Free Yourself from Anxiety (21 page)
Read Free Yourself from Anxiety Online
Authors: Emma Fletcher
Shame
Decide which of the techniques is best for you, for each of the emotions.
Writing
Unblocking
Physical action
Communicating
Tackle the work of releasing your emotions in small manageable steps. Allow plenty of time for it.
People who have problems with controlling their emotional responses can use some of the same methods to discharge their feelings safely, then work on strengthening their adult coping mechanisms through assertiveness training (see Chapter 46).
‘I’ve tried to change, it comes with assertiveness I think.’
A
NDREW
‘I am learning to exteriorise myself but I still hold a lot in, because I have trouble trusting people. However I’m comfortable with this and don’t plan to make much change in the future.’
J
ULIE
‘I haven’t come to terms with that one at all, it goes back to childhood. I hate crying.’
P
EN
‘Also to talk through my feelings I do find that talking through every thing that’s going on in my head with somebody I trust helps me loads.’
S
ARAH
‘I do let my feelings out to certain people, it depends on the person and how close they are to me.’
W
ENDY
Assertiveness means being able to both meet your own needs and acknowledge the needs of other people. It’s not about always getting your own way, or getting other people to do what you want. It means acting in a confident, adult way to get what you need, or to resist unreasonable demands. It doesn’t mean acting in ways that are aggressive, bullying, threatening or manipulative.
An assertive person knows that they have certain rights. The most important ones are:
•
The right to ask for what you need.
•
The right to say ‘No’ without feeling guilty.
•
The right to your opinions.
•
The right to your feelings.
Of course other people have the same rights, so assertiveness is about being fair. It often means looking for a compromise solution, where you can have what you need without depriving someone else – known as a win-win solution.
You lack assertiveness if you:
•
Feel unable to speak up.
•
Often feel ignored.
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Resent the way other people treat you.
•
Can’t cope with aggression or anger in other people.
•
Will do anything for a quiet life.
•
Say ‘yes’ when you mean ‘no’.
Many Anxiety sufferers find it difficult to be assertive, and tend to act submissively. They are afraid to speak up for themselves, or state their needs openly. It can be especially difficult to be assertive if you are dependant on another person for care and support, and yet lack of assertiveness can breed feelings of resentment that only fuel your Anxiety.
One of the most important skills in assertiveness is communicating your needs, and your feelings, to other people. For instance, do you find it hard to tell someone that you’re upset or angry because of something they’ve said or done? It certainly is a risky thing to do, and it needs to be done carefully and in a way which respects the other person’s feelings.
You may not always achieve the outcome you would like in the
short-term
, but as you develop the habit of communicating assertively, other people will start to treat you with more respect. Before you undertake this kind of communication, spend some time thinking about what you are going to say. You can also rehearse it in role-playing sessions with a counsellor or helper.
Here are some basic rules for this type of communication:
1. Choose an appropriate time.
2. Take responsibility for your feelings.
3. Refer to specific behaviours rather than making sweeping statements.
Let’s take the example of someone who feels aggrieved at the way the whole family rely on them to act as an unpaid chauffeur. First, how they handle this in a non-assertive way:
1. Start complaining when a family member is ready to leave the house and reminds the person that they need a lift.
2. Say to the family member ‘you make me so cross the way you expect lifts all the time’.
3. Say ‘you’re all the same, none of you thinks about me at all’.
This might seem like perfectly normal behaviour, indeed it is for many of us, but I’m sure you can imagine how it ends – the family member responds with anger, storms out of the house and both of them sulk in the car. An assertive communication might be more like this:
1. Choose a time when things are fairly calm, and there is time to talk.
2. Say ‘I feel cross when you keep asking me for lifts’.
3. Say ‘I realise you need the lift, but I need a break in the evenings, so how about if you get the bus?’
Another useful skill is boundary setting. This simply means being clear about what you will, and will not do. Once you have set a boundary, communicate it clearly and stick to it. In the lift example the person might set boundaries in this way:
1. Choose a time when things are fairly calm, and there is time to talk.
2. Say ‘I won’t be able to give anyone a lift on Tuesday evenings, that’s going to be my evening off’.
3. Stick to the boundary once you’ve set it.
‘I don’t find it difficult to be assertive.’
