Calmer

As someone who suffers from severe anxiety disorder to the point that meeting my husband’s training group had me hiding in the bathroom battling tears…. How can I be a calmer person?

I feel that being a calmer person will help me greatly with my anxiety issues. But how can I be calmer?

I have read countless articles and posts and blogs on how to beat anxiety. Countless of tips and tricks on how to pull you out of an anxiety attack. And I am here to say, they may work for some people. However, they don’t always work for me. My band instructor tried to teach me a breathing technique….it doesn’t always help. When I got into a car accident and I was hyperventilating…the EMT told me I was having a panic attack (duh) And that I needed to calm my breathing down. It didn’t matter that I knew my body and knew that if I tried to breathe like they wanted me too my heart rate and BP would go up as well as I would get light headed. But because they were the EMT and thought they knew my body and my disease better than me…

I did what they said.

And just how I predicted…. My heart rate went from 92 to 120 and my BP started rising fast. Finally, they told me I could go back to doing what I was doing. I think it is a coping mechanism until my brain can wrap around what had happened. So that I can process things. It is crazy, I know.

Unfortunately….. my anxiety is something I deal with on a daily basis…little things trigger my brain into an instant race car speed crash heading for a big boom that takes so much energy out of me that all I want to do is sleep, in all honestly, I have crashed from anxiety before for 13 hours of straight sleep because my body was just so exhausted from the constant thinking of crud. For instance, a friend said something and I knew he didn’t mean it the way that I took it…but my brain is a funny thing and took it completely the wrong way to the point that I took a steam shower and cried…. it was awful.

So how can I be a calmer person? That is a question that is constantly on my mind. I think that reminding myself that it might not be as bad as I thought could help. I think maybe taking a few seconds to pour the positives on all the situations will help me. For instance, with the friend example I just posted…I could have told myself -he appreciated your help – he said thank you -he said I didn’t need to but he was happy to have me offering….. For my car wreck…..even though my car was totaled and I was in pain…-I walked out of it.. -I was alive…-nothing was broken….-my unborn child (i was newly pregnant during the wreck) was fine. -I was going to be able to replace the car. -both of my brothers stopped everything they were doing and focused on me that day. -they put aside their hate for eachother to check on me. -cars can be replaced.

So to be a calmer person…. I think I need to remind myself of all of the positives that are in a situation. … Your bank account is only showing 3 dollars and you got 4 days til payday…at least your bills are paid. you lost the job that you’ve worked for years…..gives you the motivation to find something else you’re passionate about. Another door opens.

There is so much positive in this world that we sometimes allow the dark clouds to hinder the rainbow. Because as the wonderful Brandon Lee said in the movie The Crow…..”It can’t rain all the time.”