By Diana Holbourn
Becky Gives Lectures at her Old University About Overcoming Anxiety Problems
Book eight of the online Becky Bexley series. Continued.
This series accompanies the books about what Becky does at university and afterwards, which you can find out more about on my author website. (The online series is in draft form.)
Becky went round to see her auntie Diana a few days before she gave her next lecture. It was pouring with rain. She said, "I hope it's not raining the day of my lecture! Apart from the fact that I won't enjoy going out in it, it might put people off coming to it!"
Diana said, "Yes, hopefully it'll be sunny, ... although maybe that won't be so good either, since it might mean lots of people would prefer to be out in the sun than going to it! Maybe it would be best if it was just cloudy. What would be good is if we could control the weather, so we could have it just how we wanted it, - although I suppose that might lead to mini weather wars, if different people wanted it to do different things at the same time.
"I post on this Internet forum, and there are a few people from Australia there. One of them's into science, and on one Christmas Eve, I was fed up of the winter weather we were having here, and I said to him just for a joke,
"'You must be enjoying the sunny weather where you are! The thing is, it's depressingly cold and not sunny at all where I am! But I want it to be all nice and warm and sunny here! So I'd like you to give me a Christmas present, that'll mean I can relax in the warm sun all through our winter, and swim in the warm sea! I want the bright sun to pour in through my windows in the mornings, and to have nice long sunny days! I just know you've got the brain power to work out how to make it happen for me!
"'Well OK, if you can't get it done for this Christmas, I'm sure you can work out how to get it done by next Christmas. What I'd like you to do for my Christmas present from you to me is to work out how to, and then turn the world around on its axis so it's nice and hot and sunny where I am. OK, that'll mean it goes cold and much less sunny where you are, but you won't mind making the sacrifice for me, will you, because you're nice like that. If you can't arrange it for tomorrow so it has to be next Christmas, I'll still be pleased.
"'It'll be nice if you leave the world how it is after you've got it to move for about three months. That'll be lovely! Maybe at about the beginning of April, you can move it back again to how it's supposed to be, so we can have our spring and summer here instead of having to put up with your winter.
"'That'll be really nice of you! Thank you!'
"And then another time, when he complained about how hot it was getting there, I joked to him, 'Wouldn't it be good if we could share the weather out fairly, so we could have half of your hot sunshine here, and you could cool yourselves down by having half our cold weather.'
"Someone on the forum joked that the sun had come out at night a few days earlier where he lives, and then he was even more surprised, because birds that would normally come out in the day like the cuckoo and the nightingale began to sing.
"There's someone else on the forum who's an engineer, and I jokingly asked him to make an artificial sun for me, and to invent something to control hurricanes. I said,
"'What would be really useful is if you could invent an artificial remote controlled expanding personal sun, that could be propelled to a few hundred feet into the air, and then shine down. People could buy them. They would only need to be small things, rather than a great big thing that covered the whole country or something, so anyone who didn't want sun shining down on them sometimes wouldn't have to have it, like if it was the middle of the night, or if they somehow liked clouds. They could just be personal pocket suns, that could just inflate a little bit when they were switched on.
"The way they'd work is that someone would take one out with them on a cloudy day, and press the button on it that made it go into the air, and they'd have a little remote control in their pocket which would continually send signals to the sun to make it keep in step with them and go wherever they went. Then they could walk around on a cloudy day with the sun constantly shining down on them. Or when they were in their home, they could hold it out of the window and press the button that made it go into the air, and then they'd have sun shining into their window whenever they wanted it. I think it's a brilliant idea, and just think of the amount of money it could make you! So how about it?'
"Then I said, 'And while you're at it, you can put some new zest and ideas into those experiments that were once done into whether it was possible to disperse hurricane winds so storms didn't do so much damage. I'll give you a week to come up with some creative new proposals.'"
Becky grinned and said, "That pocket sun thing sounds like a great idea, apart from that a lot of people might complain about the light pollution! I mean, imagine how bright it would get if there were hundreds of people on a busy street in a town, each one with their own personal sun shining above them!"
Diana said, "Well I suppose there is that. Perhaps scientists could find a way around it. And it would be nice if they could find a way to get rid of clouds as well! I once joked on that forum that it would be nice if someone there could invent a machine that could suck all the clouds up. Someone said it might be invented sometime in the next millennium, and I joked, 'Oh no, I was hoping it could be invented in the next few months. You mean I'll probably have to put up with these clouds all summer long? Maybe there's someone on the forum with a talent for blowing air out of their mouths really fast and really powerfully, and they could fly in a balloon or a small plane or something to where the clouds are in my neighbourhood, and blow them all away for me?'
"And I made other weather jokes as well. There's someone on the forum who seems to be quite a militant anti-religious atheist, who thinks people should abandon religion and be devoted to science instead; but for some reason, his username's the name of an ancient Egyptian sun god, and the signature that appears at the end of his posts says he is him. One day I joked to him,
"'You're a funny sun god! Don't you even like the religion of sun god-worship? I'm guessing that being an Atheist sun god must mean you've got no faith in yourself. That's sad. Would you feel better if you were a much more powerful sun god? I mean, I can understand you being antagonistic to some of the other gods, because they're more powerful than you. After all, when the pesky cloud gods come along and stand in front of you, your brightness gets blocked out where they are and it goes overcast, and there's nothing you can do about it till they go away again. That must be frustrating! And then you're also powerless in the face of the world-spinning gods, who are always spinning part of the world away from your influence into the domain of the cold and ice and snow gods! Personally, I wish you were more powerful and could stop them, because I think you're much nicer than all those other pesky gods who try to gain the upper hand over you. Isn't there something you can do to get more power? You cheer everyone up when you come out.
