AnxietySupportNetwork.com

November 8, 2009

Well, I have really hit a good clearing in anxiety. Everything is moving along and going well and I have no huge areas of stress. I have things that I have to get done for work and whatnot, and the same for school, but nothing is overly stressful and the like, so that is a very good thing. My wife and I are doing well, probably due in part to the stress relief; I am not so grouchy at her and am more pleasant and fun to be around. Qutting my job, though scary at first, was the right thing to do, and now I have plenty of time at work and school to get done what needs to be done, and without most of the anxiety that I was experiencing before. Be fearless and thorough from the very start, and things will be okay is what I am learning.

November 10, 2009

Well, life has been getting better, but it is not without its struggles lately. The main struggle that I am facing is that I am losing motivation and burning out in school. It's so boring and I am not learning anything particularly shocking. I mean I could learn all the stuff I am learning in the course of a semester in a couple weeks on the job! That's the frustrating part, and there is hours and hours of writing and other silly work to do. I am ready to get out there and get doing good for people. But, that's just part of life and all I can do is work with it. So, what I do is do my homework as fast as possible and get done with it while still doing a decent job and then I do the things that I want to do. I go for a run, talk to my wife, or do other things that help me to refresh and renew and I would encourage those who find themselves in a similar place in life to do the same.

November 12, 2009

Well, marriage has been a struggle lately. I am going to leave it there because I want to keep the nature of our relations confidential, but suffice it to say that we are struggling. I have confidence that we will work through it though. The main thing on my mind is that I have learned that what sets me on fire is being a social entrepreneur. I have no doubt in my mind that is the right thing for me to do. My first crack at becoming a social entrepreneur is this website, and I believe that it will succeed in time. I have a great vision of what it could become; the definitive resource for people with social anxiety. I believe that it will work and that it can work. I am just working on creating the business model behind it, and nothing is going to dissuade me from it. What set me on fire is that I saw another social entrepreneur speak, Robbert Egger, who created the D.C. Central Kitchen. He had a great idea and took it quite far and helped a ton of people with it. I believe that I can do that as well, but with social anxiety. So, please continue coming back and telling everyone you know about this site because I have dozens of ideas that will help people to recover from social anxiety! Everyone can do it - all they need is the knowhow!

November 14, 2009

Well, things are moving along very smoothly since I decided to quit the job I did not like. I am getting decent hours at my old job, and I feel as though I am back home again. There is no stress and everything is going well once again, which is a wonderful feeling. I always go with what my gut says and this was certainly another good decision in that regard! Everything around me is improving as well. My wife and I are getting along better, which is a good thing. School is going fine too, and I really do not have very significant anxiety anywhere in my life at this point. Social interactions can still be a bit awkward or scary at times, but for the most part they go well and are not all that anxiety-invoking. So, that is a good thing. Now I can concentrate more on everything else around me - my wife first, this website second, and school in a distant third. Hey, get your priorities straight - right? LOL! I'm actually doing the right thing by putting school in third because it has little to do with what I'm doing professionally, and there's really no point in being there other than to receive an MSW! The hoops we have to jump through to get anywhere these days! I'm still doing fine in terms of grades at school, but I put much less effort forth and I receive lower grades because of that, which is fine by me. Right now, that is all I know.

November 16, 2009

Well, yesterday I finally saw one of my wife's panic attacks for the first time. We went to the ER for some pain that she gets so she could get some relief; this was routine and not really scary at all. However, once there, she got a panic attack. First, her eyes rolled back in her head. Then she began choking and claiming that she couldn't breathe. I say claiming because she felt like she couldn't, but the machine monitoring her oxygen levels showed no changes in oxygen accessing her lungs. Then, after choking, she began to have muscle spams, which were so violent that they lifted her body six to eight inches off the bed, kind of like how you see people whose chests heave when hooked up to a defribillator in movies. After choking and spasming for a while, she even went unconscious briefly. The first minute or so that I saw was quite scary, however, once I kept looking at the machine monitoring her vitals and noticed her vitals were all staying constant, I realized that this was a panic attack and that all we had to do was ride it out. It lasted about twenty minutes, and then she was more or less fine again after that. It was good experience to have though because I'm sure she'll have one again, and now I know how to handle it should it come up. I really give a lot of credit to all those who struggle with panic attacks!

