I'm pretty sure I've talked about all of these books before in other posts, but I thought it might be helpful to have them all listed in one place.
If you're not able to get any of these, please check out this post where I linked to some great free websites that help guide you through anxiety-fighting techniques.
1) The Anxiety & Phobia Workbook - Edmund J. Bourne
If you can only buy one book from this list, this should be the one you get. In my opinion, it is the best book on anxiety out there. It covers so many different skills, techniques, and exercises. It has information on all the different anxiety disorders, anxiety-related research, types of medication, good nutrition and exercise habits, etc.
The only downfall is that if you're in the middle of an anxiety crisis, the amount of information it contains can be a little overwhelming. If you are feeling overwhelmed, I wouldn't sit down and read through the entire book all at once. It is more manageable one chapter at a time. Each one gives you so much to think about that it is probably better to take breaks anyway, just to let it all sink in.
2) Cognitive Behavioural Therapy Workbook for Dummies - Rhena Branch and Rob Willson
This book was very helpful for me. I was new to trying any kind of CBT work, and it lays out the methods in simple, easy to understand ways. It has tons of exercises to work through (charts to fill out, questions to answer) to understand the faulty/irrational ways you think/act and to help you correct those thoughts and behaviors. It also includes chapters on using CBT to help with depression, low self-esteem, maintaining relationships. I skipped most of that and only worked through the anxiety-focused chapters.
3) Get Out of Your Mind & Into Your Life - Steven C. Hayes and Spencer Smith
I've been meaning to take a second look at this one. I really didn't care for it when I started working through it the first time. It focuses on acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), and I am a much bigger fan of CBT than ACT. ACT teaches that rather than trying to control your thoughts, you should just accept them and learn to live your life with the anxiety (or other unpleasant emotional pain), still doing everything you want to despite the problems you have.
For one thing, I feel it is possible to control your thoughts and change your behaviors. It's extremely difficult, but I have seen it happen in small ways with myself. For another thing, when it comes to emetophobia, I get confused as to how you can just accept it the way it is and push yourself to live your life. But I don't think I got far enough in the book to be able to say I fully understand their method.
4) Living with Emetophobia: Coping with Extreme Fear of Vomiting - Nicolette Heaton-Harris
I wrote a detailed post about this book after I read it. To summarize, I feel it is a helpful book if you are looking for validation of your issue, a detailed description of your problem and everything you have to deal with, or if you want someone else to understand and you are looking for a book to explain emetophobia to them. The book is about the author's experience of living with emetophobia, and if you have emetophobia too, it's likely you'll relate to most of it. It's also likely that there are some anxiety thoughts that the author has but you don't have, and the book could be triggering in that sense. You could end up acquiring new anxiety thoughts/behaviors, so I would be careful when reading this one, if you decide to.
5) The Miracle of Mindfulness - Thich Nhat Hanh
This book is an in-depth look at meditation and mindfulness, two techniques that can be helpful in fighting anxiety. There is also a lot of Buddhism in the book. I'm not a very religious or spiritual person. But you can skim past those parts. I would say probably the best part of the book is near the end, the section called "Exercises in Mindfulness". There is also a section after that called "Selection of Buddhist Sutras" - both of these sections can give you ideas to help with meditation or mindfulness.
6) Overcoming Health Anxiety - Rob Willson and David Veale
This book is similar to the CBT workbook for dummies. It walks you through CBT techniques and exercises, only in this book it specifically applies them to health anxiety. I have a lot of general health anxiety on top of emetophobia, so I found it really helpful.
The book also contains a chapter dedicated to emetophobia. I didn't think that chapter was as helpful as the rest of the book. I would say the same thing about it as the Living with Emetophobia book described above - it is a good description of emetophobia, but it could be triggering and give you more things to worry about that you hadn't been worrying about before. It had that effect on me, but luckily, by now I think I've forgotten all the new worries it gave me. If I was reading the book over now, I would just skip that chapter. The exercises in the rest of the book can be applied to emetophobia as well as any other health anxiety.
7) Freedom from Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder - Jonathan Grayson
I don't have OCD, but during the time period where my anxiety was the worst, I started having a bunch of horrible intrusive thoughts/obsessions that bothered me even more than my emetophobia. I bought this to try to figure out how to deal with those, and it is an amazing book. I would actually recommend it to anyone with an anxiety problem, even if it's not OCD.