"'I'd like your power to be increased, because I do enjoy your warmth and brightness; but I suppose that wouldn't necessarily be a good thing, because you do have a bad habit of burning people and giving them skin cancer. Why do you have to do that? If you can't help it, maybe you can use the latest scientific knowhow you admire to make yourself harmless. And maybe it would help you increase your power too. That would be nice. And if you did that, everyone would be really impressed, so your prestige would improve among everyone, so you'd be pleased.'
"The sun god man said he was sorry but he couldn't do that, and that in fact he'd have no choice but to one day spew out more and more radiation till everyone on earth got killed, before he himself died, supposing there was anyone left here anyway in a billion years or so when it happened.
"I joked, 'Well, maybe one day, man's scientific knowhow will grow so advanced that scientists will be able to reverse the process and render you harmless, just bright and cheerful.
I wonder if people will still worship you if they know that it's man's scientific knowhow that's making you that good. Or do you think they might start worshiping scientists instead?'"
Becky chuckled.
Becky started her lecture by saying, "I'm going to talk mostly about nervous breakdowns today.
"Sometimes it isn't just the physical fear feelings people have that worry them, but they've had nervous breakdowns brought on by problems that are really upsetting them, such as severe guilt or shame about something they've done, or feelings of failure or grief, or another problem that doesn't seem as if it'll be easily solved. And the feelings can be even worse than they would otherwise be, because people can feel as if they must be the only ones suffering the way they are, so they can feel isolated, as if they assume no one else would understand what they're going through, and no one else would probably know what to do to help. But actually, extreme emotions brought on by problems like that are familiar to a lot of people.
"At least now we have the Internet, people with similar problems to the one a person's suffering from can probably be easily found if they look in Google for online support groups for people with things like it, which makes things better for people nowadays than they would have been a couple of decades ago."
Becky carried on, "Some people become so worried by problems, especially if they can't think of solutions to them, that their bodies start setting off the fear sensations when they even just think of them. And then because they start to feel so bad when the problems come to mind because of that, they start preferring not to think about them at all. And because thinking about them sparks off such upsetting feelings, they can get the impression that they must be worse problems than they really are, till thoughts of them really scare them, partly because they know they'll get the frightening feelings again when they think of them. The feelings will make them really dread the problems coming to mind.
"But the feelings will likely just be the body mistakenly setting off the natural fight or flight system it has, because people's brains are just programmed to do that when they're under a lot of stress. And the more the body gets the mistaken impression that it needs to do that because of all the stress, the worse a person's feelings will get, and the more quickly the fear feelings will flood the mind when the things causing the stress come to mind.
"But another thing that often scares people is that when the brain's flooded with emotion like fear, it becomes a lot more difficult to think, because strong emotion crowds thoughts out, so it's a lot harder for people to think up solutions to their problems if they feel strong anxiety a lot of the time, as well as the emotions being so worrying and distracting that it's hard to think of anything else while they're going on. So those things can contribute to convincing people there aren't any solutions to their problems, because if they don't know that strong emotion stops people from thinking clearly as much as it does, they won't necessarily realise they're thinking much less clearly than they'd be able to if the emotions weren't clouding their minds.
"That doesn't mean there's something wrong with the brain at times like that. If you were in real danger, it would sometimes be an advantage not to have so many thoughts flowing about your head as usual, because you might need to quickly run away or fight, and standing around thinking about what to do might mean it was too late to escape or combat an enemy effectively by the time you'd made up your mind about what would be the best thing to do. That's the reason why the brain makes it harder to think when a lot of anxiety comes on. And fear has to be a strong sensation, to spur people into action in that kind of situation, since quick action without much thought about what to do first might save their lives.
"But it seems that the brain isn't so well-adapted to coping with the kind of stresses caused by really worrying problems that take a lot of thought to resolve, because it sets off the same system in those situations as well, when another kind of reaction would be better.
"And the physical feelings the fear can set off every time a person worries about a problem they have can start to scare them a lot, and make them wonder what's wrong with them, especially if they get the symptoms associated with panic, like feeling sick, having a racing heart, and having a bad tension headache a lot, and so on. Tension headaches can feel so bad that that's another thing that can stop people thinking clearly enough to think of a solution to their problems, because the pain will often be so distracting that it's hard to think of anything else.
"And whenever even a twinge of a person's fear symptoms comes on when the problem that's especially bothering them comes to mind, - and twinges of fear might come on more and more often and get stronger and stronger when they think of it, because frayed nerves and stress can make the brain trigger off fear symptoms more easily than it would normally, even when something only remotely related to a problem someone has briefly reminds them of it, - it'll likely increase the chances that the person will worry about their problem more, because the fact that they'll come to associate it with the fear symptoms that always seem to be around when they think about it will likely make them assume it must be especially bad, because they won't know why their brain would set the fear symptoms off otherwise.
"And the problem might well prey on their minds a lot more than it would if they didn't have an anxiety problem, because they'll likely really want the horrible fear feelings that come to mind when they think of it to go away, and they might assume they will if they can only find a way to solve the problem. But they're less likely to be able to solve it if their brain's flooded with emotion that's stopping them from thinking clearly.
"They can become more and more pessimistic about being able to solve it, and more and more anxious, because the fear symptoms can come on more and more in different situations, because their stress levels have become so high; and then the person can wonder why their anxiety's coming on even when they haven't been thinking much about the problem they have, so they can spend more and more time feeling bewildered about why they're suffering what they are.
"And when people are in the grip of severe anxiety, their whole lives can be blighted by it, because they can find it hard to concentrate on working, and lose their appetite, and take less care of their appearance, since it'll seem like so much more effort than it used to. So people around them can notice that something's wrong, even if they don't say anything.
"Even little stressors can get to seem like much bigger problems than they really are when a person's in the grip of anxiety, because of the feelings the brain triggers off at the slightest amount of stress they have. The feelings can be so bad that people can start to feel as if they just can't cope; so they can even begin to feel as if they must be failing at life. And that can make people feel as if they haven't got any worth, because they can think they're no good at doing anything much very well, and they can become pessimistic about being able to achieve anything worthwhile in the future.