December 12, 2009

Well, my good friend who also has a site on this hosting account accidentally erased his own website and mine as well. He actually made a pretty decent income from his, while mine was mostly just time spent. So, that allowed for a site redesign, and I would be curious to know what others think of it. I like it much more than the previous one. It is also more functional than the previous design, as it works with a more broad range of browsers. This made me somewhat anxious. The thing that is really making me anxious about this whole thing is that what if I put in hundreds and thousands of hours on this website, only to see it fail and not become what I had hoped? Then I would have wasted much time that I could have been doing something else, and I would feel terrible for doing so. The other main anxiety thing on my mind at this point is that I am playing basketball with a team in an adult men's league. The team is composed of young inner city adults, and the coach there is expecting me to be a leader. I guess I feel like I have to be the whole team in this respect and do everything, and I really did not perform even close to my expectations this past weekend. It was very disappointing and difficult to deal with. I felt like a catastrophic failure and like I had let everyone around me down. I guess that all I can do is my best, and if that is not up to everyone else's and my expectations, then that is simply the way that things are meant to be. That's disappointing I guess, but not the end of the world. It's just very hard for me when I don't perform up to the standard that I expect. Right now, this is all I know.

I have felt like this about life in general. But counsellors have told me that i have to be persistent and to not give up. I worry that things wont work out even if i try.

Maybe everything will go to plan over time. We can only hope, and wait and see. This is just like my anxiety problems, we can do everything we possibly can, but in the end it seems we also need some things to go right (people being interested etc).

That's kind of what I keep telling myself. I think that I can find some way to make this thing really effective, however, it is going to rely on trial-and-error and help from key people because I am not sure that I can do this on my own. But, if I keep at it, stop doing what is not working, keep doing what is working, and just never give up, I think this thing will turn out.

December 13, 2009

Well, I am learning lots of new stuff about anxiety. One thing that I am learning is more and more about the anxiety I have experienced while playing basketball. In any type of performance situation where I am expected to perform in front of at least a small group, I have some level of anxiety. I rarely, if ever, feel relaxed in that respect. What I have learned over the the years and just realized now is its level of impact in my life. Not only does it make it hard to shoot the ball because of physiological symptoms (weakness in my arms/knees), it also makes my mind swirl. This explains why I didn't shoot so much in the past; my mind was so caught up in the belief that I would make the wrong decision or might make the wrong decision that I never actually had time to make a real decision. For example, if someone was coming at me to block my shot, I would instinctively put the ball on the floor and drive instead of shoot, even though I might have been open. There are hundreds of other little ways it affects me as well, but this was the primary one. I went through tons and tons of disappointment, and still did even recently because I know that I can do better. If I were relaxed, confidence, and got beat, that's okay. However, this anxiety severely impedes my brain and its functioning and that is frustrating because i know that I can do much better with. I am still learning about this, just like everyone is learning about their anxiety.

December 14, 2009

Finding balance in life results in the least amount of anxiety of all. Like most, if not all, people I had to learn this the hard way. When I find balance, like I did today, I feel very little anxiety, and sometimes no anxiety at all. Balance is very difficult to find, however, everyone can find it. And, what it takes for a person to remain balanced can vary. For me, I have found that talking to friends about what things are bothering me, talking to my wife, and journaling about 20 minutes per day help me to find balance. How do I know that I am balanced? I have a very peaceful, calm, and focused inner feeling. Everything I do ends up working out well, and there is nothing that I can do wrong. I am very present to what is happening and am reacting to it in a way that is beneficial for others and myself. When I am not balanced, I am doing too much and have too much going on around me. I feel hurried. I feel more mechanical and like I am doing things to get through them, rather than to become fulfilled and grow as a person because of them. It's a little different for everyone I think, but it's the way that I experience balance, and I would not trade it for anything. Keep working on finding balance in your life and be sure to ask me if you need help!