The premise of the book is that for people with OCD (and I would say any anxiety disorder), their main problem is that they are unable to accept uncertainty in life. This is so true for me, and it's something I've thought about frequently ever since reading this. So if I was worrying I was sick, instead of telling myself that it is extremely unlikely
that I will get sick and in CBT-fashion using logic to try to prove
that, I would tell myself "you might get sick, and you should deal with
that possibility because the alternative of not being able to deal with
it is ruining your life." I suppose it might be similar to ACT (acceptance of anxiety versus fighting it), but the way the author related it all to the fear of uncertainty made so much more sense to me. The book also focuses on exposure and response prevention, or exposing yourself to your fears and then preventing yourself from engaging in irrational behaviors as a result.
Just a warning, a large chunk of the book deals with specific OCD problems, like checking, counting, etc., and if you don't have those issues, there is probably no need for you to read any of that. I felt the rest of it was worth getting through those (for me) unnecessary sections.
Showing posts with label acceptance. Show all posts
Showing posts with label acceptance. Show all posts
Saturday, May 18, 2013
Sunday, March 25, 2012
movie excursion
I went to see the new movie The Hunger Games yesterday. It was fantastic, by the way, and without having to include any vomit or excessive gore. Hurray for the PG13 rating!
It was two and a half hours long, and I felt "sick" for about the first half. But I didn't leave the theater, not even for a quick break from the anxiety. I'm wavering between optimist/pessimist viewpoints. Optimist: "I stayed the whole time despite how awful I felt! That's wonderful! Success!" Pessimist: "Okay, so my behavior was good, but why can't I control my anxiety more so that I don't feel this fake sickness 50% of the time I'm out somewhere?"
I've been told I have a bad habit of being way too hard on myself, so let's just choose Optimist and run with it. I did manage to calm myself down so that I felt okay for the second half, and there was a lot of mental work that went into that success (and the success of staying the entire time):
-- I wanted to leave several times to compose myself and didn't let myself.
-- When I feel "sick" I never want to swallow, because I'm afraid it will push me into throwing up. I kept forcing myself to swallow and then drank water to prove I was not going to get sick.
-- I wanted to get my wife to reassure me somehow, either by asking her if I was sick or by asking her to feel my forehead, but I didn't let myself.
-- I reminded myself of all the evidence pointing to anxiety, not sickness (I felt fine up until the movie started; I have had many experiences going to a movie and feeling the exact same way, and it has never resulted in me throwing up; there were some parts of the movie that were making me laugh, and it's pretty unlikely I would be so alert and able to enjoy the humor if I were actually sick).
-- I told myself that in the unlikely event of me actually getting sick, it would not be the end of the world. It would be embarrassing and unpleasant, but I would survive it.
-- I tried a visualization exercise where I focused on one of those little red floor lights that guide people along the aisle and imagined transferring all my anxiety and "sick" feelings into that light. I imagined the light could contain all of that unpleasantness, and then it would no longer be in me, and I would be free to enjoy the movie. It really seemed to help some.
Ta-da! A six-step guide to passing for a normal movie-goer!
But it will not always be so hard. Repeated exposure is the key. It seems I really have no choice but to go see The Hunger Games several more times. And I suppose I'd better treat myself to some more delicious restaurant meals as well. Whatever's good for recovery!
It was two and a half hours long, and I felt "sick" for about the first half. But I didn't leave the theater, not even for a quick break from the anxiety. I'm wavering between optimist/pessimist viewpoints. Optimist: "I stayed the whole time despite how awful I felt! That's wonderful! Success!" Pessimist: "Okay, so my behavior was good, but why can't I control my anxiety more so that I don't feel this fake sickness 50% of the time I'm out somewhere?"
I've been told I have a bad habit of being way too hard on myself, so let's just choose Optimist and run with it. I did manage to calm myself down so that I felt okay for the second half, and there was a lot of mental work that went into that success (and the success of staying the entire time):
-- I wanted to leave several times to compose myself and didn't let myself.
-- When I feel "sick" I never want to swallow, because I'm afraid it will push me into throwing up. I kept forcing myself to swallow and then drank water to prove I was not going to get sick.
-- I wanted to get my wife to reassure me somehow, either by asking her if I was sick or by asking her to feel my forehead, but I didn't let myself.
-- I reminded myself of all the evidence pointing to anxiety, not sickness (I felt fine up until the movie started; I have had many experiences going to a movie and feeling the exact same way, and it has never resulted in me throwing up; there were some parts of the movie that were making me laugh, and it's pretty unlikely I would be so alert and able to enjoy the humor if I were actually sick).
