CYEAT: Chapter 2

Chapter 2 focuses on cognition and how the way you think affects your mood, your anxiety, your outlook on life (similar to chapter 1’s belief systems affecting your perception). It also goes into visualization, which I always find interesting.

The author talks about Coué's Law of Reversed Effort, which says (I'm paraphrasing) that when you want one thing to happen, but you are imagining or worrying about a different outcome, what you imagine will have a stronger effect than what you want. You can make it more likely something will happen by imagining/visualizing it.

Of course, that’s not always going to be true. If you want to have a safe flight and are worrying the plane will crash, you won’t make it crash. If you are worrying you will vomit, it’s very unlikely you will make yourself vomit. But you can make yourself feel “nauseous” and convinced you’re going to vomit by worrying you’re going to vomit, or even by worrying you’re going to feel nauseous.

Another example the author gives is losing a sports game because you’re imagining how awful it would be to lose, which then makes you anxious and causes you to lose your focus. Basically, your thoughts, your belief systems, your imagination, all of it, can influence your feelings and anxiety level, and that can have an effect on your behavior too.

To counteract this, it’s best to 1) tell yourself positive things and 2) visualize what you want to happen instead of what you fear might happen. Seems pretty common sense, right? Putting happy thoughts/images in your head can only have good results.

It’s difficult to do though. I spent months after my breakdown drilling affirmations into my head. I’ve gotten to the point where I can pull them out during an anxiety attack (and they are really helpful), but in general, I’m still usually thinking negative thoughts and putting myself down. It’s such a strong habit. And I hardly even know how to form a picture of what I want to happen when I’m so used to visualizing the worst outcome for every situation. The book recommends practicing these positive visualizations on a regular basis, sitting down for 5-10 minutes at a time and really fleshing out the visuals. I’m definitely going to start doing that.

CYEAT: Chapter 1

Ah, belief systems! The first chapter explores how your beliefs about the world influence the way you perceive the world, and how your perceptions then reinforce those beliefs.

For example, if you believe knocking on wood will bring you good luck, you're going to notice every single time you knock on wood and then something good happens. This will reinforce your belief. You're less likely to notice/remember the times you knock on wood and something bad happens.

Or (for a more negative emetophobia-related example) if you assume you're going to feel "sick" any time you go out somewhere, you will tend to notice the times you go out and don't feel well while overlooking the times you go out and feel fine. This is definitely one of my beliefs. I will complain to my wife that this always happens, that I can't ever go anywhere without feeling "sick" from anxiety, and she will remind me this isn't true and point out specific examples. She can see the whole picture, whereas I only see the bad because I'm invested in my belief - probably because 1) I get extremely frustrated and want to be able to express it in an extreme way ("this always happens" instead of "I hate that this ever happens") and 2) knowing there is potential to experience anxiety makes me want to stay home and if I can believe going out will always result in a struggle, it's that much easier to talk myself out of doing things.

Today was one of those good days that defies this belief. I went to see the new movie Into the Woods, which is pretty long (about 2 hours), and I didn't feel "sick" once.

At the end of the chapter there were a couple exercises about identifying what beliefs you have that may be limiting you (nothing about how to change them yet) and also a quiz, which excited me because I love taking quizzes. But at the end of the quiz there was no scoring or commentary. The author just said to set it aside and the book would come back to it later. Intriguing.

Nothing ground-breaking yet. I already know I have many flawed and harmful beliefs. But of course, it never hurts to remind yourself of these things. Even knowing I have these beliefs, I still don't always realize when I am reinforcing them and behaving as if they are true.

CYEAT: Introduction

In the introduction to Cure Your Emetophobia and Thrive, the author includes a first-person declaration that the reader is supposed to sign. The declaration says things like "I intend to overcome my emetophobia" and "I will complete all the exercises in this book with vigour", etc. Then a place to sign your name and date it.

On the page after the declaration, he asks anyone who didn't sign to think about why they didn't sign. He offers suggestions such as maybe you thought it was silly or wouldn't make any difference. But it got me thinking about why, in a broader sense, I sometimes feel wary about trying to cure this phobia.

First of all, I very much doubt it can be cured, at least not completely. I feel like at the very least you would still have moments in your life, moments where you had a stressful week or were really tired, where it would creep back out again.

