Phobias

Part 1 of 2 As parents, our primary concern is to ensure the well-being and happiness of our children. However, when childhood anxiety comes into the picture, it can be a difficult and distressing experience for both the child and the parent. Childhood anxiety is more common than most, affecting millions of children worldwide. In this comprehensive guide, we will explore what childhood anxiety disorder is, its characteristics, how to recognize the symptoms, and most importantly, how parents can play an important role in helping their child navigate in this difficult time.

Understanding Childhood Anxiety Disorder

Childhood anxiety refers to psychological states in which a child experiences fear, anxiety, and panic attacks that limit their daily activities and enjoyment of childhood. It is important to recognize that anxiety is a normal part of life and acts as a catalyst protection of the device. However, when anxiety is severe and persistent, it can significantly affect a child’s emotional, social, and academic performance.

There are several common childhood anxiety disorders, e.g.

Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD): Children with GAD may worry excessively about a variety of everyday issues such as schoolwork, health, or safety. They often try to control anxiety and are too perfectionist.

Separation Anxiety: Children with separation anxiety experience intense fear and sadness when separated from their parents or primary caregivers. This fear can lead to severe distress and reluctance to attend school or participate in activities at a distance.

Social Anxiety: Children with social anxiety are very introverted in social situations and fear being embarrassed or unfairly judged by others. They may avoid socializing or experience physical symptoms such as shyness, sweating, and tremors.

Specific phobias: Specific phobias are intense fears and avoidance of specific objects, situations, or animals, such as high places, spiders, or darkness

Identifying childhood anxiety symptoms

Identifying the symptoms of childhood anxiety is important for early intervention and support. Keep in mind that every child is different and symptoms can vary. Some common symptoms of childhood anxiety include:

Excessive worry: Constant worry about everyday situations, even when there is no reason to worry.

Physical Symptoms: Abdominal pain, headache, muscle tension, or other physical symptoms without a medical explanation.

Sleep problems: Difficulty falling asleep, staying asleep, or frequent nightmares.

Avoidance Behavior: Avoidance of anxiety-provoking situations or activities such as socializing, school, or extracurricular activities.

Perfectionism: He is troubled by his striving for perfection and his inability to meet high standards imposed on himself.

Anger: Unexplained anger or outbursts of anger, usually associated with overheard emotions.

Supporting Your Child with Anxiety

As a parent, you play an important role in helping to guide your child through his anxiety challenges. Here are some practical ways to help your child with anxiety.

Open Communication: Create a safe and open environment where your child feels comfortable expressing their feelings and concerns. Listen deeply to their feelings and amplify their emotions, reassuring them that it is okay to feel anxious sometimes.

Educate yourself: Learn about childhood anxiety to gain a deeper understanding of what your child is going through. This knowledge can help you respond with empathy and get the right help.

Be patient: Be patient and understand your child’s progress. Recovering from anxiety takes time, and there can be obstacles. Celebrate their small successes and encourage them to keep trying.

Avoid avoidance: While it’s important to respect your child’s boundaries, slowly encourage them to face their fears. Avoiding anxiety-provoking stimuli may provide short-term relief but can reinforce fear in the long run.

Teach coping strategies: Help your child develop coping strategies to deal with anxiety. Relaxation exercises, mindfulness techniques, and positive self-talk can be powerful tools for managing anxiety.

Set reasonable expectations: Avoid putting too much pressure on your child in class or in extracurricular activities. Set reasonable expectations and emphasize effort over perfection.

Seek Professional Help: If your child’s anxiety is critically affecting his or her everyday lifestyles and functioning, recollect looking for expert help from a certified intellectual fitness expert. Treatments which include cognitive behavioral remedy (CBT) may be very powerful in treating youth tension disorder.

Taking care of yourself

Suppor

Peace of mind is my biggest challenge because stress, depression, fears and phobias are my best friends and all my problems seem unsolvable and incurable. The body says everything is fine, and the mind thinks otherwise. It panics and creates fatal scenarios. It dominates me, not I him.

I bonded with a stalker and bully who whispered to me for years that she would come, until she finally came ... and dragged me down, even though I was already pretty down.

The spirit wants more than the body can do. Physical activity depends on health, but health also depends on physical activity. Lack of coordination, balance, agility, and regret over lost activity. Limitations and changes in perspective. Lowering expectations and increasing success factors. Functionality becomes a training goal and determines future and current exercises.

It ruined my life and put me on a losing position, deprived me of the chance to achieve my life goals, forced me to change them and focus on intellectual activities. And I helped her, too. I gave up what I was doing. For fear of losing something in the future, I lost it now. I could not go back and continue because even if the opportunities are smaller, the dreams and desires are the same. I wanted to, and I could not, but I did not know what to want either. Everything alternately and completely randomly, without any stabilization.