"And any guilt they feel when they think of anything they've done wrong that they think must prove they're substandard will be exaggerated, because the stress they're already suffering will make everything feel worse. It's hard to get things in proportion when every stressor triggers off strong feelings that give the impression that things must be bad.
"And the more stressed out people are by the problem that set off their fear symptoms in the first place, the more the problem will likely weigh on their minds, till it might even be hard for them to think of anything else; and the stress of it will wear them down, especially if they're worrying so much about it that they're finding it hard to sleep at night, so they start to suffer from sleep deprivation, which can damage people's mental health and ability to think clearly in itself, since sleep's necessary for recharging the brain's energy, and helping to relax people. So people can start to feel worse and worse over time, till they're exhausted by their anxiety.
"And because their emotions are clouding their thinking so much, they can worry about their problem all day, day after day, without being able to come up with any solution to it. And they can be so preoccupied with it and the worrying feelings they're having that it can get hard to think of anything else, such as work, or helping other people with things they need to get done; so they can seem self-absorbed or selfish.
"When the fear symptoms first come on, people can find that it's possible to push thoughts of the problem that sparked them off to the back of their minds while they get on with other things. But the worse the fear and panic feelings get, the harder it'll be to do that, till they might try and try to get the problem out of their minds without success, partly because the very act of determining not to think of something will involve bringing it to mind; so trying that won't work. Other things will though. I'll talk about those in a minute.
"But as I said, the more and more stressed and exhausted people's brains are, the harder it'll be for them to think straight, because of the strong emotion clouding their brains; so while at first it might have been possible for them to stop feeling so stressed about their problems for a while and be inspired to think of them from other points of view they heard about that might have been helpful to them, because they might have brought on new ideas about how to solve them, or they might have helped them get their problems in perspective, so it was possible for them to be reassured that they weren't as bad as they'd thought they were after all, because they realised their problems were fairly minor compared with some people's, it'll get harder and harder for them to do that or solve them the more emotional they become, because thinking about them will just set off the old fear symptoms that'll likely make them feel hopeless about them again, so they'll likely think about them again in the sometimes exaggerated way they did when they were at their most pessimistic before, so the same old worrying thoughts will flood their minds again, making them feel even more stressed, and making it harder for them to think clearly.
"And the fear feelings can be triggered off so fast when the problems come to mind that it seems that there's no way of preventing them from coming on, which can make people think they must be going insane.
"And even if an obvious solution to a problem does come up in a person's mind, or if they discover they only thought it was a problem when it wasn't really, their worries can still come on automatically, such as with a man who was shocked when his doctor said his blood pressure was pretty high so he'd probably die of a stroke, which made him worry and worry about that, and about whether it was worth starting anything new in life if he might just die soon, till the thoughts were worrying him all the time, and the fear symptoms were in full flow and wouldn't go away, even when it turned out that all the doctor had meant was that he'd probably die of a stroke in old age. It can be a while before the fear symptoms and the worry fade away in situations like that; and the nervous system can still trigger off fear symptoms whenever a person thinks of or hears about something related to the problem they thought they had, because it's so used to doing that.
"If you've got a problem going round and round in your mind that you can't think of a solution to, especially since your brain's so full of strong emotion, and so exhausted from it all that your thoughts are coming slowly, so you find it hard to make any decisions, and you soon doubt any ones you do make, then getting help from someone you're confident in can be the best thing to do, - someone wise who you can discuss it with, who might see it from a different point of view, that gives you more clarity about it, and who can give you ideas for possible solutions to it.
"Then if you're happy with what they've come up with, try to bring their solution to mind from then on whenever worries about the problem flood your mind, which make you more and more upset, and make the problem seem impossible to cope with, because the more fearful your worries make you feel, the harder it is to think clearly about it, and the worse it'll seem.
"There might seem to be no perfect solution to your problem available, so you might think you'll have to put up with a compromise solution. But if you're at least fairly happy with it, try to stick with the idea for the time being, knowing you can always change it in some ways if necessary, once you've recovered from your anxiety and can think more clearly.
"But for the time being, it'll cause you a lot less stress to keep one idea in mind about how to solve the problem than continuously worrying over what to do, coming up with several half-hearted solutions you're unsure about, and worrying about whether any of them are any good, and about whether there might be no good solution at all, - as long as you feel satisfied that the solution that someone else has helped you find is a decent one.
"The author who came up with that idea recommends that people try finding one wise person, and sticking with them as a confidante, since confiding in lots of people instead might mean you end up with several different opinions that might just make you feel more indecisive or confused. And also bad advice that you get from some people might upset you.
"If you haven't got a friend you feel happy confiding in, there might be counsellors or religious figures who could help you, - although it's best to try to take some time to size them up first, because not all people like that are wise.
"Talking about the new point of view someone else has helped you come up with to them will likely help to make it stick in your mind. And you can get them to write it down for you, as simply as possible, so you can remind yourself of it when you're alone, and when your mind's a bit too clouded with fears and worries for you to remember it and think about it clearly.
"You might feel nervous and embarrassed about confiding in someone, especially if you'll have to bring up things it'll upset you to admit to. The author who said doing this kind of thing's a good idea recommends that you don't try to force yourself to go to see a person to talk about your problem in spite of that, since that'll probably be exhausting and make you more fearful. But she says that if you want to do it anyway because you know you need help, you could try to imagine floating there. It'll relax your tension a bit.
"And you could try to imagine the thoughts that are making you reluctant to go there and any other disturbing thoughts you have floating gently out of your head.
