you probably wouldn't hurt as much because you choose not to let it bother you so much. Once again you choose what hurts and what doesn't. When your dog dies it may hurt a lot but when your neighbor's dog dies it may not hurt you at all.
A dog is a family member yes but those feelings associate with the dog is only given because you choose to give the dog those feelings. I'm not saying you shouldn't love people or animals but my point is at some point we choose to say we care about the animal or we care about what that person thinks of me. We also choose when not to care about a person. After a breakup we have to choose to go on and stop loving or to continue to love and carry on. What if your dog you love bit your child severely? Some people would make the choice to disown the dog and therefore stop loving it and give it away or worse. We are what give our thoughts and feelings meaning.
Some people when they start getting close to someone push away and get scared by this feeling of love. Some bask in the new found love and look forward to falling in love and love every step of the process of meeting someone and getting close and falling in love. How do you choose to handle your anxiety? Do you run? Do you make excuses? Do you feel like you're in this alone? Do you feel no one understands but you? Do you feel like you are not doing enough or maybe you feel like you are doing all you can. What can you do to change these feelings?
Do you think these feelings would ever change unless you change the way you feel about these questions or doing something about them? This is why most anxiety programs didn't work for me because I didn't listen to the message I thought I was worse than the guy or girl on the program. I thought no one could help. I kept looking for the magic cure. I was looking for something I already knew the answer to. Take your hurt, pain, anger and anxiety and get to the bottom of them. Your thoughts are powerful and I know it's hard to think positively hen you can't step out the door but the simple act of choosing not to let something bother you, what you think will transfer over to how you feel and bring a more positive outlook to the process of facing agoraphobia and Panic Disorder a little more easier.
You tell your mind what to associate what feelings with what. Your mind doesn't tell you who you like or what you like to do. You tell your mind what's scary and what to fear and this is the case of the agoraphobia. You told your mind that going out to whatever setting that sets off your panic is bad and it's trying to protect you when you face it. The only way to change that is to relearn a new positive behavior and this is done by your way of thinking and reinforcing by going out into the world. Just think of wanting to be a fireman, any ordinary person sees a burning house and has serious doubts whether to go inside or not but to a fireman this is second nature.
This is because firemen are trained to constantly face many types of dangers so when the real thing hits they're prepared. If they just signed up for the job and went out to fight fires without training, there would most unfortunately be more deaths. This is what you have to do, look at the world as your fire and you must retrain your mind that this is a job, so to speak to go out into the world and fight this fire. You can't just run in, you have to retrain yourself to go out slowly and surely enough be where you want to be and thankful you did it and all the hard work will pay off. Remember baby steps!
James C Collins is a former sufferer of Panic Disorder with Agoraphobia, Generalized Anxiety Disorder and Major Depression. James' journey with Agoraphobia lead him to pursue his PhD in Psychology, to helps others who suffer from anxiety disorders. For even more information on anxiety disorders be sure to visit his No More Panic Blog
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