My grab and go anxiety management tools

Disabling- Enabling- Communicating - this month's word prompts. 

Disabling-Anxiety

A bit of stress occasionally might not need too much thought to live with. But what if the stress bursts in suddenly and looks like it won’t leave anytime soon?  How can you keep getting through each day when every day is overwhelming?

Recently we entered a time that seems like it will be one of prolonged stress. 

Cue anxiety. It is hard to focus and breathe. 

It's pretty intense and looks like it might go on for a while. It's been 2 months already. What tools do I have that I can just grab straight away and start using? What has been helping?

Enabling- On Anxiety Management

Exercise

In normal times I wait until I have a good amount of time to go for a bike ride. I need half an hour or more to make it worth it, enough time to ride to the other side of the park.

But with anxiety threatening to overwhelm I've been taking any bits of time I can. Even if it means only 5km, and even if it’s in a hot part of the day. Even a little bit of movement makes a difference.

On intense days it means I can feel it right away. On not-so-intense days I know it’s still important. If I’m exercising regularly anxiety spikes are less fierce.

And I'm riding through trees and past lakes/moats of water so the scenery is beautiful which helps too.

Breathing

What if you could calm your nervous system for free, (almost) anytime and anywhere?

At first, breathing exercises made me dizzy, but now that I know how to do them, it feels like a superpower.

Deep breathing exercises centre your nervous system. In counselling, I learnt triangle breathing and another similar one. Box breathing is another well-known method.

I felt how much I had come to rely on breathing when I found myself in the hospital earlier this year.

After rushing our child to the hospital I started to feel anxiety building up in my body. Time to breathe! But, it didn’t work with a mask on and it wasn't an option to take it off. (It was the pandemic, and we were in the ICU of a children’s hospital in Cambodia. There were at least 10 very sick, very small children in the room.)

In that situation, all I could do was notice how I felt and deal with it later.

However, in our current season, I'm able to use breathing exercises to manage anxiety. 

Other tools that have been helping include:

Sleep, nutrition, guided imagery, and books.

More on how books have helped:

Reading Narnia out loud has given me a chance to focus on a magical fictional world. While reading I’m holding the physical book in my hands and having to articulate each word. My children and I really enjoyed it. We read all 7 Narnia books over the last few months. Coincidently we just started before this anxiety began. I wrote more about our experience in these 2 posts:
We are deep in Narnia
From the Dawn of Time until the Last Battle.

I was a bit sceptical when I heard about a Christian book on anxiety, was it going to quote "Do not be anxious" at me?

I was proved wrong when I heard the author interviewed on The Pastor's Heart. In fact, the blurb did quote Philippines 4 but in a way that attracted rather than repelled me.

‘Do not be anxious about anything' says the Apostle Paul. But Paul Grimmond says saying that to an anxious person is a bit like telling an ice-cream not to melt in summer.

NB- I haven't actually read this book yet, hoping to one day. It's helping me just by its very existence.  

When the Noise won't stop

A Christian guide to dealing with anxiety 

by Paul Grimmond

Communicating

There is so much hype around the issue that is triggering my anxiety. I don't want to expose myself to unnecessary triggering. I’ve been trying to take in all the relevant information and bypass the rest. Not possible to do it perfectly but a balance to strive for.

I also have to be careful about the time of day I take in information. I know it will stress me out more if it’s later in the day. If there is some big news I need to hear, my husband knows to share it with me at lunchtime rather than in the evening.

 

Thanks for reading. What's on your grab-and-go list? 

Head over here to read what other chronic illness bloggers wrote for these prompts: A Chronic Voice October Linkup

Photo by Jason Leung on Unsplash

Why couldn’t I let go of the past?

 

PC

Before

Why couldn’t I let go of the past?

I tried to get over it by waiting; expecting time would dissolve it.

I tried to get over it by facing it. I re-engaged with places and people. I expected that creating new happy memories would dispel the old unhappy ones.

I tried to get over it by seeing a counselor. Counseling hadn’t seemed helpful before, but what did I have to lose? If only I could get myself to see it was OK, I get back to normal life soon.

---

The Moment

“You probably experienced big T trauma. It changed your brain.”

Trauma? Me? I hadn’t been violently attacked or in an earthquake or war. It was a bizarre left-field thing for me to hear my counselor say. How was it connected to me?