-- I told myself that in the unlikely event of me actually getting sick, it would not be the end of the world. It would be embarrassing and unpleasant, but I would survive it.
-- I tried a visualization exercise where I focused on one of those little red floor lights that guide people along the aisle and imagined transferring all my anxiety and "sick" feelings into that light. I imagined the light could contain all of that unpleasantness, and then it would no longer be in me, and I would be free to enjoy the movie. It really seemed to help some.
Ta-da! A six-step guide to passing for a normal movie-goer!
But it will not always be so hard. Repeated exposure is the key. It seems I really have no choice but to go see The Hunger Games several more times. And I suppose I'd better treat myself to some more delicious restaurant meals as well. Whatever's good for recovery!
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
ACT
I recently read a really great emetophobia-related blog and wanted to share it:
To Everything A Season
The author enrolled in an intensive outpatient program at a hospital. This program used the principles of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) to help people cope with their anxiety.
To give a basic summary of ACT, it's a type of therapy that emphasizes accepting negative thoughts and emotions instead of fighting them. The idea is that you commit to living out your personal values/goals in spite of your anxiety issues. You recognize that you will never be able to eliminate negative thoughts and emotions entirely (no one can), but those thoughts and emotions don't have to hold you back.
Check out the blog for more info! It's incredibly detailed, informative, and inspiring.
To Everything A Season
The author enrolled in an intensive outpatient program at a hospital. This program used the principles of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) to help people cope with their anxiety.
To give a basic summary of ACT, it's a type of therapy that emphasizes accepting negative thoughts and emotions instead of fighting them. The idea is that you commit to living out your personal values/goals in spite of your anxiety issues. You recognize that you will never be able to eliminate negative thoughts and emotions entirely (no one can), but those thoughts and emotions don't have to hold you back.
Check out the blog for more info! It's incredibly detailed, informative, and inspiring.
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
self-diagnosing
Miranda: I've been trying to diagnose myself on the Internet.
Charlotte: You can do that?
Miranda: Sure. Just type in your symptoms, hit enter, and wait for the word cancer to appear on the screen.
- "Hot Child in the City", Sex and the City
I seriously love this quote and know from personal experience how true it is. I am always worried about my health (general health as well as stomach-related health) and have spent so much time online looking up any physical symptoms I experience. I've been trying to stop, and I have gotten a lot better. Sometimes I can talk myself out of doing it now. But I think it was just a week or so ago that I was looking up appendicitis and thinking I might have that.
I so strongly advise against ever self-diagnosing online. Especially if you have anxiety problems of any kind. It never helps. Yes, anything you put in will come up as cancer or something equally horrible. Yes, almost every diagnosis will include nausea and vomiting as possible symptoms (just as every single medication will have them listed as possible side effects). Rarely will you put in your symptoms and have "anxiety" come up as a prominent possibility, even though anxiety can cause every possible bodily symptom or combination of symptoms. Seriously. Some websites / books talking about anxiety will tell you it can cause muscle tension, digestive problems, headaches, sweating/shaking. Those are some of the more common anxiety symptoms. But it's nowhere near what's possible. Here is a more comprehensive list.
You will probably notice that this list also has vomiting on it, so I just want to add that I don't believe emetophobics are wired to have that particular reaction to anxiety. If it is possible to have both emetophobia and a tendency to vomit when anxious, I'm sure you would already know you were one of those people. (Also, you would be my hero for dealing with that.) Most emetophobics feel anxious frequently, often accompanied with nausea, and never get sick from it.
I'm not saying you should ignore all physical symptoms, because sometimes it will actually be something other than anxiety. If you have anxiety, it can be hard to tell when something should be ignored and when it should be checked out. These are my own personal guidelines I use to try to navigate my way through hypochondria:
-- I try really hard to avoid looking up my symptoms online. (Don't do it!)
-- I remind myself that I am an extremely anxious person, especially when it comes to my health / body, and that I have had similar worries many times before. So for me, the odds are definitely in favor of any symptoms being caused and/or magnified by anxiety.
-- I tell myself that when it comes to having a serious medical condition, the symptom won't just exist, it will also be severe. So I may feel a shooting pain in my stomach, but how much is it actually affecting me? Can I walk, can I breathe, etc.? People get random aches and pains all the time. When non-anxious people go to the doctor about them, it's because the aches and pains are impairing their ability to function.
-- If I can still walk/breathe and all that good stuff, I tell myself to wait and see if it goes away. I don't have an exact time frame in mind, but at least one or two days.
