Endless Cycle

[CBatheart]

My anxiety was almost non existent for about 3 weeks after i finished counselling for the year and I felt great. Then I see that there have been a lot more quakes than usual and now I am terrified.

The knot in my stomach has returned and my stress caused chronic headaches have come back and I can feel my panic attacks slowly creeping up on me again. While I have accepted the natural process of earthquakes occurring because New Zealand is located on 2 plate boundaries, I still have not accepted everything else that comes with it e.g.the cultural effects.

So I ,probably like many other people, am (hopefully temporarily) stuck in a seemingly endless cycle of anxiety.

 

[CBatheart]

I wanted to post the link to the website that I found out about the recent quakes but apparently it was an email address (It was a valid URL that is asked for not an email address) so sorry that I can't share that to assist my post :mad:

 

[ms spock]

It is hard to feel like it is endless. So it is good to write down days and focus on times when the anxiety is not as high or is absent so you can remind yourself that it does end.

 

[arfie]

As one of my favorite psych pros put it, "emotions serve a valid purpose in the human nature. The goal is to restore your natural processing functions, not to eradicate them."

Anxiety is one of those natural emotions. Earthquakes are a natural stimuli for that emotion. On your mark! Get set! Process!

And feel free to lean on your support network while you process. Please note that I said nothing about it being easy.

Gentle hugs, my shaken one. That is, indeed a whole lot of shaking going on over there.

 

[The Albatross]

What were you doing successfully in the first three weeks that perhaps has dropped through the cracks now? The increase of naturally occurring activity is an additional stresser perhaps as well. What stress management tools are you using?

When I get whacked with anxiety about situations or events I am powerless to affect... I try to examine the thoughts or core beliefs and effect a change that way.

I grew up in Southern California with earthquakes and have lived on the Gulf of Mexico for over 30 years. It is hurricane central. I actually preferred living in an earthquake zone (though likely it was because I was familiar with it more) to being in a place that tends to see darned near every tropical wave that comes off the coast of Africa as a major weather event. It ramped up my stress for in advance of the events because of the main stream weather reporting.

So, I ended up finding a weather forum with some professionals and hobbyists that take a much harder look at tropical storm season. Sort of the weather experts behind the reporting. It helped me to overcome the stress because it has become my habit now, as tropical storm season approaches to read up on the forum. The habit and hobby dissipated some of the stress. Instead of dealing with anxiety at the back end, I deal with it at the front end and have gotten a bit more educated about how to interpret information. It has been a 5 year hobby and I have some sense of competency even if there is an event.

I also have an emergency plan. Having a plan and taking the actions necessary to keep that plan in place season after season has decreased anxiety as well.

Not saying it's 100% effective, but education trumps fear and having a strategy beats anxiety.