And yet at the same time, it made so much sense. I needed to hear more. It was only a few minutes until our session was going to end. Should I mention to her time is up?

I stayed quiet. My desire to know more obliterated my need to follow the clock.

A dramatic and unfamiliar word. Yet strangely, it made me feel lighter and energized.

My journal from that day just says TRAUMA!!! I was too excited to write anymore.

When you have good news, you can’t help but share it. I ran to tell my husband, and I emailed a few friends.

“I’m traumatized! Yay!”

I wrote about it in our newsletter:

The emotional response doesn’t come from what might happen in the future. (Before I heard the word Trauma I thought my bad feelings were anxiety about the future).

It comes from what already happened in the past. My brain is tricking me into reliving the worst moments. This is why knowing things are safe now does not change my feelings at all.

My Fear response is not listening to my Logic.

The brain acts as if it is happening now, the same as it was then. And it doesn’t exist in the rational part of my brain, which explains why I can’t talk myself out of it. I’m not failing at getting over it, it is not over. It is still happening now.

---

After

I noticed when I felt I was in danger.

I noticed I knew I wasn’t in danger, but I felt I was.

I noticed her and gave her a name. Now I could see her and explain her to other people. Mrs. Logic Blocker (Mrs. LB) is a mean woman in my brain. She sometimes disrupts the communication between Logic and Fear response.

I noticed friends could feel like attackers by using the wrong phrase. They triggered Mrs. LB.

I noticed too, these same friends could care for me in that attack. Instead of trying to calm me down or reason with me, they let my irrational outburst run its course.

I noticed nothing in my anxiety tool kit made any impact on Mrs. LB. It wasn’t that I wasn’t trying hard enough — they were the wrong tools. Awareness of her gave me relief overall, but I still had to ride out hours, days of fear.

I noticed Mrs. LB ran away and hid when I spent time with friends who made me feel protected and known.

These friends let me experience God’s presence through them, rather than quoting Bible verses at me. It felt like they were God’s stunt- doubles, although we usually call them Christian pastors.

Mrs. LB had no power against the safety I felt with them. Time with God’s stunt-doubles can dispel an acute attack and leave me feeling safe for days.

---

Conclusion

The most significant point on my healing journey so far has been calling my issue “trauma”. I didn’t know naming something could be healing.

Finding out my brain was tricking me into feeling scared when I knew I was safe was a big “aha” moment.

Now I call it my trauma response, or Mrs. Logic Blocker. I’m less frustrated with myself now that I know the reason and anxiety tools are impotent.

I thought I had to try harder and I would get over it. Freedom replaces frustration when I notice my feelings of safety and danger.

It is not that I can’t let go of the past, it’s like the past won’t let go of me.

---

Written in July 2021 for the prompt "Defining moment"

What A Sudden Diagnosis Feels Like

 

Image by PublicDomainPictures from Pixabay 

BOOM!

A new diagnosis blew our normal week apart.

There had been a bomb ticking but we didn’t know about it until it went off.

The threat of death suddenly joined us.

This new chronic condition in our family began with a swift diagnosis and treatment. Our other conditions have taken a year or more to work out, but this happened within 24 hours. There was no time for unsolicited medical advice this time around! We are so thankful for the local doctors here in Cambodia who saw the problem and took action.

I can’t quite write about it properly yet even though the situation isn't as acute as a month ago. I’m still tired and adjusting but on the path to long-term management.

This month’s A Chronic Voice linkup seemed like a good way to note down a few things from this season. It is still fresh but I can't yet zoom out and describe the whole picture. Having these 5 words lets me narrow it down: Processing, Relying, Retreating, Cancelling and Reframing.

Processing

Being in hospital with a family member was easier this time around. After being a counseling client for a few years I was more equipped this time. I didn’t know it would be like that so it was a nice surprise. I was noticing feelings as they were happening.

Relying

My husband is my favourite person to go through a traumatic medical transition with. We all rely on him at the moment to get through each day.

A few medical and pastoral friends have generously made themselves available to us. It's not an exaggeration to say they are saving our lives with their specific skill set and relationship to us and others.

Retreating and Cancelling

Since day one we had to cancel pretty much everything.

We haven’t done homeschool since then.