"If you get a severe tension headache at the thought of going to see the person you've decided it's best to confide in, or at the thought of anything else that's worrying you, such as even just thinking about your problem, the act of trying to resign yourself to putting up with it with tolerance, if possible, - although it's easier said than done, - will likely help you relax, which might make your headache ease off a bit. And trying other things to relax your head muscles could help too.
"Your headache might well make it even harder to think, so you can only think slowly, and that might make you feel confused. But try not to be frightened by that; it's just natural in the circumstances. Panicking about it or trying to force yourself to think will make your tension worse, so it'll get even harder to think. The slowed thought processes are only a temporary bodily response to pain and fear and fatigue. If you accept the pain and discomfort, and try to relax, you'll still be able to think, even if your thoughts are slowed down.
"It's possible that you'll experience a lot of relief by talking about your problem with someone, and hearing a point of view that makes you feel more hopeful. Some people can even be cured of their anxiety by it. But other people who get advice from other people that makes them feel really hopeful for a while feel optimistic that they've been cured, but then when they're alone, the old panic feelings or worries come back, because their nervous system's got into the habit of triggering them off at the slightest stress; so they can get discouraged, especially if it's hard to retain the advice they were given in their memories, since stress can make it harder to remember things, so the advice can fade into the background, and the old fears can flood the mind again, especially since worrying about them will have become a real habit, and habits are hard to break, partly since they tend to become automatic after a while.
"Or sometimes something about a person's problem comes to mind that they didn't discuss with their chosen confidante, which worries them all over again. But it won't mean sharing the problem was for nothing.
"If that happens, it'll probably help to go back to your confidante, tell them what's happened, and discuss your problem again.
"You might have to go back and discuss your problem with them often before the solution and advice or new perspective on it they've come up with really sticks in your mind. If they write down the main points they made for you, it'll at least help, possibly quite a lot.
"It can often be that an anxious person will only have clarity about the new point of view they've got from someone else for a few moments a day at first, before fears and worries flood their mind again, and it fades into the background. But if that happens to you, you can at least think of the fact that you can at least think about it for a little while as an encouraging start, thinking that you can at least think clearly about the solution for a few minutes in a day. Things will likely gradually get better and better as you think about it more, till you can eventually hold the solution in your mind with clarity all the time, and even start thinking of it as the one you'd like to think of as your own.
"If your circumstances change so the point of view needs modifying, you can go to your confidante again if you still need help. But your own decision-making abilities will return once your emotions calm down when you begin to recover from anxiety.
"If you think your problem can't be solved, it can sometimes help to change your perspective about it instead, so you can see a way to making it seem less bad than it seems to be, like a woman who told the author who recommends that people try that that she'd been made ill by having to live with a mother-in-law she really didn't like. She had no choice but to live with her, so she thought there was no solution to her problem. But the author told her she was just thinking there was no solution because she thought the only way to solve the problem would be if she could get rid of her mother-in-law, which she didn't think would be possible.
"The author advised her that what she could do instead was to make a special effort to look out for signs of her mother-in-law's good points, instead of always thinking of her with hatred, since then her attitude towards her might change a bit. And she said that if she started behaving in a more friendly way towards her, her mother-in-law's own attitudes might change, since her bad ones were likely being fuelled by knowing the woman didn't like her, so it was as if each person's bad attitudes were being made worse by the other one's. The woman tried it, and things did change for the better.
"Often it can help a person with a nervous breakdown if they can have a change of scene for a while, to get out of old stressful routines, and to have some distraction and new kinds of stimulation, that can get their mind out of old ruts and routines, where anxiety sensations and depression have started being triggered off automatically by the brain in situations that have often triggered them off before, because it's got into the habit of thinking they must need to be triggered off again in the same situations, or if memories of bad feelings that have often come on in certain places trigger them off again, or else where the situations a person's been in have worn them down. Coming back into those situations feeling refreshed can stop that happening so much, it seems.
"The author who recommends that says there was a teacher who'd had a nervous breakdown after spending some time trying to teach a class she couldn't control, who was discouraged, and thought it might be best to get out of teaching altogether, or at least to move to a different school. The author advised her to have a month's holiday to refresh herself, and then to go back with some new techniques to manage the children, rather than leaving the school altogether and getting a job in a new one, where she might only have more problems like the ones she'd had before, or where she might worry she would.
"The teacher did what the author recommended, and discovered techniques that worked better for controlling classes, and then became successful, and was glad she hadn't left the school altogether.
"The author says she sometimes recommends a more drastic break for people, such as when a man had a breakdown after his wife left him, and being in his house depressed him and brought on anxious feelings, because it was full of memories of her that upset him. She advised him to leave the house till his memories of his ex-wife weren't so painful, or until the things in his house didn't bring back such painful memories, or else to leave the town for six months if he could, so his upset feelings wouldn't keep being refreshed all the time by things that brought back the memories.
"She says it's not good to run away from problems that need to be faced; but even in circumstances where they have to be faced soon, a short break will likely be good, since breaks can refresh people, and are a distraction from old worrying thought patterns and routines, so they can help the brain get out of the habit of triggering off fear sensations in places where it's done it before, which might have programmed part of it to assume that there's a danger there, and that the fear sensations need to come on again.
"Breaks can also relieve the mental exhaustion brought on by the repetition of coping with daily life, that can be made worse by people's anxiety symptoms, so they might be able to think of their problems more clearly afterwards, and maybe get them in better perspective, or think up more solutions to them. The differences between the possible tedium of the routine of daily life and the experiences and scenery on the break can often spark off new and different thought processes, so they help to spark off more interest, and interrupt a person's engrossment in worry. Even little things can do that, such as seeing a picture that sparks off a person's imagination that can lead to different kinds of thoughts in them, such as seeing a picture of a sailing ship on the ocean sparking off thoughts about what it would be like to travel across the ocean in a sailing ship, coping with storms, and relaxing on the deck on warm sunny days, and so on. New stimulation can lift the mood quite a bit. And that can make it easier to cope with life.