-- Usually by the time one or two days has gone by, my symptom is gone. But if it ever wasn't, and I was still really concerned about it, I would talk to someone I trusted about it (my wife, I'm sure) and maybe decide to go to a doctor, who, unlike a search engine, will probably be able to give me an accurate diagnosis instead of an exaggerated worst-case-ever one.
It's impossible to know at all times what's happening inside your body, something that is very frustrating to me, but I'm trying to learn to accept it. I don't want to spend every second of my life being vigilant about it, or get into a habit of going to the doctor over every tiny perceived thing. Better to err on the side of under-reacting and believe that if something was really wrong, I would catch it in time.
Charlotte: You can do that?
Miranda: Sure. Just type in your symptoms, hit enter, and wait for the word cancer to appear on the screen.
- "Hot Child in the City", Sex and the City
I seriously love this quote and know from personal experience how true it is. I am always worried about my health (general health as well as stomach-related health) and have spent so much time online looking up any physical symptoms I experience. I've been trying to stop, and I have gotten a lot better. Sometimes I can talk myself out of doing it now. But I think it was just a week or so ago that I was looking up appendicitis and thinking I might have that.
I so strongly advise against ever self-diagnosing online. Especially if you have anxiety problems of any kind. It never helps. Yes, anything you put in will come up as cancer or something equally horrible. Yes, almost every diagnosis will include nausea and vomiting as possible symptoms (just as every single medication will have them listed as possible side effects). Rarely will you put in your symptoms and have "anxiety" come up as a prominent possibility, even though anxiety can cause every possible bodily symptom or combination of symptoms. Seriously. Some websites / books talking about anxiety will tell you it can cause muscle tension, digestive problems, headaches, sweating/shaking. Those are some of the more common anxiety symptoms. But it's nowhere near what's possible. Here is a more comprehensive list.
You will probably notice that this list also has vomiting on it, so I just want to add that I don't believe emetophobics are wired to have that particular reaction to anxiety. If it is possible to have both emetophobia and a tendency to vomit when anxious, I'm sure you would already know you were one of those people. (Also, you would be my hero for dealing with that.) Most emetophobics feel anxious frequently, often accompanied with nausea, and never get sick from it.
I'm not saying you should ignore all physical symptoms, because sometimes it will actually be something other than anxiety. If you have anxiety, it can be hard to tell when something should be ignored and when it should be checked out. These are my own personal guidelines I use to try to navigate my way through hypochondria:
-- I try really hard to avoid looking up my symptoms online. (Don't do it!)
-- I remind myself that I am an extremely anxious person, especially when it comes to my health / body, and that I have had similar worries many times before. So for me, the odds are definitely in favor of any symptoms being caused and/or magnified by anxiety.
-- I tell myself that when it comes to having a serious medical condition, the symptom won't just exist, it will also be severe. So I may feel a shooting pain in my stomach, but how much is it actually affecting me? Can I walk, can I breathe, etc.? People get random aches and pains all the time. When non-anxious people go to the doctor about them, it's because the aches and pains are impairing their ability to function.
-- If I can still walk/breathe and all that good stuff, I tell myself to wait and see if it goes away. I don't have an exact time frame in mind, but at least one or two days.
-- Usually by the time one or two days has gone by, my symptom is gone. But if it ever wasn't, and I was still really concerned about it, I would talk to someone I trusted about it (my wife, I'm sure) and maybe decide to go to a doctor, who, unlike a search engine, will probably be able to give me an accurate diagnosis instead of an exaggerated worst-case-ever one.
It's impossible to know at all times what's happening inside your body, something that is very frustrating to me, but I'm trying to learn to accept it. I don't want to spend every second of my life being vigilant about it, or get into a habit of going to the doctor over every tiny perceived thing. Better to err on the side of under-reacting and believe that if something was really wrong, I would catch it in time.
Saturday, February 4, 2012
a practically non-phobic lunch
I had a fantastic day. I went out to lunch again, and I did not feel "sick" before, during, or after eating. I did have an uncomfortable full feeling at one point, but I didn't get anxious about it, and it went away within five minutes. I also finished my meal when usually I have to take half of it home, because I get "full." (My wife jokes that I have an "at home full" and a "restaurant full" that are wildly different.) And I got dessert and almost managed to finish that too!