We didn’t say goodbye to a family who moved back to their country, we never got to have that last playdate.

We were getting ready to welcome a family moving back to Cambodia after two years but we also had to pull out of helping them. Hope we can catch up with them later on.

Just to survive I haven’t been really checking email or trying to keep up with friends overseas. I’ve been only messaging friends in Cambodia and family.

The first week we could only think hour by hour and were not aware of anything else other than our health. It was hard even to know what day it was or what we would eat. Our extended family shopped, cooked, looked after children. A few ex-pat friends dropped off food and books. I wore the same clothes for days. I only noticed when a friend dropping off food asked if she could wash our clothes.

I had been going to join a homeschool summit online. And I was in the midst of reading some books and on a roll with blog writing (link to my guest posts). All on pause, hope to return one day. (I guess writing this count as a return to writing?!)

We probably won’t do school or meet up with people too much for another couple of months. Although my husband has started back with some Bible and sports activities but not the other classes. I have taken our children out once to a friend’s house, they had so much fun. But I was so tired to the point of forgetting some medical things for about a day or so after that. It freaked me out.

The shock plus the learning curve and the physical tiredness are all-consuming for now. We’re told it will get easier with time and that this is just how things are for now.

Reframing

Finding others with the same diagnosis often helps, but in our case made me feel more isolated for a time.

Others were either dead or managing it with high-tech stuff we don’t have. So it felt like we were doing something dangerous. It doesn’t feel like that anymore, but when it did reframing helped me. I remembered that what is often good for us as a Cambodian/Aus family is different to what is good for anyone else. We don’t fit neatly into either Cambodian or Australian or ex-pats. So of course we are doing this differently. Our current situation suits us; we are in the best possible place to go through this.

One month down, a few more to go?

Now that the bomb blast has settled, the noise is only a ringing in our ears. The shock is present with us but not overpowering. Much of our old normal is gone, maybe only for a time. Some things we will have to work out a new normal.

Head over to the link-up to see how others used this month’s word prompts.

Looking back at (non) recovery of trauma (graded exposure)

Avoiding it for ages only makes it worse.

Jumping in too far too fast makes it worse too. 

So what to do? 

Graded exposure therapy or desensitization is something I learnt about recently in relation to coping with my PTW (post trauma weirdness). Looking back over the years I can see the times I tried to just get over and rip the Band Aid off probably retraumatized me. And the fact that I've lived with it for so many years also kind of feels like it is getting harder.

So graded exposure makes a lot of sense. Dipping into it in a small way, until that gets comfortable, then moving on to the next step, or the next rung up the ladder. Staying there until that feels comfortable etc etc. Maybe like if you were afraid of dogs so you got a toy dog to play with, and then moved on to playing with a puppy, and eventually you could work your way up to a full grown dog.

For more on this see the 3 books I listed here that have been useful in recent months.  

Five Minute Friday free write. Word prompt: BACK

3 books- related to counselling

I have not read any of these books in their entirety, but they have all been useful in the last few months. (As mentioned here and on this trip.)

The Body Keeps the Score,  (Kolk) chapter 3 helped me to understand in a bit more depth what my counselor explained to me about post trauma. It describes what happens in the brain when a traumatic memory is triggered. Its as if it is actually happening in the present, with the left brain activity decreasing while danger signals are being sent from the amygdala.  (That is my current layman's understanding anyway, feel free to leave a comment if you want to clarify it.)
"Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, one of the world’s foremost experts on trauma, has spent over three decades working with survivors. In The Body Keeps the Score, he uses recent scientific advances to show how trauma literally reshapes both body and brain, compromising sufferers’ capacities for pleasure, engagement, self-control, and trust." (Amazon)



Trauma and Resilience: A handbook,  (Schaefer) section 5 has some ways to manage traumatic stress.

"Are you looking for resources to come alongside people who are suffering
as they serve God? This book brings together theological perspectives;
personal stories; and spiritual, psychological, community, and medical
resources. It is research-based and at the same time practical. This is
a handbook for church and mission leaders, peer supporters, counselors,
those in personnel and member care roles, as well as those who suffer. It is also an excellent resource for training courses about this topic." (Amazon)


The Anxiety and Phobia workbook  (Bourne) has a chapter on graded exposure/desensitization

"...unparalleled, essential resource for people struggling with anxiety and phobias for almost thirty years.

