Getting To The Root Of Anxiety!
Roots of Anxiety
Let me start with: Mental illness can be caused by child abuse, stress or trauma. Let's face it readers, 'shell shock' now renamed PTSD- Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, is what we use to call what happens to many veterans who come home from war and were shocked/traumatized by the killing and war. And this is how their body deal with it. In order to survive (and not die) our body adapts, or "deals with it" resulting in depression, anxiety, etc.
Talk Therapy
I believe everyone who has "issues or things" to work out should see a good therapist, for talking. I have done this for 18 years but lately have seen some interesting results. (I've always had results...but these are the latest. This isn't to say that my current therapist is better than ones I've had before, I think I was ready.
ANGER
Anger is often a result that can surface from talking about childhood abuse. Thinking on the past can bring up a lot, but there's really no other way to heal. Burying your emotions will only hurt you and if it's really extreme, you can reveal a little at a time. [I just learned also that medication can cause anger :(
Some need to be in control as a result of stress or upbringing. This is very common. I need to be or feel in control most of the time because I grew up in a chaotic environment and I felt things were out of control back then and it made me feel often unsafe or scared with the yelling, fighting, being in uncomfortable situations for long periods of time...I grew up in fear of my father who was like a tyrant so I react now by trying to be in control--probably why I'm a neat freak- I can control my environment.
What does abuse do?
I am here to tell you that abuse--emotional even, can cause depression, anxiety, and bipolar (if you are predisposed (likely) to get it from genes; abuse will aggravate it or set it off early.) This predisposed illness recently came out in Catherine Zeta Jones, who had the potential for it, and being under severe stress with her husband being very ill as well as other things, she became bipolar and was hospitalized for 5 days to get it under control. Thankfully she is fine now and is doing well. Sometimes it's just a little bit of help we need and we can feel ourselves again. Stress is a killer in many ways, if you think about heart attacks and high blood pressure.
Bipolar
By becoming bipolar...it forced me and my body, to be able to stick up for myself unlike before because I could not take the yelling and abuse anymore. I became a force to be reckoned with!! I became my own and other people's Advocate. This agressive way of protecting myself and others developed into assertiveness over the years.
Good Therapies
There are many good therapies besides having a licensed psychologist or therapist who knows how to use tools to help you get over anxiety. For example, other than just listening to you vent, a good therapist will ask you how you felt when those stressful childhood events happened, and what would you say to comfort yourself? Techniques like that, of getting to the root can be very helpful.
Also, CBT- Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, is a class originally developed for people with personality disorder, but often used for everyone, which teaches mindfulness which is staying in the moment, not wandering off all the time, but focusing on what's here and now.
This and other therapies such as self hypnosis, The Midwest Center For Anxiety and Depression, and "Battlefield of the Mind" a book by Joyce Meyer- famous Christian speaker are just a few examples of the good therapies out there that you can try with or without medication. Also for many, a good prayer and bible reading works wonders.
