Oh My Anxious Mind

Discounting the positive. You have difficulty accepting praise or enjoying positive experiences. You reject positive experiences as if they “don’t count.” If you do a good job, you may tell yourself that it wasn’t good enough or that anyone could have done it as well. This leaves you with an inadequate and unrewarded feeling, even when things are going well.

Nine things could go extremely well and one thing could go poorly and all my mind sees is the one. This last weekend was a perfect example of how my mind works. The fact that I was able to get out of the house, enjoy a weekend with family and friends, and really put my ability to enjoy life with anxiety into practice was completely glossed over, all my mind was able to see is that I was nervous, anxious, scared.

I believe that if I could just observe and more importantly accept that I am making progress then progress would continue to come however when I can not accept, the progress is slow and riddled with setbacks. This morning was a realy important time for me, when I came into work, the first thing I wanted to do was jump onto the Internet to lookup signs and symptoms of MS. I’ll admit, I did go to one site but quickly left and worked diligently to distract myself from this train of thinking.

My hope is that I can one day accept that anxiety is real and not a dream. I had been doing so well but after this weekend I can’t believe that this is a real illness, it just seems so bazaar. I want so badly to just accept that I have anxiety and live life. I think I can enjoy life with anxiety but I know it won’t happen until I finally accept.