Self issues can play a very big role in recovery. Hopefully you may be able to identify how some of these self issues held back and increased people's anxiety and delayed recovery. Much of our work involves educating people about healthy ways to deal with the stresses that come along. Sometimes, we are not aware of how these issues are effecting us on all levels.

For example, this lady had for many years avoided going into the supermarket for fear of having a panic attack. Usually, she sent her husband or daughter in to get the groceries. She felt a great deal of guilt about this but couldn't seem to break the cycle (or wall) that prevented her from going in.

On this day she was in a rush. Many things to do, with so little time to do them all. She parked her car and sent her teenage daughter in to get the necessities. She sat and sat .. waiting not so patiently for her daughter to return. Little did she know that her daughter's latest infatuation was with the boy in the fresh produce section of the supermarket. She had forgotten the time as she chatted and flirted with him. Finally, in a burst of shear anger, the mother got out of the car, slammed the door and marched right into the supermarket, grabbed her shocked daughter and promptly paid for the groceries.

It wasn't until she was back in the car that she realized what she had actually done. One point for anger, zero points for the fear cycle. Needless to say, the thing she feared for so long had not happened--and a huge dent was visibly seen in the cycle of fear.

Extremely Sensitive to Others

Patricia was suffering terribly from the increasing cycles of an Anxiety Disorder. Sometimes she thought it was divine retribution for something she might have done in the past - she basically felt she deserved it. She should be kinder, more giving, more compassionate, more everything. One day her friends turned up with an urgent request. Can we borrow your car, they asked. How could she say no, she wondered. They need it and if I say no I would be so selfish. So the car was theirs to use. A couple of days later the "friends" returned the car. Apparently they had an accident in it. They rear ended another car. These "friends" hadn't even bothered to tell her when it happened. They didn't even bother to tell her when they returned the car.

Nothing like a couple of hundred dollars repair bill to increase the suffering. The story didn't end there. A month or two passed and in the mail came an urgent request to pay a parking ticket. Obviously the "friends" had neglected to mention this also. Patricia thought to herself, "How can I ask them to pay for this? It is my car after all." And so the cycle rolled on.

One noted characteristic of people with an Anxiety Disorder is they are incredibly sensitive individuals. Not that everyone else isn't. Klara was very sensitive to other people's opinions. She was also sensitive to what she said to others. If she spoke to someone on the phone, she was intensely alert to even the inflection in her voice. After a phone call her mind would go over-and-over the whole conversation. What she said, how she said it, whether it was appropriate, whether she had displayed the appropriate emotions.

Usually she would find something she said which might have been misconstrued by the other person. After a huge debate within herself, Klara would end up calling the person back and apologizing for saying "hello" the wrong way, or apologising for something said inappropriately, or for not being sensitive enough to the other person's dilemma. The other person had no idea what she was talking about. They would then try to assuage her fears that she had said anything wrong at all. It went round-and-round in circles. So for every phone call, there would be multiple call backs.

Positive Thinking

Many people think positive thinking is all that's needed to stop the anxiety thoughts. Bob had read a "terrific" book on positive thinking and it made sense to him at the time.

Every morning he awoke to the "same" feelings of overwhelming anxiety but pushed through this to stand in front of the mirror to repeat the positive affirmations. "I am a wonderful person," he recited. "Today will be a good day. I am going to be happy. Today is a new start. Today is the beginning of the rest of my life. I am me and that is just fine."

Having finished this exercise, he stepped into the shower to 'freshen and cleanse' his body and mind. As the water gently cleansed his body, his mind had other ideas. "You know that what you just said was a load of rubbish. You won't be happy. You haven't been for the last few years. It's not going to be a good day. You've got to go to work and you feel lousy."

As every thought passed, he started to feel worse. He tried to combat the negative thoughts with the positive thoughts; but the more he fought, the more power he gave into the negative thoughts. In the end he had an anxiety attack and headed out to work. He repeated this process for months, never giving up because he had faith in positive thinking. In the end he realized that positive thinking wasn't for him and started learning the technique of just letting his thoughts go - regardless.

Recovery

We often say in the recovery process that a "setback" is inevitable. Many times we will ask: "Are you meditating?" or "Are you working with your thinking?" The other question we ask is: "What is happening in your life right now?"

Such was the case for a young lady who was perplexed by her current setback. She was meditating and she was, she thought, working with her thinking. So what was happening in her life. "Oh nothing," she replied. "Everything is fine, nothing that I shouldn't be able to handle."

After a little talking, she disclosed her husband was just about to lose his job with no new source of income on the horizon. She couldn't work because she was in her recovery process but her husband didn't seem to understand this. They already lived on a tight budget and they had missed a few home mortgage payments, so the bank was "breathing down their necks". Her teenage son had recently discovered his rebellious streak and was in trouble with the police and her youngest daughter had contracted some strange virus. "Nothing really happening" she finished off, "I should be able to handle it."

There are not even many super heroes I know of that could handle this load of stress. She couldn't see it initially, but after some talking her fears and worry surfaced. This was the cause of the setback. Sometimes we are blind even to our own feelings.