Microsoft Word - At Last A Life Final Copy 16-03-09 (19 page)

yourself into a state thinking about all the pros and cons, just go

ahead and do it.

Diet can also help. It is not the only answer, but can certainly

enhance feelings of well-being. A good diet can be helpful and I

would suggest eating healthily, with plenty of fresh fruit and

vegetables. If you go to my website, you will see a list of foods to

avoid and foods that are good for you. I believe that a good diet is

nature’s medicine and can give you everything medication can give

you without the side effects and other problems.

When I changed my diet, I was not perfect, so you don’t have to get

too hung up about what you do and don’t eat. Don’t think one cup of

coffee will set you up for an anxious day. The more changes you

make to your lifestyle through diet and exercise, the better you will

feel; it’s as simple as that.

Alcohol

There is nothing wrong with drinking alcohol in moderation to help

you unwind, but it does not help to relieve anxiety. In the short term

it can be good, but it dehydrates the body, leaving you feeling more

anxious than ever. If you feel unable to give up altogether, then just

try to drink alcohol in moderation.

I spent a great deal of time drinking alcohol to block out my feelings

of anxiety until I realised that all I was doing was running away from

how I felt. I decided to stop running away and face my problems. It

was very difficult at the time, but the rewards gained were well worth

it.

- 107 -

COMING THROUGH DEPERSONALISATION

Earlier in this book I covered the feeling of detachment from oneself,

otherwise known as
‘depersonalisation’.
This is an emotional

disorder where you lose touch with your own personal reality,

accompanied by feelings of unreality and strangeness, as well as

the sensation of ones environment looking or feeling strange and

unusual. This is one symptom that keeps cropping up, so I decided

to add an extra chapter on this annoying, yet harmless sensation.

Depersonalisation is a common and understandable offshoot of the

anxiety condition. I can also tell you that it is in no way a mental

illness. It is not serious or harmful in any way and has a totally

logical explanation. It is temporary and, with patience and

understanding, eventually passes like any other symptom.

This is really no more than a tired mind, a mind that craves a rest to

refresh itself. When your limbs tire, they begin to ache. These

feelings of unreality occur when your mind tires of all the stress and

worry, all the introspection and tuning in to how you feel. It can do

you no long term harm, but will hang around for as long as you

constantly worry and obsess about how you feel. This means your

mind gets no rest and cannot heal itself.

The key to recovering from this feeling of detachment is to surrender

to this strange feeling. Pay it no respect and realise it is just the

product of an over-tired mind, fatigued by your constant worrying

thoughts and the constant checking in on how you feel. This

symptom relies on your fear of it to keep it alive.

When people are caught up in the worry cycle, they begin to think

deeply and constantly. They study themselves from deep within,

checking in and focusing on their symptoms. They may even wake

in the morning only to continue this habit, “How do I feel this

morning? I wonder if I will be able to get through today. What’s this

new sensation I feel?” This may go on all day, exhausting their

- 108 -

already tired mind further. This constant checking in and constant

assessing of their symptoms then becomes a habit, but like all other

habits this one can also be changed.

All this worry is bound to make your mind feel dull and unresponsive.

You are so concerned about how you feel that you are letting

nothing else into your day. Is it any wonder you have come to feel so

distanced from your surroundings? Is it any wonder you find it so

hard to concentrate? When people are studying for exams for hours

on end, they reach the point where they can no longer take in any

more information, so they take a break and carry on the day after.

For you, there are no breaks and no time outs.

As I have already mentioned earlier, your body has a safety

mechanism that protects it from all this worry and slows the mind

down to safeguard itself. It takes a step back from this onslaught

and shuts emotions and feelings down. This can then produce your

feelings of detachment. The world around you may become hazy or

out of focus and you feel empty, like a walking shell. Again this is

your body saying enough is enough. I am not built to take all this

worry, this constant deep thinking and questioning, so I will take my

own break. Once you understand that you are not going mad and

this symptom is being caused by an over-tired mind, exhausted

through worry and introspection, it makes sense. These feelings

cannot harm you in any way. With the fear factor taken out, it begins

to hold less power over you and does not have the same effect.

Although it is still annoying, you now know why you feel these

feelings. Once you learn to accept them and stop adding worrying

thoughts to the mix, this is another symptom that you will be able to

overcome in time. Taking a step back and giving up the worrying

thoughts, gives your mind the chance to rest, rejuvenate and refresh

itself.

When it happened to me, I recognised and understood what was

causing it. I realised that I
was
checking in and worrying about how I

felt and I did fear this sensation, so I just stopped doing it. I also

learnt to get busier and stop brooding on this and other symptoms.