I have no idea why this meal went so well, and around the time I was waiting for my dessert, I actually started worrying about my lack of anxiety, thinking about how strange and uncharacteristic it was. But even that didn't lead to anything bad. I just tried to remind myself to be appreciative of it. I know it's weird that I needed to tell myself to enjoy this, but my mind usually starts racing just as much when I have oddly perfect experiences like this. It drives me a little crazy, because I want to know why. I want to know what I did this time that was so right, what led to me having the experience I wish I had every single time. But obviously it's one of those questions I'll never be able to answer. I can only make guesses, and quite possibly it was just luck, just a good-feeling day.
I have pretty bad social anxiety that competes with the emetophobic anxiety, and trying to work around both of them is really annoying. I try to only go to restaurants at off-times when I think there won't be a big crowd, 11am or 2-3pm. But it's really an off-time for me as well, and it leads to me badly planning my earlier meals / snacks so that I show up at the restaurant and am either not hungry or so hungry that I feel "sick." I didn't do that today. I went at a normal time, around 1pm, so I wondered if that had something to do with it.
Also, the decision to go out for lunch was a little spur-of-the-moment. I didn't have days to think about it and figure out exactly what was going to happen. Basically, I'm wondering if all the planning and preparing I'm trying to do to make sure these meals are successful is having the opposite effect. My therapist was saying something similar to me the other day, something along the lines of "if you are putting all this effort into planning events and still feeling sick during them, maybe it would be better to stop planning and just accept whatever happens." It's much easier to go along with that when "whatever happens" is amazing, like it was today. I need to get to the point where I can have a more challenging day and be accepting of that too.
In any case, people without this phobia don't do all this planning, so I'm sure it is something I should try to stop. It's not really getting me anywhere, and it takes so much mental energy.
I have no idea why this meal went so well, and around the time I was waiting for my dessert, I actually started worrying about my lack of anxiety, thinking about how strange and uncharacteristic it was. But even that didn't lead to anything bad. I just tried to remind myself to be appreciative of it. I know it's weird that I needed to tell myself to enjoy this, but my mind usually starts racing just as much when I have oddly perfect experiences like this. It drives me a little crazy, because I want to know why. I want to know what I did this time that was so right, what led to me having the experience I wish I had every single time. But obviously it's one of those questions I'll never be able to answer. I can only make guesses, and quite possibly it was just luck, just a good-feeling day.
I have pretty bad social anxiety that competes with the emetophobic anxiety, and trying to work around both of them is really annoying. I try to only go to restaurants at off-times when I think there won't be a big crowd, 11am or 2-3pm. But it's really an off-time for me as well, and it leads to me badly planning my earlier meals / snacks so that I show up at the restaurant and am either not hungry or so hungry that I feel "sick." I didn't do that today. I went at a normal time, around 1pm, so I wondered if that had something to do with it.
Also, the decision to go out for lunch was a little spur-of-the-moment. I didn't have days to think about it and figure out exactly what was going to happen. Basically, I'm wondering if all the planning and preparing I'm trying to do to make sure these meals are successful is having the opposite effect. My therapist was saying something similar to me the other day, something along the lines of "if you are putting all this effort into planning events and still feeling sick during them, maybe it would be better to stop planning and just accept whatever happens." It's much easier to go along with that when "whatever happens" is amazing, like it was today. I need to get to the point where I can have a more challenging day and be accepting of that too.
In any case, people without this phobia don't do all this planning, so I'm sure it is something I should try to stop. It's not really getting me anywhere, and it takes so much mental energy.
Sunday, January 1, 2012
happy new year
Happy New Year! I hope 2012 is a great year for everyone. I feel optimistic that it's going to be a better year for me. 2010 was a crazy hurricane / whirlwind of anxiety. 2011 had its intensely bad moments too, but it was better than 2010, so I seem to be heading in the right direction. Also, I am determined to get it together this year and actually do the work I need to do (like eating healthier, doing CBT, etc.). I had to go back to my long list of New Year's resolutions and revise it into a plan that I think is realistically achievable. This is something I've never done before. For some reason, letting go of the idea of "perfection all at once" tends to fill me with a squirmy reluctance to try anything at all. But that reluctant feeling wasn't as strong this year. More evidence of progress!
So the last book I ended up reading in 2011 was Living with Emetophobia by Nicolette Heaton-Harris. I bought it months ago, maybe around September, but I have been putting off reading it, because I had heard that it was mostly a long description of emetophobia, and I had a feeling it would only end up upsetting me or triggering me in some way. I figured it would not be helpful at all but might add more irrational thoughts or behaviors to my list. A few times, reflecting on that, I thought about never reading it. But since it is pretty much the only book on emetophobia out there, and I am writing about the same topic on a regular basis, I had to check it out.