"And then if in the absence of interesting stimulation, which has come back because the person's back in the old situation they were in before, their anxiety symptoms return, their break can at least be good evidence for them that because their problem didn't seem nearly as bad while they weren't feeling the anxiety, because they were preoccupied with enjoyable things, their main problem is quite likely to really be their distress and fear symptoms, not the actual problem that helped bring them on, which would likely be a fair bit easier to cope with if it wasn't for all the emotional overload going on in their brain, that's causing all the physical fear symptoms, and stopping them from thinking clearly.
"A break from the emotional overload can be relaxing enough to cause a feeling like a thick fog lifting from the mind, enabling clear thought, maybe for the first time in a long time, since engrossment in worrying about the fear symptoms and other things will have stirred up so much emotion in the brain that it's flooded out clear thinking, pretty much continually.
"Naturally, I'm not saying the fear feelings will be gone forever once someone gets a break from them. Recovery might sometimes be a process of relief from them for a few moments at a time for a while, interspersed with them coming on again for a time, as things happen that stress them out again, whether that be things going on around them, or their own worried thoughts coming back. So if the anxiety comes on again, people can sometimes have to wait till the overloading feelings go again. It can help them not to get too downhearted by them if they imagine themselves floating through them, instead of getting engrossed in worrying about them, which would make them worse.
"But trying to get a break from the feelings by doing something different can at least help convince people that the feelings are likely what's causing the main problem in their lives, so their problems would probably be easier to cope with if their anxiety symptoms went for good, which can encourage them to work towards recovery from anxiety.
"Absorption in a whole variety of different things can cause anxious thoughts to lift for a time, so thinking becomes clearer."
Becky continued, "Living alone can be a real strain for people with severe anxiety who've got no one to help them take their minds off it. So going to stay with other people for a while can help them, whether it's friends, or on some kind of holiday.
"Sometimes people do that though, but then dread returning home, because they think getting back to old routines and being back in the place that's full of memories of suffering their anxiety will bring their anxiety and upsetting memories back, and things will get back to the way they were before. But although they might feel anxiety on returning home, if they've begun to recover, then as long as they don't get absorbed in their feelings and work themselves up with worry about them till they get worse and worse, they can remind themselves that their feelings will likely only be temporary if they know of better techniques to assuage them than they used to, so that if they do, they'll still be on the road to recovery, if they use those same techniques to help them when they get home.
"It can be easier said than done though, especially if a person's alone for a lot of the time when they get home, and they feel especially lonely because it's such a contrast with being with other people on the holiday they went on, and being alone so much gives them a lot of time to worry about things, and the reminders of suffering that being in the old place gives them bring back strong memories that give them instant feelings of anxiety again, that get strong before they can do much about them.
"But it can help if they can remind themselves that it's only memories triggering off the brain's emotional reactions, not the reality of what the future will be like, and that they can calm their anxiety by imagining themselves floating above their anxiety and their old memories, reassuring themselves that their memories will fade over time, and that newer happier ones might eventually take their place as the most vivid ones in their minds. And their suffering will become less significant in their minds as the most important thing to them becomes the pleasure and relief that they think will grow as they become more confident that they're recovering."
Becky carried on, "Sometimes a person's anxiety can have faded for weeks or months though, when something suddenly triggers it off again, and they worry it's another nervous breakdown coming on, and that they'll go back to the way they used to be. But if they got over it once, they can reassure themselves that they can use the same techniques to make it fade away again, so it doesn't need to get as bad as it was before. Knowing you have the ability to control the anxiety, and you know how to stop it getting as bad as it was before, will calm it down.
"It can help reduce the chances of your anxiety coming back though if when you make the decision to return home after a break, you plan ways to make life more interesting than it was before, to take your mind off your worries, and also if you plan ways of preventing some of the things that used to bother you from getting to you so much, such as if you used to feel drained by family arguments, but you know you can search on the Internet for suggested ways of resolving arguments more easily, or preventing them, which will hopefully give you some decent ideas about how to make your family life better."
Becky continued, "But for someone who's still in the depths of a nervous breakdown, or very anxious or depressed, strong emotions can block the thinking processes so much that it can be hard for them to make even little decisions, such as whether to have one thing or another for tea. And even little things can feel like a real effort to achieve.
"Extreme stress can also make people's vision blurred, and make people extra sensitive to noise, so, for instance, things like putting a cup in the microwave can sound loud enough to be irritating, when they weren't before.
"And it can be harder to concentrate on things. So, for instance, it can be so hard to concentrate on doing things such as watching television that people can keep losing track of what's being said, or not take it in in the first place; and that can worry them some more, because they don't really understand why it's happening. It can put them off trying to do things like that, so they can go away and be by themselves for some relief; but there they can just get more absorbed in their worries, so they feel worse. Not being able to understand what's happening to them can feel worse than the original problem they had did, which might have even gone away by then.
"Things can get even worse than that for them, because all the exhaustion caused by the over-activity of the nervous system and lack of sleep can bring on depression, which can make people feel as if they can't be bothered to do anything much, including making efforts to recover. When people are depressed, they can start thinking things are hopeless, and that the world's a bleaker place than it really is, not realising their depression's just their body's reaction to exhausted nerves, brought on by all their strong emotions.
"Some physical illnesses can bring on depression too. I think some scientists think that can happen because of the way the brain's affected by them, such as by being slightly inflamed because of them, which it seems can lead to it not functioning as well as it should be temporarily. But people can even start thinking life's not worth living, because of the way the depression the illnesses cause make them feel, since most people won't know it's just their illness causing it.