Being active gives you another focus. Having too much time on your

hands can open the door to too much needless thinking. With less

worry and fear of this harmless but upsetting symptom, I was

- 109 -

eventually able to overcome it. It merely became a nuisance and

because I knew the reason for its existence, it no longer held any

power over me. When a worry or fear loses its importance, it loses

its power and that is why it is essential to realise these symptoms

are neither harmful nor serious. Gradually, without all the checking in

and worrying, this symptom that so dominated my life began to

diminish and eventually disappeared completely.

This symptom is like any other. All symptoms are still being fuelled

by your fear of them. As long as the fear continues, so will the

symptoms. When we start to understand why we feel like we do, we

automatically fear them less and they start to lose their edge and

importance. We don’t pay them as much respect, we worry about

them less and we don’t feel the need to work each one of them out.

This is when symptoms gradually start to fade.

One lady emailed me recently after I had been helping her with this

symptom and said to me: “Paul, I actually did a lot better today. I

simply did not care how weird, not with it, in a dream and

disconnected I felt and it actually made the day easier”. This is

exactly what I wanted her to achieve. Because she stopped

concerning herself all day with how she felt, she was able to start

looking outwards instead of inwards and invite other things into her

day, while giving her mind the rest it needed.

A statement that came from another lady, which I believe is relevant

to all aspects of anxiety was:

“Paul, on a positive note
,
I'm fine now! I got through a lot of

depersonalisation and other aspects of my anxiety by trying to

'engage' with the real world and I stopped focusing on how weird I

felt’.

This is why I always say ‘Live your life’. Don’t worry or concern

yourself with how you feel. I used to go about my day feeling odd,

weird, anxious and not with it, but it was fine. This is the way

through. You can do the opposite and walk around questioning it all,

fighting it, trying to rid yourself of how you feel, worrying about it and

getting frustrated by it, if you wish. But which approach will give your

mind and body the break it needs? I took the second option for 9

- 110 -

years and just got worse, only when I did the opposite did things

begin to improve.

To finish this chapter, I am including a post that I did a while back on

the subject, entitled
‘Recovery from Depersonalisation/

Derealisation’
, with which people really identified.

Well this post was changed from another subject to this as it seems

to be a hot topic at the moment and I am going to be very honest

about depersonalisation here and try and help people who are still

bewildered by it. I will hold nothing back and tell my whole story and

the truth behind it.

Firstly let’s just refresh ourselves about Depersonalisation and why

we have it. Let’s start by saying that D.P is not just an anxiety

symptom. I have read a great deal on the subject and discovered

that people who have been to war can suffer, people who have lost

a love one can suffer temporarily from it and people who had

something happen to them early in their life that really hurt or

shocked them, can suffer bouts of D.P. Many people who don’t

suffer from anxiety have D.P, although I would say anxiety is the

main reason.

So let’s go back to a person who went to war and saw things that

shocked him and he would rather forget. D.P is his body’s way of

shutting down these memories and feelings in order to block them

out and protect him. Have you ever seen that blank look on the face

of someone who has just lost a loved one? It’s as though they are

not really listening and are somewhere else. A few people who have

lost loved ones may have temporary D.P. It is their body’s way of

protecting them from all the hurt and worry and they may begin to

think very deeply, just like anxiety sufferers. Once the hurt and pain

weakens, they tend to become their old selves again and the D.P

leaves them as it is no longer needed to protect them. People who

have experienced shocking and hurtful events early in their lives,

may get bouts of D.P to suppress these memories and to shut out

the hurt.

- 111 -

Now let’s move on to anxiety and the reason why people suffer with

D.P. Why it is only natural that you will? I had anxiety for about two

years before I had any symptoms of D.P. I showed no symptoms at

all, until I became more angry and frustrated by how I felt. I was

being moved from one doctor to another and nothing was working.

This was about the time I decided I would have to figure it out for

myself. So I worried daily about how I felt and spend all my waking

hours trying to figure a way out of this mess. I spent my whole day

feeling sorry for myself and was on the verge of tears at every

waking moment. Day after day this went on, until one day I went

home and, as I was stroking my dog, I felt as though I was not really

there. My vision seemed blurred and I had no idea what was

happening. What happened that day is my body said ‘enough is

enough. I cannot take this worry and deep thinking anymore and to

protect me, and you, I have to shut your emotions down’ and this is

exactly what it did. I could feel no emotions, no happiness, no

sensations and no joy. The whole world went grey and lifeless and I

seemed to become a walking shell.

But what happened next was I began to worry about this new

symptom. I tried to figure out not only the anxiety, but this new

sensation of feeling lost and empty. What was happening to me? I

was more bewildered than ever and I now spent my time getting

worse. I really had entered the cycle that would pull me in deeper. If