All the reviews I heard were correct. The book mostly explained emetophobia in depth, all the different thoughts or behaviors an emetophobic person might have. I could relate to most of it. Some of it made no sense to me. (Am I the only emetophobe that doesn't feel compelled to look at someone who may be getting sick? When I see a car parked on the side of the road, I shut my eyes or look away and feel no urge to witness what I fear might be happening.) In addition to the explanations and personal stories, there were about four pages of advice on how to cope, including nothing more advanced than deep breathing, distracting yourself, and taking small risks whenever possible to try to expand your comfort zone.
But as bad as I felt it was objectively, I am hesitant to really criticize it, because it exists, at least. It's something that takes emetophobia out of just the Internet world, and I have to think it has had some positive impact in giving the problem more weight / attention. Also, if what an emetophobic is looking for is validation of their issue and the knowledge that they are not alone, the book does provide that.
Unfortunately, I'm way past that. Thanks to the Internet, I've known for years what the name of my issue was, and I've read stories from and talked to many people who are also dealing with it, and I'm betting that's the case for most of the emetophobes of my generation. It's not enough anymore. I'm not looking for someone to swap horror stories with. In fact, I generally feel like it might not be a good idea for me to ever meet another emetophobe in person. The idea of emetophobia support groups all over the country raises some doubts in my mind. Would we not just feed off each other? If half of us in the meeting felt nauseous from anxiety at being at the meeting, and the other half found out about it, wouldn't we all just be scared one of us might be legitimately sick? I don't know.
My real issue with the book is that I felt a little damaged and hopeless after reading it, and that feeling stayed with me all night. I rang in the New Year with a vague feeling of sadness at knowing that this phobia touches every part of my life and that there is no cure for it. I don't think the author meant to leave the reader with that impression, at all. But I feel like she spent 95% of the book talking about all the ways emetophobia manifests in a person's life and then ended the book with the message that it could be contained but not cured. It's hard not to focus on the bad parts of that instead of on the ray of hope that is "containment."
This morning, though, post-sleep, I felt better and able to see it all in a more positive light. Containment may be settling, but that doesn't mean it dooms me to a life of unhappiness. Everyone is settling for something in their life. Like someone might have a bad ankle because of an injury when they were young. Of course it would be better if they didn't have to deal with that, but they do, and they work around it. I know from experience exactly how contained emetophobia can be. In college, it was there, but I rarely felt upset about it. I wasn't doing anything special to contain it. It was just out of luck, I guess, or maybe because I had so much going on (schoolwork, friends, events) to distract me from it.
So that's my hope for 2012, that I can get my phobia as contained as possible. With the knowledge about managing anxiety that I have now, I should be able to reach a level of containment even better than the one from college.
And if I want to be wildly optimistic, I have heard of some emetophobes who have been able to cure themselves. Plus with more research into it, maybe a cure that works for everyone will be discovered / developed. It's possible.
So the last book I ended up reading in 2011 was Living with Emetophobia by Nicolette Heaton-Harris. I bought it months ago, maybe around September, but I have been putting off reading it, because I had heard that it was mostly a long description of emetophobia, and I had a feeling it would only end up upsetting me or triggering me in some way. I figured it would not be helpful at all but might add more irrational thoughts or behaviors to my list. A few times, reflecting on that, I thought about never reading it. But since it is pretty much the only book on emetophobia out there, and I am writing about the same topic on a regular basis, I had to check it out.
All the reviews I heard were correct. The book mostly explained emetophobia in depth, all the different thoughts or behaviors an emetophobic person might have. I could relate to most of it. Some of it made no sense to me. (Am I the only emetophobe that doesn't feel compelled to look at someone who may be getting sick? When I see a car parked on the side of the road, I shut my eyes or look away and feel no urge to witness what I fear might be happening.) In addition to the explanations and personal stories, there were about four pages of advice on how to cope, including nothing more advanced than deep breathing, distracting yourself, and taking small risks whenever possible to try to expand your comfort zone.
But as bad as I felt it was objectively, I am hesitant to really criticize it, because it exists, at least. It's something that takes emetophobia out of just the Internet world, and I have to think it has had some positive impact in giving the problem more weight / attention. Also, if what an emetophobic is looking for is validation of their issue and the knowledge that they are not alone, the book does provide that.
