I wanted to take the time tonight to write about something very personal to me, something people around me have struggled with for years, and something I've also had some trouble with: it's the topic of panic, or anxiety. It's something that a lot of people, even most people, at one point struggle with, but the topic gets brushed under the rug.... since, quite honestly, the topic is hard to discuss when there's so many theories about how to cure it. I'd like to do my best to relate my own beliefs on the cause and antidote to anxiety.
First, one thing needs to be established: anxiety is based on fear: fear we can't get a job done, fear of doing something we've never done before... even fear of what could happen if the anxiety doesn't go away.... which all too often dissolves into an attack, an attack brought on by the fact that we feel we have lost control. We have lost control of our body, it's no longer in our hands, and there is nothing within our means to stop the ever-progressing meltdown in our heads.
Fear turns to despair, and despair turns to panic. This is how an anxiety attack progresses. By that point, the fear is more a state of alarm and hopelessness. The body no longer believe it can control itself, as the mind has already relinquished control. Eventually, you lose all control.... control of you hands usually goes first as they go numb, followed by your feet, up to your legs and arms, and it slowly progresses throughout your body until all that's left is the limited use of your mouth to talk. Not many people get to this final stage, but that's the progression if it continues in this way. The people who have been there will describe the utter hopelessness that comes to them at this stage, and that they have all but accepted they may not live.
As for the solution, it's much easier to say than to actually practice... the cause of anxiety is fear, and the opposite of fear is hope. The only way to cure anxiety is through a mindset of hope, and a belief in your ability to control your body. The only way to cure anxiety is to pull yourself out of it. I would emphasize that this has to be done by yourself. Nobody else can decide for you that you can control yourself. You can control your breathing, and even through controlling your breathing you can begin to control your heart rate. If you can control those two, then you can control the re-emergence of feeling into your limbs, and then you finally have control over your whole body. But, you have to believe in yourself. You have to believe that you have the power to do these things, and you must trust that nothing else can control your body as well as your own mind. And you are the one responsible for your mind.
It seems that anxiety and depression has become so commonplace today because people no longer feel they are in control of their situations. There has been an attitude emerging that it doesn't matter what we do, it will not be enough in a world where the control rests with the government and the corporate higher-ups. Anxiety is a cultural problem, because the root of it is the more commonly accepted belief that somebody else is in control of our life and situation. Then, it is apparent that the most effective cure for anxiety is simply to wipe out this attitude. We are in control of our lives. We have every right to determine where we go, as we are the ones who decide what we do and how hard we work to reach our goals.... just as we determine how hard we are willing to work to gain control of our bodies and fight the anxiety.
It's my belief that the cure to anxiety is coming to believe that we are in control of ourselves and our situation, and nothing can take that control away from us.
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