Overwhelmed with unexplained anxiety

January 16th, 2009 | Leave a comment »
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The other day, I became overwhelmed with unexplained anxiety. “Where could it be coming from?” I thought. “I’m not worried about anything specific. There’s no imminent threat or other reason for the “fight or flight” reflex. What could be causing this?” I thought. Soon I remembered one of my earliest lessons: the “fight or flight” response does not occur without reason. There must be some form of trigger to this anxiety. What’s the only trigger I had ever experienced that had ever been able to completely hide its face? Cognitive distortions. As soon as I began paying attention I noticed, “should” statements, magnifications, and “black-and-white” thinking flying left and right. Somehow I had come to think that I had moved passed cognitive distortions. I stopped noticing them, and so just figured I had become so adept at correcting for them that it was almost automatic. How wrong I was. Distortions have always proved a hidden saboteur on the mission to managing anxiety.
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Steady progress

January 11th, 2009 | Leave a comment »
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I began therapy with Dr. Yip at the end of July 2008 and have been making steady progress ever since. A few months before starting non-intensive cognitive behavior therapy sessions I had failed to complete an undergraduate class at UCLA for the second consecutive quarter and knew that I could no longer hold off taking a significantly more aggressive approach to battling my hoarding form of obsessive-compulsive disorder. Thus far, I have come to believe that I am capable of making strides I never imagined I could make before the summer of 2008, and am currently progressing in ways that have made my life substantially more livable than it was just a few months ago. I don’t know that the future holds, but I’m not afraid to consider the possibilities anymore.

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