Unfortunately, I'm way past that. Thanks to the Internet, I've known for years what the name of my issue was, and I've read stories from and talked to many people who are also dealing with it, and I'm betting that's the case for most of the emetophobes of my generation. It's not enough anymore. I'm not looking for someone to swap horror stories with. In fact, I generally feel like it might not be a good idea for me to ever meet another emetophobe in person. The idea of emetophobia support groups all over the country raises some doubts in my mind. Would we not just feed off each other? If half of us in the meeting felt nauseous from anxiety at being at the meeting, and the other half found out about it, wouldn't we all just be scared one of us might be legitimately sick? I don't know.
My real issue with the book is that I felt a little damaged and hopeless after reading it, and that feeling stayed with me all night. I rang in the New Year with a vague feeling of sadness at knowing that this phobia touches every part of my life and that there is no cure for it. I don't think the author meant to leave the reader with that impression, at all. But I feel like she spent 95% of the book talking about all the ways emetophobia manifests in a person's life and then ended the book with the message that it could be contained but not cured. It's hard not to focus on the bad parts of that instead of on the ray of hope that is "containment."
This morning, though, post-sleep, I felt better and able to see it all in a more positive light. Containment may be settling, but that doesn't mean it dooms me to a life of unhappiness. Everyone is settling for something in their life. Like someone might have a bad ankle because of an injury when they were young. Of course it would be better if they didn't have to deal with that, but they do, and they work around it. I know from experience exactly how contained emetophobia can be. In college, it was there, but I rarely felt upset about it. I wasn't doing anything special to contain it. It was just out of luck, I guess, or maybe because I had so much going on (schoolwork, friends, events) to distract me from it.
So that's my hope for 2012, that I can get my phobia as contained as possible. With the knowledge about managing anxiety that I have now, I should be able to reach a level of containment even better than the one from college.
And if I want to be wildly optimistic, I have heard of some emetophobes who have been able to cure themselves. Plus with more research into it, maybe a cure that works for everyone will be discovered / developed. It's possible.
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
anxiety about cat
I love my cat, but I have a hard time dealing with him when he vomits (pretty rare) or has a hairball (less rare). I wouldn't say it causes an anxiety attack, but it's extremely upsetting, especially to listen to while it's happening. And of course, I know I'm supposed to grab him when he first starts hacking and stick him in the bathroom, so he doesn't end up getting sick on our living room carpet, but I can never do it. I have to get as far away from him as possible.
Because of this, I quickly took note of two things. The first, that he would always meow in a low and mournful way right before getting sick. The second, that if he didn't finish his meal (we feed him twice a day, and he is a fanatic about eating it all right at that moment), that usually meant he would be getting sick within the next half hour.
Both of these neurotic observations have done nothing to help me. There is no way to scientifically measure how low his meow is, and I have gotten anxious about a thousand times over what I thought was a low sick meow and locked him up in the bathroom for no reason. And now, for the past week or two, he has developed a new habit of not finishing his "breakfast" meal. I don't know why. Maybe he still hasn't gotten over the stress of being boarded while we were on vacation. But he will leave some, go wander around, and then come back and finish it a little bit later. Other than that, he seems totally fine. It's too bad he has to live with the crazy emetophobe who checks his bowl after every meal, because again, I keep shutting him in the bathroom unnecessarily.
It's frustrating. I hate how easy it is to come up with these little irrational rules related to your fears. As if anything can be identified and controlled so easily. I just need to let this go and realize there is nothing I can do to avoid being exposed occasionally to cat vomit/hairballs. I wanted a cat, it comes with the territory. So does incredible cuteness, to look on the bright side.
One of these days I'm going to write an actual post again. I've just been all swept up in other things lately, like poetry and Judaism and Gloria Steinem, and ignoring anxiety as much as possible. Which is both good and bad. It's nice to be able to "set it aside" temporarily, but I know if I do that for too long, I'll be right back where I started. But I'm sure I'll get back on track with the start of the new year.
Because of this, I quickly took note of two things. The first, that he would always meow in a low and mournful way right before getting sick. The second, that if he didn't finish his meal (we feed him twice a day, and he is a fanatic about eating it all right at that moment), that usually meant he would be getting sick within the next half hour.