But mere moments would be an improvement, obviously, and something to strive for. My next thought is that getting to that stage of 'mere moments' of anxiety would obviously be difficult and horribly unpleasant. The introduction talks about this too, how you have to put in a lot of time and work and complete all the exercises. Then I end up putting those two thoughts together and come up with: I could spend so much time doing these difficult unpleasant things and in the end, it's possible it still wouldn't make any difference.

The author mentions that he thinks exposure therapy (inducing vomiting) would help many people with this phobia, but they won't do it: "Their desire for control tends to be so strong that they would not let themselves undergo exposure therapy - even for just one day, if they were guaranteed a cure."

That's the problem though. No one can be guaranteed a cure. Honestly, if I was guaranteed a cure after one day, I would induce vomiting for sure. That's not reality. Reality is that you would probably have to do it several times to desensitize yourself, which would take more than one day, and there is no guarantee it would be successful. Without that guarantee, it's not worth it. In my mind anyway.

Another thing that makes me uneasy is thinking about how if I was cured, I would probably vomit more frequently than I do now. I get caught in that emetophobic feedback loop where I'm horrified thinking I would vomit, then remind myself that since I was cured I wouldn't care, but still feel freaked out by the thought. The present me feels sorry for the future me who would be cured and thus would not protect herself adequately by the standards of present me. It doesn't make sense. But I keep circling back around to what is essentially a fear of being cured.

Then there is the fact that I have had this phobia my entire life, as long as I can remember anyway, and it is such a huge part of me that it feels like part of my identity. Sometimes I can't imagine who I would be without it. And it's always scary to think about losing a huge part of who you are, even if it's a sick part that's holding you back in so many ways.

So those are my reservations. All that being said, if someone came up to me, handed me a pill, and told me that if I took it I would throw up once and then be cured forever, I'd do it in a heartbeat. I know that's not possible, but it's a nice fantasy.

I do want to commit to the experience of this book as much as possible and see if it can help any (even if it doesn't actually cure), so I will sign the declaration (well, write it out and then sign it, since I bought the ebook version). Since they say it's so important to do so. Full speed ahead!

thrive!

I bought the Cure Your Emetophobia and Thrive book a while ago, and I decided I'm finally going to start reading it. I'm certain it will not cure my phobia and can't say I'm too pleased they decided to give it that title, but I figure there has to be something helpful in there. Even the worst anxiety self-help books I've read have had at least a few good tips.

So here goes. Putting my skepticism/cynicism aside (as much as possible).

And I'm going to live-blog this potentially miraculous experience.

walking goals

Happy 2015 everyone!

Last year I made a resolution to walk 5000 steps a day. Since I work from home and don't like going out all that much, I was averaging barely 1000 steps. Definitely not healthy.

I never do well with exercise goals, but I found it really easy to stick with this one after I bought a pedometer. Those things are amazing. I don't know why, but being able to track by number of steps rather than time is so much more motivating. I bought this Omron one and love it. You probably know the Fitbit is the more popular brand because you can sync up to your computer to track your progress or to other people to form groups, challenge your friends, compete and such. (Also Fitbits are much smaller and more aesthetically appealing.) I got mine before the Fitbit craze and I'm not too interested in making my exercise social at this point in time, so I'm sticking with the Omron for now. It tracks total steps, aerobic steps, miles, calories burned. I rarely look at anything except the total steps - I clip it to my pants, wear it until I hit my step goal, then take it off.

I knew I wanted to work my way up to 10000 steps a day, and I thought it would be easier to do if I added 1000 steps to my goal every month. In September I bumped my goal up to 6000, in October to 7000, etc. and started out 2015 at 10000 steps a day. So that's my main resolution for this year, to stick with that goal.

I think all this walking and trying to eat healthier has decreased my anxiety. 2014 was an awesome year. I pushed my boundaries - going to concerts, festivals, etc. - and I still experienced some anxiety during most of these events, but I had a great time overall.

I did end up seeing The Nutcracker last month, and that was wonderful too. Even though I felt mildly "sick" during most of it. I just took deep breaths and tried to ignore it, which is usually easy for me to do these days. I keep telling myself it's not real illness, even if a part of me doubts it. Then intermission comes - the lights turn back on, everyone starts moving around, I know I could leave if I wanted, I'm able to talk and laugh with my wife for a few minutes, and all of this instantly makes me feel better. Because it is only anxiety.