"People's moods can sometimes swing from depression to extreme agitation, that makes them feel as if they need to get up and busy themselves with things intensely to get rid of nervous tension, and to get their anxiety off their minds, or just because of the physical feeling of restless agitation they have. But sometimes they haven't got the energy to do that. But that can be a problem, because just resting means the mind's free to be plagued with their feelings of anxiety and worried thoughts about what's wrong with them."
Becky carried on, "The exhausted agitated mind can begin to obsess over little things that are worrying it, which can be hard to get out of it, - things that might only be minor worries to a healthy mind that's not under stress. And obsessing over things in itself can be frightening to the person who's suffering from doing that, making them think all the more that they must be going mad.
"For instance, the man who worried about having a stroke after misunderstanding his doctor who said he'd probably die of one because of his high blood pressure, who assumed he'd meant he'd die soon, when the doctor had really meant he thought he'd die of one in old age, - although it seems he hadn't thought to say so, - became obsessed with the idea that he could have a stroke at any time; and the word 'stroke' came to his mind and bothered him every time something reminded him of his high blood pressure, such as when he bent down and felt a dizzy sensation, that felt like blood rushing to his head, that he assumed was caused by his high blood pressure. He tried and tried to get the thought of having a stroke out of his mind, but it wouldn't go away. It was only after a therapist he had had a conversation with his doctor to ask him what he'd really meant, and then reassured him that it had turned out that the doctor hadn't meant he'd die soon, that he became less anxious about it.
"And a nurse caring for sick children was upset to find that every time she carried a baby past a window, an urge came over her to throw it out of it, even though she hated the idea. Some people can get obsessive thoughts like that that just suddenly intrude into their minds, even though they really don't want them there, that really make them anxious, because it's not in their nature to do the things they're getting an urge to do at all. People who aren't suffering from anxiety disorders can sometimes get thoughts like that, but just shrug them off as just silly thoughts that have somehow come to mind, but are just like spam emails that are best just ignored and put out of the mind. But some people with anxiety can really worry that their thoughts could really mean they could do something bad.
"Most people have an inkling of what it's like to have an obsession like that, such as when a few seconds' worth of an annoying song's stuck on their brains, and it keeps repeating, and won't go away. But it's a lot worse for people who have anxiety-related obsessive thoughts, perhaps because their minds are so flooded with emotions and tired from stress that their fear exaggerates their seriousness, making them seem more worrying, and harder to get rid of."
Becky continued, "Sorrow and grief can cause fear feelings as well. For instance, grief at losing a loved one can be mixed with fear of spending years in the future alone. So grief can set off the fear symptoms that can scare people, because they worry about what's happening to them, and about why their feelings are causing the sensations they are, as well as worrying about what will happen in the future. So their feelings can be as bad as stressing about problems can be.
"That's especially if they lead to feelings of despair, and there isn't enough going on around the people suffering from them to give them hope or distraction, so they sit for a long time brooding on what's wrong, and their worries about the future, which will make their feelings more and more intense the longer they do it, which will worry them more, if they don't understand that that's what automatically happens when they do that.
"It's no wonder that kind of thing happens, since the loss of a loved one can be so distressing that it would be hard to just get up and move on, obviously. But it's just a fact of life that the brain works in such a way that the more a person gets engrossed in feelings of grief and worry, the more intense their feelings will get, because they'll be upsetting themselves more and more; so a person can get more and more worried and upset by their feelings till they're pretty much the only thing they can think about. They can sometimes lose their appetite so they stop eating properly, and find it hard to sleep because of all the emotion and worry flooding their minds; and those things will diminish the health of their body, and that in turn will make them feel worse.
"And they can find it harder and harder to think clearly as their brain gets more and more flooded with emotion and their body isn't getting the nourishment and sleep it needs, since lack of nourishment and sleep deprivation make it harder for the brain to function at its best, so it can become harder and harder for people to function and communicate with others well.
"And the very memory of how bad the suffering was the day before can be so distressing that it floods the brain with emotion quickly, so the suffering on the day after that is likely to end up as bad as it was the day before, because once the brain's flooded with distressing emotions, it can often seem impossible to get rid of them, or even unthinkable that they don't have a good reason to be there. So spending days in distress can actually become a habit it's difficult to shake free from, because of the memories that quickly stir up emotion all over again, even when it would be really useful if the person could break free from the strong emotions they're experiencing, because other people need their help with things, which would mean them having to calm their emotions to focus on other things. Their thoughts and feelings can seem so all-consuming that it's hard to think of anything else, or to think about other people.
"Hope for the future can be an antidote to that though, gradually getting stronger and stronger day by day the more it seems to promise real possibilities of something brighter. And then memories of hoping for a better future can gradually replace the memories of the grief that have often been quickly flooding the brain with emotion again and again till it's been impossible to think clearly. If something happens that makes the grieving person feel as if they've had a better day, and more optimistic about the future, they'll likely remember that when they wake up the next morning, so their sorrow will be mixed with hope, which will often mean the sorrow doesn't get as disabling as it was before. And the more often they have memories from the day before of feeling hopeful at times, and the more hopeful they were, so the stronger their memories of the hope are, the more the next day's memories can be memories of having some hope, instead of just being memories of feeling grief and distress, so the quicker their grief can start to subside.
"Obviously that doesn't mean grief can be gradually eliminated by just focusing on good things, since it's bound to have a serious impact on people, and it'll probably take a while to subside no matter what, and it can't be rushed. But it can subside more quickly the more a person can find hope for the future, and a good reason for existing, as well as if they've got something they need to concentrate on that's distracting from their grief, so they get less absorbed in it, instead of getting more weighed down by it the more they let their feelings dominate their minds and brood on them. Apparently, women with small children they need to look after tend to recover from grief more quickly than older women who feel as if they've got nothing meaningful to do, and nothing to look forward to after their husbands die.
"Even glimpses of pleasure can convince people that things can improve for them, and give them hope for the future.
