I know one persistent problem that comes from my history is making wrong, unhealthy choices when I face anxiety. I never had a good roll model as a child - my father was the abuser, so I certainly didn’t get support or a positive role model from him. He was just as abusive to my mother, and she didn’t deal with anxiety all that well either - she suffered a lot of somatic symptoms like chest pain
anic attacks, weeping/sobbing, “functional” depression - she kept very busy but it was often a joyless life.
I wish I could say I learned something by now - well, I guess I have, because I’m a lot better at identifying sources of my anxiety, analyzing and evaluating the threat level in reality versus my perceptions - but I still fall apart if the fear is too strong, and then I revert back to self-harmful behaviors. I guess what pushes me over the edge is when anxiety overwhelms my reason and I get the feeling of hopelessness again. I did that again this past week - I’d been in a good mood, good place mentally, and working towards some goals and making progress. A couple of things in my life didn’t go well. Then, an altercation with a close family member over long-standing unresolved issues pushed me over the edge. In a few days, I managed to go from a good place to a bad, self-harming place with the old familiar feelings of “my life is hopeless”, “all I’ll ever do is be abused and suffer” and “I should just kill myself”.
It really isn’t as dire as all that. It just feels that way when logical, rational thought flees the scene and negative, bleak emotional patterns take over. When I was a kid, living with an abusive, bullying, violently explosive tyrant, life really was bleak. My reality has changed a lot, but as everyone with PTSD knows, it only takes exposure to an event or situation that is superficialy reminiscent of a past bad one to push us over the edge into a full-blown, too-familiar, and overly-exagerated response pattern. With me this last week, it was back to the binge-and-purge thing, and my mind is pulling out of it a bit now, but my body is still suffering because of cycle of abuse I put ir through. Not to mention the frustration, shame and guilt I feel for fucking up my prior winning streaj
The important question is “how to control anxiety in a way that isn’t self-harming or unhealthy?” I think we all know the kind of things that psychology says, like mental diversion, seek out support, substitute healthier responses and coping mechanisms. Alas, all easier said than done.