Both of these neurotic observations have done nothing to help me. There is no way to scientifically measure how low his meow is, and I have gotten anxious about a thousand times over what I thought was a low sick meow and locked him up in the bathroom for no reason. And now, for the past week or two, he has developed a new habit of not finishing his "breakfast" meal. I don't know why. Maybe he still hasn't gotten over the stress of being boarded while we were on vacation. But he will leave some, go wander around, and then come back and finish it a little bit later. Other than that, he seems totally fine. It's too bad he has to live with the crazy emetophobe who checks his bowl after every meal, because again, I keep shutting him in the bathroom unnecessarily.
It's frustrating. I hate how easy it is to come up with these little irrational rules related to your fears. As if anything can be identified and controlled so easily. I just need to let this go and realize there is nothing I can do to avoid being exposed occasionally to cat vomit/hairballs. I wanted a cat, it comes with the territory. So does incredible cuteness, to look on the bright side.
One of these days I'm going to write an actual post again. I've just been all swept up in other things lately, like poetry and Judaism and Gloria Steinem, and ignoring anxiety as much as possible. Which is both good and bad. It's nice to be able to "set it aside" temporarily, but I know if I do that for too long, I'll be right back where I started. But I'm sure I'll get back on track with the start of the new year.
Thursday, September 22, 2011
self-help books
I have been having a really good week anxiety-wise. I haven't been feeling "sick" much at all, not even when I go to class. I've had the opportunity to actually think about topics other than anxiety and recovery and relaxation, which is a nice change. What's strange about this is that I have to keep reminding myself it's not the right course of action. I should be practicing my recovery and relaxation techniques in both good and bad times. I don't know, I'm still feeling a little rebellious about it all right now, wanting to just throw myself back into the person I used to be, the one who never thought about any of this.
In other words, I haven't been putting much effort into lowering my anxiety this week. The one thing I have been doing is reading / working through this self-help workbook my therapist recommended: Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life by Steven C. Hayes. I am about halfway through but haven't been blown away by it yet. I can see how it would be helpful if you didn't know anything about mindfulness and acceptance, but I have already read extensively about both, and this book (so far) is only covering the basics. Plus it seems like most of the writing "exercises" are only there to prove some point that is being made by the author, and for the most part, they are obvious points that didn't need to be proven in the first place.
I like the Cognitive Behavioural Therapy Workbook for Dummies so much better. I think I've written about it before. It covers so many different CBT techniques, and you actually feel like you are accomplishing something with its exercises. I think I am going to go back to that book once I am done with this one, because there are still some chapters I haven't worked through.
The 'Get Out of Your Mind...' book implies that other anxiety-fighting techniques, like CBT, don't work and that clearly you already know they don't work, or else you wouldn't have felt the need to buy their book. This is another reason why the book is bugging me. First of all, what works for one person may not work for another and vice versa - everyone is so different. Second, it is usually the case that knowing several different techniques is what is most helpful. I feel like CBT has helped me so much, but I don't see that as meaning that mindfulness and acceptance won't also help me. Even though CBT and acceptance are pretty much complete opposites, one of them could be more helpful in a certain type of situation. Or just the process of going back and forth between them could be helpful. Choosing among all the different techniques. Using a different one for every anxiety situation that arises. I believe variety is essential.
In other words, I haven't been putting much effort into lowering my anxiety this week. The one thing I have been doing is reading / working through this self-help workbook my therapist recommended: Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life by Steven C. Hayes. I am about halfway through but haven't been blown away by it yet. I can see how it would be helpful if you didn't know anything about mindfulness and acceptance, but I have already read extensively about both, and this book (so far) is only covering the basics. Plus it seems like most of the writing "exercises" are only there to prove some point that is being made by the author, and for the most part, they are obvious points that didn't need to be proven in the first place.
I like the Cognitive Behavioural Therapy Workbook for Dummies so much better. I think I've written about it before. It covers so many different CBT techniques, and you actually feel like you are accomplishing something with its exercises. I think I am going to go back to that book once I am done with this one, because there are still some chapters I haven't worked through.
The 'Get Out of Your Mind...' book implies that other anxiety-fighting techniques, like CBT, don't work and that clearly you already know they don't work, or else you wouldn't have felt the need to buy their book. This is another reason why the book is bugging me. First of all, what works for one person may not work for another and vice versa - everyone is so different. Second, it is usually the case that knowing several different techniques is what is most helpful. I feel like CBT has helped me so much, but I don't see that as meaning that mindfulness and acceptance won't also help me. Even though CBT and acceptance are pretty much complete opposites, one of them could be more helpful in a certain type of situation. Or just the process of going back and forth between them could be helpful. Choosing among all the different techniques. Using a different one for every anxiety situation that arises. I believe variety is essential.
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