I am afraid for my present and future health, my finances, my attractiveness, my loneliness, my immobility, my dependence on others and for the mess my husband is in. And I must admit that the question often goes through my mind, what to do in this life for the future...

Accept the present. Yes, acceptance and surrender is a difficult thing because it means accepting the worst, fighting to the death and knowing that it may not do any good because no one knows what is happening in our lives and why. Acceptance and nothing else, because I will always be full of regrets and never forgive her, I only dream of not breaking down when the scales of victory tip to her side…

All my stories are on the blog.

#MentalHealth #RareDisease #ChronicIllness #Disability

I've struggled with my mental health for the longest. I'm currently 18 and probably have dealt with it since the age of 10. Most of it started off as anxiety but it grew as I got older. As a child, I definitely had a bit anxiety but a lot of kids do, especially since I was attached to my parents and hated going to school. I consider myself a complex case. I'm sure some of my relatives think the same. I struggle with generalized anxiety and panic disorder, OCD, phobias (which I will delve more into), persistent depressive disorder, PMDD, and ADHD. I've been diagnosed by a professional, so this isn't just a list I made up.

With my anxiety, I have many triggers. Some are open spaces, some are areas with tall ceilings, some are crowded places, sometimes it's just the public scene, etc.. Anxiety can be complex because sometimes I'll experience anxiety for no reason or it'll be triggered by a sensation. My symptoms vary, too. Sometimes I'll experience a stomach upset, clamminess, fidgetiness, pins and needle feelings, hot flashes, derealization, dry mouth, burping, crying spells, overwhelmed (usually sensory overload), throat feels like it'll close up (the sensations that i hate), and so much more. It can be hard to build the courage to push out of my comfort zone because these symptoms are scary. Sometimes my heart will race or other times, I may feel some lightheadedness or just an impending doom of dread. It's scary and hard to deal with.

With my OCD, I have a variety of subtypes. There's the Harm OCD, Sexual OCD, Somatic OCD, Existential OCD, Memory OCD, and more. I'm often embarassed by some aspects of my OCD because the obsessive thoughts are hard, espeically when they're intrusive. My harm OCD has intrusive thoughts, my sexual OCD has intrusive thoughts, my somatic OCD focuses on my body sensations/feelings, my existential OCD focuses on my fear of time passing and going through identity crisises and questioning my own self and if i'm being me. Then, my memory OCD focuses on my fear of losing memories and wanting to remember every little thing. I also do have health anxiety lol.

My phobias are also very complex. I have agoraphobia, altocelarophobia (ties in my agoraphobia), batophobia (sort of ties into agoraphobia), emetophobia, and social phobia. Agoraphobia is basically a fear of no exit and being outside of your comfort zone and some triggers (which mine are) crowded areas, public spaces, open areas, and more. Altocelarophobia is a fear of high ceilings, which can really tie into agoraphobia. Batophobia is a fear of tall buildings because I feel so small compared to the building and of course,, I'm standing next to something that makes me feel off and strange. I like to feel comfort and safe, I do not like to feel like I'm exposed or ungrounded or unsafe. Emetophobia is a fear of vomiting, so yknow that. My social phobia isn't severe but it ties into my anxiety and oepning up to talk to people

#phobias #fears #Books #hypnosid #resourced

I am 47 years old and have yet to enjoy much of anything in this life. I have CPTSD, Anxiety, Depression, and all coated with psychosis. I have had these my entire life due to childhood sexual abuse and neglect. Then about 6 years ago I went through a series of extremely traumatic events all at the same time. It was too much. I broke. I started seeking treatment about 5 years ago. The national suicide hotline gave me the name of a place for people with no insurance. I am sitting here 5 years later, worse than when I started. I have never seen the same doctor more than once. The medication system they have leaves me without my meds about a week before I get the refill just enough time to be rushed with every suicidal thought there is. Don't get me wrong, my caseworker is so sweet and she's been the only consistency in my treatment. I appreciate that!! She didn't mean it when she said it, but last week she says, "I'll talk to you next month and pretend I have solutions I really don't have.". It disheartened my soul. I can't tell you the number of times I called their nurses hotline telling them I didn't feel ok. Telling them I was scared. Something was terribly wrong, and never a call back at all. I'm so lucky to have a husband that is so sweet, patient, and understanding or I would be dead. 100%. In addition to all of the chaos I deal with in my head, I am a full time caregiver to my mom who has early onset Alzheimers I have a front row ticket watching my mom slowly die. Everyone has long since forgot her. My brother robbed her blind and left her with nothing to care for herself. I made a promise to her I would never leave her. My husband and I are literally all she has. She's living her worst nightmare and I can do nothing to help. She can't even communicate with me anymore. I have to read her body language just to try to guess what she needs. I have phobias that leave me paralyzed for hours at times. My husband juggles work and trying to care for us. We are blessed he loves us and is so awesome. As my mom declines, so do I. I hear locusts 24/7. It was very low when I was a child. I focused on them the summer my sexual abuse began. I hear them so loud now that I am beyond desperate to make them stop. When you add that to all the chaos around me, I'm not sure how I'm still here at all. I have been swaying around that line for a very long time. I have my associates degree in radiology. I put myself through school with 2 kids and no help. All the while battling my mental health. I have worked on 2 presidents campaigns and always strived to make my children proud of who I was. I have a huge heart and have so much I want to do in this world, but I don't want to get out of bed. If someone could see the desperation I feel daily and could help me with treatment, I can repay them. Make payments, something but I can't even get most to even answer the phone. I need to get better so I can help my mom with this last stage of her life. I want so badly to feel life. Feel something other than despair. I have been through things you only see in the movies, most wouldn't have made it this far, yet I'm still here fighting to be a normal person. I'm no one special, but I feel after all the abuse I've endured and pain I've carried for others, I deserve to get better. I'm not asking for sympathy. Others have been thru so much more than me, I'm just begging for help. Is there anyone out there?

