Anxiety Support #7 ~ You Don't Have to Control Your Thoughts. You Just Have to Stop Them Controlling You.
 

Why is it smelling like gas?

TFTNT Sunny. :hug:

What kind of work did you have on your car, that might have gotten the fumes inside the car?

Heck, I'd roll down the windows in the rain too, for that.

I am absolutely terrified of falling now. I never fell living in our house. I've fallen 4 times since I got here 2 months ago-usually because of the walker. It's called a Rollator, and has 4 wheels, and brakes.

I guess I'm afraid to trust the walker, but I don't trust my balance at all now.

:hug: I so completely understand that, Kim. Every time I've had an operation, I've woken up without any sense of balance whatsoever. It always came back (to the extent that I ever have balance), but it took a while.

So I get it, is what I'm saying. :hug:

Have you tried cutting up your movements in smaller portions? I used to hang on to the walls for support (I've never had a walker or a cane). And, if I had to go the washroom, for example, I'd lean on that wall, till I couldn't. So then I'd cross the hall, grab on to the next wall, etc.

I don't know if that's even possible for you.

Thank you. :hug: I know you've had really hard times with your balance. Oddly, my balance is getting better fairly quickly in physical therapy, I just doubt it now.

I can't walk using the rails and walls. I have to use that walker at all times. Thanks for that suggestion though. :thumbs_up:

I'm making my movements all really slow now, so hopefully that will help.

How are you doing with your anxiety? Or worry?

I would imagine that doubting your balance leads to being more cautious... which can't hurt, right?

Mind you, since I last posted that, I've noticed that I do tend to hug the walls. :lol: I don't grab on to them to maintain my balance, like I have, but I do try to stay close to walls when I walk or go up or down stairs. :lol:

There isn't much to worry me personally at the moment. My mother's going through something. We've have floods similar to the ones we had two years ago when she lost her house. They built a 4-foot "hill" on which they rebuilt their house. So she didn't lose her house (or anywhere near to it) this year, but her house is surrounded by the water and it hasn't been hot enough for the water to go down significantly.

She's safe. It'll never reach her house. But it's obviously bringing it all back to her.

That must be very upsetting for her! :nod: My mum was stood next to her greenhouse when it got blown over, I think the shock of that affected her for some years, although it never happened again. For me the most distressing thing was when a lorry hit our car on the motorway and sent us spinning in a circle. I had nightmares and I still freak out when there's a HGV next to us on the motorway now. Trauma has a way of coming out, and not always in a rational way.

I really hope you don't fall again, Kim. :(

I'm totally okay with trauma coming out in a rational way. I'm just a bit unprepared. Growing up, my mother was very much of the "go out there and face your fears" and "slap some dirt on it and move on" school of psychology.

So I can be patient. I can listen to her. But I do not know how to help her feel better.

:) Wall hugger. I get that, for sure.

I may be stuck with my walker for good now. Trying to get walking with a cane in the end of PT, so we'll see. They said I had to trust my leg to support me when I step on it.

Thanks Claire. :hug: How are you?

Sunny, that has to be extremely hard for her to experience. I don't know that there is a way to help her, other than to listen. I would probably have had to move away from there, to feel okay again, so she is brave. Hopefully she'll learn to trust it's not happening again. Nature is a scary thing.

I'm coping thanks, Kim. Local and national politics are getting me down, though.

You have to keep trying, Kim. If you don't, you may regret it. :hug:

Clearly that experience is quite painful for her, Sunny. I hope you can help her cope with it, though.

Does Anxiety cause you all loss of sleep? I have found that it does that to me and so then i sleep when I lost a lot of it.

Heck yeah, Mandie. Anxiety and insomnia entered my life at the same time, so...

I've had to develop a lot of tricks to try and move away from anxiety when it wakes me up at night, otherwise I never would be able to sleep again.

Mandie, absolutely. :hug:

Claire, I understand that. :hug:

Sunny, that is what I do, too. Oddly, and I know this is going to sound hilarious, but Jon Bon Jovi seems to show up in my dreams, and talk to me/distract me. :lol: It's been that way since I was in my late teens. Want to share any of your distracting thoughts.

It's not hilarious at all, Kim. I am utterly convinced that our brain uses what we know and like to build our dreams or those types of images for us.

I often dream about TV characters or movie characters. I figure they're there to help me figure stuff out, but basically, my brain just uses the information I put in it as building blocks for my dreams.

Anxiety definitely causes me loss of sleep, cause my brain won’t turn off with ruminating thoughts, but my medication works so well for me, I tend to sleep well now and my brain turns off.

I’m kind of anxious about my budgeting and saving now that my rent is raised from what it’s been the last 11 years.