"There are practical things people can do that can help them get over grief. For instance, after a person's been grieving for a while, when their grief's beginning to wear off, they might find it helpful to give away things that remind them of the dead person they're grieving for, that spark off intense upsetting feelings all over again whenever they look at them; or at least they could put them away out of sight somewhere for a while, - such as the chair a husband that died used to sit in, or his clothes. Some people can be beginning to feel more cheerful again, but then lay eyes on things like that, and they remind them of their loved one's death all over again, and their mood plummets.
"When a person's sorrow is being caused by something like a marriage break-up, rather than a death, one thing that can cause their grieving is thinking they'll never find a relationship as good as the one they've lost, or that they'll never be able to trust another person after the way they felt betrayed by the person who deserted or wronged them. But although they might not believe such a thing could happen at first, over time, they can regain their confidence in other people."
Becky carried on, "Some people's anxiety is increased by guilt. Sometimes it's guilt about thoughts the person thinks of as immoral, such as thoughts of enjoying sex with someone other than a husband or wife. People who are upset by thoughts like that can be relieved when they discover they're ordinary human thoughts, and that the fact they're having them doesn't necessarily mean they're bad people, but that actually feeling scared of having them and worrying about them means thoughts like that are more likely to come to mind, so they're likely to intrude into their minds more because of that, and not because they're especially bad people. If people who are bothered by them can get into the habit of not thinking of them as that significant, but just shrugging them off as habits they've got into that can probably be broken over time, the thoughts will probably fade over time, since it's partly people's worries about them that keep them in mind.
"Someone whose emotional problems are partly to do with something in the past they did that they feel really guilty about can help to ease their emotional pain by trying to make amends in some way, and apologising. But sometimes that doesn't help as much as they'd hoped, partly because their nervous system's still worked up with anxiety, and sometimes it's also exhausted by sleep deprivation, and it'll take a while to ease it down. And in a state of strong emotion, other things can come to mind to feel guilty about that just replace the things that have been made amends for.
"But sometimes when people start recovering from bouts of mental health problems, they realise the guilt they felt during them was out of proportion to what they actually did wrong, because the intense emotions they felt made it much harder to think logically about how much to blame they really were."
Becky continued, "Anxious thoughts can keep fear going, as well as worrying about the meaning of physical symptoms. Ongoing thoughts that can keep fear going can sometimes be caused when people over-estimate the chances of there being danger in the area they're in, or if they worry and worry that their fear symptoms will cause something bad to happen to them, such as a heart attack. And people who do that can underestimate their own ability to cope with the situations that scare them too, and the chances that people will sympathise and help them when they see them having anxiety attacks.
"And they can over-estimate the chances that they'll be laughed at or mocked when they panic in public, and that they'll lose control and feel really humiliated in situations like that, because they'll be worried they'll do something they'll be laughed at for or be ashamed of, like running away in situations they know are actually harmless, such as if they sometimes have panic attacks while they're shopping, that give them a strong urge to immediately get out of the situation they're in, when they know that the stressor that's triggering off their panic is really only something such as a long check-out queue, that most people might find irritating but not massively stressful, like they seem to do.
"Sometimes people can be helped to get over their worries about those things if they deliberately put themselves in the situations they're worried they won't be able to cope with, or where they think they'll look bad, and test out how people do react. It would probably be too scary for most people to do without someone else's support and encouragement. But it can sometimes be a part of anxiety therapy when people are getting better, which the therapist encourages them to do. People can be pleasantly surprised to realise that people often don't react as badly as they assumed they would.
"I read about a woman who went to therapy for anxiety, and one thing that worried her, and even made her not want to go out of the house, was that her anxiety often made her feel sick, and she was scared she'd suddenly be sick all over the place in public, and that everyone would be disgusted and think she must be an alcoholic loser. She would sometimes actually be sick at the very thought of going out in public. She felt as if she just couldn't go out of the house without her husband and daughter being with her for support.
"The therapist wondered if it would be a good idea to get the woman to deliberately be sick in public, to test out what would really happen, and whether it would be as bad as she thought. The therapist decided to try out how it might go, by asking the woman to make herself anxious enough to be sick in her office, by breathing really fast for a while to bring on her typical anxiety symptoms. The woman did what she said, and started feeling ill, and then actually was sick. But she'd managed to rush to a washbasin in the room first, so she wasn't sick all over the floor or over a table or something.
"At first the woman was very upset to have been sick, and the counsellor worried that she'd actually done harm instead of good by persuading her to try it, and she worried that she'd never come back to see her. But the next week, the woman did come back, and said the experiment had actually been very useful, because it had proved to her that being sick with someone watching hadn't been as bad as she'd worried it would be, and that she was better able to cope with it than she'd thought she would be, since after all, she'd been in enough control of herself to have made it to the basin first. So she realised she'd over-estimated how bad things would be if she felt sick in public, and underestimated her ability to cope.
"She tried going out in public sometimes on her own after that, and just allowed the sick feelings to come and go. Then because she realised the consequences of them weren't as bad as she'd worried they would be, she started feeling more confident, and realised that if the worst did happen, it wouldn't be the end of the world, and she'd still be able to cope. She thought it would still be better than being stuck in at home all the time.
"And there was a man who was persuaded to try an experiment in a restaurant, where there would be the risk of him humiliating himself. For some time, he'd been really anxious that he'd make a fool of himself by making silly and clumsy mistakes in public, and that other people would look down on him and think he was stupid if he did, and that no one would be sympathetic or help him. He'd worried that he'd lose all his friends and die of embarrassment if it happened. He often refused invitations to parties, and didn't do other things he'd have liked to do, because he was so worried about that.
"After his therapist gave him a lot of encouragement, he agreed to go to a restaurant for coffee with a friend, and deliberately spill his coffee in front of her, (not telling her it was deliberate). He did; and he was really relieved to discover that she was very sympathetic and helpful, and told him about times when she'd dropped food and drink herself in embarrassing situations in public. He was reassured to discover that she'd managed to just move on after she'd done those things, without losing any friends over it.
