phobiairaqlove

phobiairaqlove

Friday 18 March 2011

Chapter 12: Q & A

I decided to insert this blog to invite readers to ask questions or make comments, in a discreet manner, about anything they have read in this blog.

I am obviously not a trained counselor or qualified psychologist and I do not profess to be, but I do know that I thought through a method which when applied to my situation worked, and freed me of my condition which is now becoming just a distant memory.

If you would like to ask a question or need clarification on anything you have read then feel free to contact me at richmondpd@hotmail.com 

I'll do my best to answer.


Dear         ,

Yes, I should stress that I am in no way a professional and that the intention of my blog is mainly to reassure people that phobia/anxiety can be overcome and to provide an example of how your life can change afterwards once you’re free of your ailment. I tried to solve my problem myself and it took almost twenty years so I’m hoping that my blog will help people solve their problems quicker and not waste precious time. Believe me; you are not young for long.

So what I am providing to you below is purely my thoughts and my techniques which I used to heal myself. I realise everyone’s situation is different and what worked for me may not suit other people. They may not be conventionally/institutionally correct thoughts and techniques but they have worked for me and hopefully you might get something out of the information which can help you as well.

To start with I want to convey some information which helped me diffuse the importance of the phobia/anxiety and then I’ll tell you what I did to bring the problem to an end.

Firstly your brain is always changing from birth till death. I read a book recently called “The Brain that Changes Itself": Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science. It is a book on neuroplasticity by psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Norman Doidge, M.D. He says that your neurons etc. are continually connecting or disconnecting (or whatever they do) depending on what activities you are engaged in at the time, ie. study, work, retirement etc. That is why it is important to keep your mind active as you grow older because like muscles if you don’t use it you’ll lose it. So I believe that you can change your brain to rid yourself of the phobia. All you are doing is disconnecting the brain’s link between fear and a social situation, which of course is an unrealistic fear situation.

Second thing is we as Homo Sapiens use the “fright and flight” principle to survive. And our brains were conditioned for this even having a short cut where you run away from a fearful situation before even knowing what the source of the fear is. This was particularly important for cave men but as our society changed to todays “safer” world with modern medicine etc. this survival mechanism is not as critical. However, our brains have not had time to evolve to our new “modern world” situation. But what it means is that we are more susceptible to our brains linking with a fear situation which is not actually a threat to our life. I think that empathetic people are susceptible to phobias but that is just my idea.

So what needs to be done is get our brain to break this connection it has with a perceived/unrealistic fear situation.

Also I found it useful to know what caused my phobia. What conditions prevailed in my childhood that resulted in a phobia surfacing in my late teens. For me it also helped dilute the importance of it. If you can do this it might be useful, but it is up to you.

Also, I discovered that the brain sets off a set pattern of events when you are in this fear situation. The chemicals (or whatever) which are put into your system by the brain (to make us prepare for flight) when confronted with a fear situation are the same each and every time it happens, like pressing a key on your keyboard on the computer. The same sequence of events happens whether today, tomorrow or the day after. There are no surprises here as the brain will not do anything different or surprising, only what it is conditioned to do to prepare your body to cope with what it perceives as the “fear” situation which you are in. So I began to see what the worst that can happen is, and that really the worst is not actually that bad.

Realising all this as well as discovering that the phobia loses its strength/power when I had a few drinks I could see that there was a chance to beat it.

So I decided to instead of trying to fight against and resist the feelings that my body was throwing up at me I decide to go the other way and completely relax and actually beckon the feelings to come. As though the phobia was an enemy which I could talk to. I actually said in my head, “come on do the worst that you can do,” all the time consciously forcing every part of my body to relax. I knew that there was only so much my body could do. When the feeling subsided for a moment I would say to myself, “Is that the best you can do, come on do more” The feeling came again but was weaker. So I would mock it and say, “Come on, you can do better.” I still kept forcing my body to relax and to my surprise the feelings became less until they finally went away. I did all this while sitting at a table eating and talking with friends. They had no idea the internal war that was going on in my head. That is what made me realise how amazing our brains are. They are capable of healing themselves.

This “speaking” to the phobia or to my body’s feelings may sound silly but I was desperate enough to try anything and I despised the fact that this phenomenon had such control over me so it really was like speaking to an enemy. Anyway it worked for me.

Having got through that first ordeal with a victory I tried again at another social occasion and it worked again but this time without the intensity. I was weakening the connection my brain had with the fear.

Since then I’ve pretty much had no more trouble. Sometimes, although very rarely, I still get a very mild feeling of unease in a social situation but I just remember my technique and it very quickly goes away. It certainly doesn't control my life anymore.

I hope you can get something out of this. I don’t know your situation of course but you will know what you can take from what I have said above, about my situation, to apply to your circumstances.

If you have any further questions or queries don’t hesitate to get back to me.

Good luck.
 
Regards,

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