First off…. asking for help isn’t a sign of weakness nor does it mean that you will definitely exacerbate the issue with anxiety. This isn’t to say ditch every notion of acceptance all together…. but more to say ‘be patient with yourself even in your weakness’. When none of these sleep techniques worked for me, I then looked to find my own answers on how this had become such a problem and why I could not seem to overcome it. The first thing I realised was that all these techniques to help me sleep were making more of an issue out of it, which was only hindering me further. So my brain is constantly on high alert (it feels like this) and I cannot stop thinking about this feelings of ‘uncertainty’ – a feeling like something bad is about to happen! It keeps me really away of normal living.. I really try to accept and not overthink about this but at the end I find myself doing so.. And this feelings of dread and dizzyness/ foggy feeling in my head – or this lightness in my legs – somehow convince my brain that there is something wrong with me , and really I feel all the time this ‘feeling that there is something bad about to happen with me’.. Ruby here is an article on mental exhaustion that you mention https://anxietynomore.co.uk/anxiety-mental-exhaustion/

Most people can get a real sense of what I am saying here and deep down they know this is what they need to do. But for many it can feel scary to just let go and give up all control as they feel something terrible will happen. When in truth is you only regain control when you give all control up. It now made sense to me why I suffered the way I did and how I was responsible for the majority of it. I had created so much of my own suffering by obsessively trying to escape it, and so it made no sense to stay on this path.

Go out and live your life as you usually would, don’t let how you feel stop you. If you want normal feelings to resurface, then you have to live the life you normally would. The goal is to rejoin life, not spend all your time constantly obsessing about how you feel or what you need to do to get better. Ironically when I gave up this ‘Solving compulsion’ I found that more answers, more insights and understanding came to me naturally, without me having to look for them. I’ve felt a little change yesterday when I was remembering the amount of suffering I go through on a daily basis in just regular situations that I have no reason to be resisting so hard and painfully; experiences where I am safe because I am with family or people who are kind and have no clue what is going on inside but would feel very compassionate if they knew.

Elle, I said that mainly so people wouldn’t start thinking, ‘well my life did make me suffer’ as deeper painful memories are not what the post was about. If you don’t care and have let it go then that’s great, no extra work is needed, others may need to talk through and process their feelings, whatever works best for them. Acceptance is not an immediate stain remover – in the sense that as soon as you have finally got the right understanding of it in place then all of the pain will just drip off of you. That doesn’t happen.He said when he first arrived home, he would argue with everyone around him, snap at his partner and children. He wouldn’t accept any help and started drinking heavily. He felt immense frustration and anger due to his situation and what life had thrown at him and fell into a deep depression. Alz, I have a suggestion. It’s not the actual thought that is scaring you because you already know that it is only because you have anxious energy in your body that that thought is in your head. If you had no anxious energy in your body then that thought wouldn’t even be there. Instead, its the fact that the thought keeps popping into your head and you feel like you have no control over that, I feel like that is the bit that is freaking you out – The fact that it keeps intruding. With that intrusion you feel weirded out because the thought has negative connotations but because the thought feels powerful it evokes a fearful reaction in you. I feel, that if you were to lose the fear response when the thought appears then you would be able to just see it as an anxious thought. I remember having DP for a long period of time and suddenly, through no effort or will of my own a thought flashed, it was not a conscious thought – it is hard to describe but it was as if suddenly I felt that I did not have any resistance to the DP, I almost liked it (I know that sounds really strange) I can remember everything lifting, and yet it was a ‘non event’ . All I can say is that these feelings go. It does take courage, and I am not always the best at that but the more you just get on with life, as tough as it is the less attention is given to the latest ‘symptom’ . We so want to get rid of these feelings that they take front of stage and we end up getting roped into the whole fight again. Make plans , take steps forward and slowly – have faith, this will shift .