A
NDREA
‘I do find it difficult to be assertive, but I’ve improved over the years. With maturity you develop a different approach to life and things don’t bother you as much – things like making a good impression.’
A
NDREW
‘I don’t find it difficult to be assertive, although I don’t always confront issues, because I worry about being too assertive.’
B
RIDGET
‘I used to find it very difficult to be assertive, but I have changed that now.’
J
ULIE
‘I sometimes find it difficult to be assertive. Even as a teacher I wasn’t assertive. I don’t like having to negotiate to get what I see as my right.’
P
EN
‘I do find it difficult to be assertive – it’s hard for me to say “no”.’
S
ARAH
‘I have searched for guidance in the form of confidence and assertiveness classes.’
T
ERESA
‘I used to find it difficult to be assertive but not now. Before if somebody said something I either left the room or lost my temper. Now I can talk it through.’
W
ENDY
Lack of self-confidence and low self-esteem are other maintenance factors for Anxiety. Anxiety can strike both the confident and unconfident, but almost always it has the effect of destroying whatever self-confidence the person had.
Repeatedly avoiding social situations, spending hours locked into rituals, making Anxiety behaviours the most important thing in your life, will all have the effect of cutting you off from normal life and reducing
self-confidence.
Being dependant on other people to manage your life and your Anxiety also affects your self-confidence.
For some people the lack of confidence goes deeper than the Anxiety, into a fundamental part of their make up. It will affect relationships, lead to chronic stress and may be connected to past traumas that still need resolving.
For these people it’s not just a question of confidence, but of self-esteem. Low self-esteem is about failing to accept yourself as you are, and failing to have respect for yourself. This starts in childhood and can come from:
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parents who are too critical
•
significant loss (for example of a parent) during childhood
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physical or sexual abuse
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neglect
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rejection
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parents who are too protective
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parents who are too indulgent.
A person with low self-esteem will find it difficult to love and nurture themselves and won’t be able to care for their own needs. The demands and responsibilities of adult life will overwhelm them, and Anxiety is the result.
This is a very common difficulty for all Anxiety sufferers, but especially for agoraphobics and social phobics who tend to set a lot of store by other people’s opinions.
All of the work you have already done will help you build your
self-confidence,
in particular:
•
Improving physical fitness.
•
Finding the motivation for a recovery programme.
•
Understanding how Anxiety works.
•
Achieving successes in exposure work.
•
Countering negative self-talk.
You could also try:
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Giving yourself a makeover.
•
Asking for positive feedback from supportive people.
•
Creating an activity diary – plan activities that are more satisfying to you.
•
Volunteering to help with a local charity or project.
Many people find that volunteering provides a useful step on the road to recovery. It’s important to wait until you are well enough, so that you have some spare time and energy, but at that point doing something for others is a great way to build your self-esteem and self-confidence. There is a huge range of volunteering opportunities, so you should be able to find something that interests you, and that fits in with any restrictions that Anxiety still imposes on you.
The idea that each one of us has an inner child has been the butt of jokes in recent years, and yet it’s a concept that is useful in understanding ourselves. We all still have, inside us, the child that we used to be – spontaneous, creative, playful, fearful and insecure.
Children experience life in a very direct way, and without depth of understanding, and childhood experiences stay with us in ways that can be hard to put into words.
In many ways Anxiety takes us back to childhood, and anxious fears often have the same irrational nightmarish quality of childhood fears. Recovery consists of gently taking yourself back into the adult world.
If you experienced trauma as a child and you haven’t been able to deal with it, then you will still be carrying the pain of it and that may well be feeding into your Anxiety. This can be healed but self-help may not be sufficient, especially for working on experiences which occurred very early in your life, before you had developed language or thought capacity to understand what was happening. If this is the case for you, we recommend that you look for professional help from a counsellor or psychotherapist.