Part 1 of 4 Imagine two individuals sitting in stop-and-go traffic at rush hour.

One perceives himself as trapped, and says such things to himself as “I can’t stand this,” “I’ve got to get out of here,” and “Why did I ever get myself into this commute?” What he feels is #Anxiety , anger, and frustration.

The other perceives the situation as an opportunity to lie back, relax, and listen to music.

He says, “I might as well just relax and adjust to the pace of the traffic” or “I can unwind by doing some deep breathing.”

What he feels is a sense of calm and acceptance.

In both cases, the situation is exactly the same, but the feelings in response to that situation are vastly different because of each individual’s internal monologue, or self-talk.

self talk counseling

self talk counseling

The truth is that it’s what we say to ourselves in response to any particular situation that mainly determines our mood and feelings.

Often we say it so quickly and automatically that we don’t even notice, and so we get

the impression that the external situation “makes” us feel the way we do.

But it’s really our interpretations and thoughts about what is happening that form the basis of our feelings.

This sequence can be represented as a timeline:

In short, you are largely responsible for how you feel (barring physiological determinants, such as illness). This is a profound and very important truth—one that sometimes takes a long time to fully grasp.

It’s often much easier to blame the way you feel on something or someone outside yourself than to take responsibility for your reactions. Yet it is through your willingness to accept that responsibility that you begin to take charge and have mastery over your life.

The realization that you are mostly responsible for how you feel is empowering once you fully accept it. It’s one of the most important keys to living a happier, more effective, and #Anxiety -free life.

#Anxiety and Self-Talk

People who suffer from #phobias , #PanicAttacks , and general #Anxiety are especially prone to engage in negative self-talk.

#Anxiety can be generated on the spur of the moment by repeatedly making statements to yourself that begin with the two words “what if.” Any #Anxiety you experience in anticipation of confronting a difficult situation is manufactured out of your own “what-if statements” to yourself. When you decide to avoid a situation altogether, it is probably because of the scary questions you’ve asked yourself: “What if I panic?” “What if I can’t handle it?” “What will other people think if they see me anxious?”

Just noticing when you fall into “what-if thinking” is the first step toward gaining control over negative self-talk. The real change occurs when you begin to counter and replace negative “what-if statements” with positive, self- supportive statements that reinforce your ability to cope. For example, you might say, “So what,” “These are just thoughts,” “This is just scare-talk,” “I can handle this,” or “I can breathe, let go, and relax.”

I want you to consider some basic facts about self-talk. Following these facts is a discussion of the different types of self-defeating inner monologues.

.Types of Negative Self-Talk

Not all negative self-talk is the same. Human beings are not only diverse but complex, with multifaceted personalities. These facets are sometimes referred to as “subpersonalities.” Our different subpersonalities each play their own distinct role and possess their own voice in the complex workings of consciousness, memory, and dreams.

Below I’ve outlined four of the more common subpersonality types that tend to be prominent in people who are prone to #Anxiety : the Worrier, the Critic, the Victim, and the Perfectionist.* Since the strength of these inner voices varies for different people, you might find it useful to rank them from strongest to weakest in yourself.

The Worrier (promotes #Anxiety )

Characteristics: This usually is the strongest subpersonality in people who are prone to #Anxiety . The Worrier creates #Anxiety by imagining the worst-case scenario.

It scares you with fantasies of disaster or catastrophe when you imagine confronting something you fear. It also aggravates panic by reacting to the first physical symptoms of a

Part 4 of 4 ive, supportive mental habits. Bear in mind that the acquisition of positive mental habits takes the same persistence and practice required for learning new behaviors