Sunday, May 27, 2007

Getting to Know My Anxiety


I've been living with anxiety for as long as I can remember, so I've naturally just assumed that I am an anxious person. Certainly, there is the neurochemical element that can't be ignored. But during last night's (or was it this morning's?) bout with insomnia, I decided to use the time to take a deeper look at my assumptions using some techniques from narrative psychology.

What I discovered is that I am not always anxious. This isn't my natural state. (OK, obviously, as a Buddhist, that should just be a given, but when I am experiencing anxiety, it feels as though it IS my natural state.)

It turns out that I only experience anxiety in situations where I feel as though I have no control. I've long known that I have control issues, that I need to be better than, smarter than, more prepared than anyone else to feel as though I am in control of every situation. It made me a good student, a good athlete, a good employee, and a good trainer. And it has made me miserable.

Just yesterday I told someone else that control is an illusion, that we never really have control over anything. And I know this is true. But I have a subpersonality who doesn't know that, who needs to be in control at all times, and when he isn't, he triggers anxiety to let me know that he feels out of control.

I had never really considered my anxiety the result of a subpersonality, but it makes sense. Subpersonalities develop mostly when we are young children as a way to help us cope with difficult situations or traumas. I think that some subpersonalities can also develop as introjections of parental traits. In my case, I had a very anxious mother who was also often distant when she wasn't smothering me. I likely internalized her anxiety as a coping mechanism for her absence, especially after my sister came into our lives and I was no longer the "chosen one."

Certainly, too, my father's unpredictable behavior and general absence (and then his death) created in me a need to try to control everything so that when he was present, I could know what to expect (as much as that is ever possible). When he died (I was thirteen), I did have to control everything because my mother couldn't do anything (literally). So I learned even more that being in control was the only to save what was left of my family, to keep myself fed and housed, and to ever get out of that unbearable situation. Thirteen is way too young for a boy to be running a family.

This need to control is a common strategy in children who are seriously abused. They learn to control their environment and predict the abuser's behavior as much as they can to limit the abuse. These children grow up with a need to control everything in their lives, and when they can't, they get anxious, they panic, or they become depressed (or all of the above).

But the crucial thing to recognize (and here I am talking to myself as much as anything) is that this need to control is not who we really are at our core. We are so much bigger than that. It's a coping strategy, a subpersonality that gets triggered and takes over whenever we feel we are out of control, or that events are out of our control.

For me, of late, it has been that I am in a situation where I cannot control the outcome -- and I am very attached to the outcome. I've tried working with the attachment in various ways, but love is a powerful motivator.

So my new approach is try to work with this "new" subpersonality that so much needs to be in control. The times in my life when I overcame my most serious anxiety attacks (all of which revolve around loss -- my father, my mother and sister, and various relationships), should be very instructive in how to work with the present situation.

And, as a faithful reader suggested to me this morning (thanks!), I am going to do more breath work when I am unable to sleep rather than just feeling frustrated and even more anxious because I can't sleep.

I don't know if any of this will work, and in some ways I am giving in to my Control Freak in even trying to control this situation. My last therapist used to always get on my case about having to "try" all the time instead of just letting things be. She was concerned that my Pusher subpersonality was always making me "do" instead of just allowing myself to "be."

Still, right now it seems that the only way to appease the Control Freak is to find a way to meet its needs. We'll see how well that works.


7 comments:

Dr. Doris Jeanette said...

I never met anyone who did not have a control freak inside of them.

Your controller comes out when you are scared of something and do not deal directly with the real fear. Instead of dealing with the real issue you avoid the person, situation or event. Avoidance behaviors create major mental health, emotional health and physical health problems.

When you avoid your real fear, it naturally gains energy and becomes bigger than life ---as in ANXIETY! Anxiety can chase the rest of you out of town. Anxiety attacks and panic attacks happen when you are not paying attention to your real self, real feelings and real needs.

The only energy which is bigger than life is out of control, racing thoughts. For more about the nature of fear and why you need it and anxiety and why you do not need it read http:www.drjeanette.com/anxiety.html

william harryman said...

Thanks for stopping by my little blog, Dr. Jeanette. I appreciate your input.

As far as control freaks go, I think what you say is true, but partial. There are control freaks, and then there are pathological control freaks. I am the latter.

But what you say about anxiety is true as far as I can tell. I know that what the root fear is -- that I am unworthy of love and happiness.

When I have a chance at being loved and happy, and then it is taken away, that fear gets triggered.

I think you are correct -- I need to deal with the root fear as a way of dealing with the anxiety.

Thanks again,
Bill

Anonymous said...

Is the kind of "attachment to the outcome" from which you're suffering truly LOVE?

william harryman said...

Yes, it is. I am so amazingly in love with her that it scares me, I have never felt this for anyone else before.

The thing that blows my mind is that when I am with her, my self falls away and I have access to unconditional love. Part of that is within me, of course, something that I always have access to. But part of it is her, the feelings I have for her, that fact that her happiness in more important to me than my own.

So, yes, it is LOVE.

My attachment to the outcome is that I want so much to be with her -- to experience the kind of love I feel with her for the rest of my life.

She is the first person I have ever known in my life who inspires in me a kind of selfless love -- but whose company and presence I enjoy so much that it makes me giddy.

Yeah, it's LOVE.

Peace,
Bill

Lycas7x said...

I think I know why I'm avoiding the anxiety now. I struggle with the side effects, grooming and meals. Motives and motivation and feed the cats... and my landlord mad me throw everybody out that I was enabling.

I will come out further ahead. I know this. My Dads coming to visit and the cut my ssi and my food stamp award. I did a debt consolidation. It mast have been motivated by anxiety or avoidance of a bad outcome. AA is good.

Anonymous said...

William,
i really like your blog.
Have you ever read John Ruskans wonderful book "Emotional Clearing"? (based alot on Buddhist philosophy)
Ruskan is a creative artist/musician and therapist who really went through hell during the early 1980s.
He was hooked on pleasure seeking,perfectionism & dependant relationships even though he'd been "practicing' meditation for decades.(since the 1960s)
John says that there's a basic duality in life and that happiness is just a mirage..or at least, balanced with UN-happiness.
Both have to be integrated/accepted.
He says whenever he looked for happiness within relationships he always was left unfulfilled.
Thank you for your blog.

Anonymous said...

Gratitude for this blog post. I have long been in denial that I have any kind of anxiety - you had me at 'insomnia.' As many of your childhood situations are similar to mine it rang true loud and clear. And yes LOL I need to "do" something about it, because "not doing" anything about it is not working, it never has ;-) Thanks for sharing, and good luck.