Living with anxiety, panic disorders, or phobias can make you feel like you aren’t in control of your life. If you’re ready to tackle the fears that hold you back, this book is your go-to guide..." 

Is it a holiday? Is it a conference? No, it's a...

It’s not like any other travel I’d organised before. 

It’s not a mission trip to a host country. 

It’s not a visit to a passport country. 

It’s not a holiday. 

It’s not a conference. 

It’s not going away for study.

It's a tailor-made international health trip.

Emails flying between 3 countries. Collecting the correct documents for medical matters and crossing international borders. Trying to write a budget with 3 or 4 different currencies. Scheduling doctor's appointments not knowing how long it would take to get there from my accommodation, or how I would do that with no local language or knowledge or sense of direction. Trying to choose the cheaper flights that also matched up with when counsellors and guesthouse beds would be available...   

It felt like such a hassle to have to organise it, and it was annoying that we would all need to put our lives on hold for the duration. Going away cost so much money and I needed many people’s help to make it happen. If only I didn’t live somewhere without these services, there would be no need for a trip like this. I could just slot it into our normal everyday activities.

These were my thoughts as I prepared to have our babies overseas, and more recently as I got ready for two weeks of counselling and medical appointments in a country we have no connections to.  I resented having to travel for fairly run-of-the-mill health events. 

So what was this trip like?

It was a little like a holiday, in that I was in a relaxing environment away from normal life. 

And a little like a conference in that I learnt a lot of exciting things that I’m eager to take back to my real life. 

I was in a country that was neither my passport country nor host country. Daily activities included catching taxis from my accommodation to meetings. They weren’t big group meeting though, rather individual counselling sessions or doctor’s appointments. It was great to finally be able to investigate the mental and physical health issues I had been trying to work on over the last six months.

And the accommodation wasn’t just a place to sleep. It’s a little like a guesthouse, but specifically for cross-cultural workers. People often stay and rest when they visit the town for a holiday, health care, between conferences and while in transition between countries. 

This means I was instantly part of a community of others who have similar (but very different) life experiences and who are also there for counselling, or having babies and a variety of other reasons. Joining feels so easy and enjoyable; it makes the whole experience of a health trip even more valuable. I don’t know how to describe just how amazing it is to be briefly immersed in relationships that start and end quickly but with a connection that feels so unique and deep.

And it means it felt slightly reminiscent of living on Bible college campus, each family or individual has their own place to sleep but we all eat together. Perfect balance of personal space and community life. The big difference being that instead of classes to attend there is a pool, gardens and playgrounds. Other differences are that people often arrive and depart via the international airport, and stays are usually measured in weeks rather than years. 

It also means that I could really focus on my health as food and laundry is all taken care of onsite. Counselling and getting blood tests results back is exhausting, so I didn’t have energy for much else.  The only “housework” I needed to do while there was collect drinking water from the dining room, and drop my clothes off at the laundry.

Being away from both my passport and host country meant that I was free from any distractions and obligations. I could use all my brain space and energy on the specific things I needed help with.  Instead of resenting that I had to travel for health care, I’m actually really glad now. It worked really well. I feel like it was more helpful doing it like this than doing things from home, slotted in around normal life.

I remember the same feeling when we were away to have our first baby. It had been so hard to get there, and I was annoyed I couldn’t just do things from home like pregnant friends in my passport country. But when we were there, it felt so beneficial to have that family time away while going through such a big transition.

Yes, it was expensive, time consuming, and I needed a lot of help to make it happen; especially from my poor husband who basically had to put things on hold for a couple of weeks. But it turned out to be really effective in the ways we were hoping, as well as enjoyable. In fact so enjoyable I almost didn't want to come home!  It's a strange thing to have such meaningful memories in a country we aren't connected to in any other way. 

My clean laundry waiting for me! Boring photo but exciting moment.

I was excited to see Velvet Ashes this week is all about TRAVEL. I wanted some way to remember this whole experience of a two week counselling intensive while staying in a missionary retreat, so this blog post is what I came up with. 

I enjoyed being driven around by drivers who know where to go, on smooth roads, in closed vehicles with suspension. 

Photo by Owen Beard on Unsplash