"Some experiments can go wrong though, if someone tries out doing something they're scared of doing, and what they're scared of actually does happen as a result, such as being laughed at for spilling something down them. But even then, they can still get something out of it, if they realise they coped with it better than they thought they would, or they realise their worries about how bad it would be were exaggerated."
Becky carried on, "Some people can feel a lot better by the evening, and often go to bed feeling optimistic that their fear sensations and anxiety are fading, so they assume they must be getting better; but then they're dismayed to discover that when they wake up the next morning, they feel a lot worse again, depressed and anxious. It could be that their brains have been doing so much work while they're asleep, trying to discharge the energy from all their worries from the previous day, that they're exhausted. Part of the brain's still working while people are asleep. Some psychologists believe that when people dream, the brain's trying to work through and release emotions that built up the day before. But they think that the brain will have to work hard to do that if the emotions the person had were intense, so it'll be tired out by the morning. Once a person's re-energised themselves though, when they've had some nourishment and got the day off to a start, they can begin to feel better again.
"It might often be hard to do, but it can help to drag yourself out of bed as soon as you wake up, provided it's at a decent hour, and not in the wee hours of the morning, and then immediately do something you know you'll like, such as making a cup of tea and putting music on, and maybe going for a walk in the fresh air. That's because the longer you stay in bed brooding on miserable thoughts, the more miserable you'll likely feel, so it'll take longer to improve your mood again.
"But once you've started feeling OK again when you wake up in the mornings, when your mind doesn't immediately return to gloomy thoughts, you may as well stay in bed for longer if you can, and you feel like it.
"It can often help to have someone to talk to on waking, to take your mind off gloom. And it can also help to put your bed where there'll be a nice or interesting view of something when you wake up, such as when some people are lucky enough to be able to look out of their bedroom window and see trees and birds, so they can see them when they wake up if they move their bed so it's facing the window. Looking at a nice view can be a distraction from depressed thoughts, so it can lift the mood.
"Even if people change something about their bedroom it can help, so they're looking at something new when they wake up, such as new curtains, or their curtains in a different position from the position they're normally in, because they've turned their bed round, or their furniture in a different place from usual because they're rearranged it. That's because it might spark off new trains of thought, such as thoughts about whether things look better like that, when looking at the same old things can be reminders that a person's still in the same old situation with the same old problems they've had for some time, so it can start people thinking about those things all over again, so they get more depressed.
"Sometimes even after a person's main anxiety's gone, they're still left with a feeling of mild dread and anxiety that keeps coming back, maybe especially in the morning, before they've got involved in anything that occupies their minds, or before they've had a nourishing breakfast that's given them more strength to cope with things. Their anxiety can especially come on if they've got new things to worry about, such as the health of elderly parents that's recently got worse, and so on.
"The anxious feeling you might have when you wake up can be shaken off if despite how you feel, you make the effort to do things that you know will perk you up a bit, or that'll change your feelings a bit, such as if you distract yourself from your anxiety, and deliberately give yourself some pleasure. You might feel unmotivated to do that at first; but if you start, your mood will likely lift."
Becky continued, "Feelings can sometimes start to come on like a habit. So getting into new routines, even in small ways, such as by planning beforehand to do something different from normal that you can look forward to at the times when your anxiety feelings normally come on, can help break the pattern of them, because you'll be doing something different that you like better than what you're normally doing when they come on, so they won't automatically be triggered off on reflex by the stress of the old routine things that have triggered them off before at the times when they've normally come on. And they'll be less likely to come on if you're enjoying what you're doing as well.
"Sometimes getting a new job can help break the pattern of anxiety coming on at certain times, as well as increasing a person's quality of life so they feel better, because it can mean getting out of the house where they might have felt isolated for a while, and it can mean the chance to meet new people, and to feel as if life has new meaning; and it can limit the time a person spends brooding on their problems alone. Some people feel a lot better for that. Naturally new jobs won't always benefit people in that way; but sometimes they can.
"No matter how long a person's been suffering from a nervous breakdown, - even if it's been years, - once they know what they need to do to recover, they still can."
Becky carried on, "One thing that can spark off fear sensations is when images come to mind that represent memories of upsetting things in the past, such as if someone was taken to hospital as a child, where they felt alone and scared a lot of the time, and thoughts of being alone or in a place like a hospital still instantly bring back those images and memories to their mind, and spark off the kind of fear sensations they had at the time, so they're convinced they can't cope with such situations, and that their anxiety feelings would be a lot worse if they were actually in them.
"One thing that can help people who have problems like that is if they bring their upsetting memories to mind, and imagine what it would be like if they were in those situations again but things worked out differently, such as if they imagine themselves being there and not liking it, but then calming down, and getting more and more confident that they could cope. Going through a story like that in their minds several times, imagining an ending like that, can help convince them they could cope with situations like that after all, even if they find doing that stressful at first.
"The images that spark off people's fear sensations can sometimes be related to them having misinterpreted what was going on during the upsetting situations that went on to contribute to their chronic anxiety symptoms, such as when decades ago, when children had to spend time in hospital, for some reason it was thought of as a bad thing for parents to stay with them, but the reasons why often weren't explained to the children, it seems, so a lot of children thought they must have been abandoned there, and took it to mean their parents didn't love them or care about them; and that sparked off fears of being abandoned that lasted decades. When people come to have a better understanding of why they were really left alone, they can re-imagine the upsetting situation they were in to include other things that make it feel better, such as imagining their adult self being there, explaining to their parents that they should still go and see their child, or at least if they can't, to contact them and reassure them that they still love them."
Becky ended her lecture soon after that, hoping people would come to her next one.
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