Anxiety and Panic: How to reshape your anxious mind and brain (The Flag Series Book 1) by Harry Barry

Author:Harry Barry [Barry, Harry]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Orion
Published: 2017-09-07T04:00:00+00:00

‘So what did you do Sean, when you became very anxious as a result of this demand?’ asks Dr Jim. ‘It is often our behaviour in such situations that causes us difficulties.’

‘I did my usual trick of putting off doing the assignment until the last second,’ says Sean. ‘It was as if the more I put it off, the more I was convincing myself that I was really planning it out and that when I got around to it I would do an even better job. But, of course, I was only fooling myself.’

‘And what else did you do?’ prompts Dr Jim.

‘I spent more time thinking about it, day and night, rather than doing anything to get it started,’ says Sean. ‘When I did start, I just found myself checking and rechecking what I was doing, to see if it was done as perfectly as possible. I also struggled to sleep because of these thoughts in my head, and distracted myself by going on to my social media or by going on drinking binges. I checked with fellow students about how they were laying out their projects, but if I were to be brutally honest, I mostly just stopped eating, lost weight, drank too much and self-harmed to deal with the constant worrying thoughts and horrible physical sensations brought on by my anxiety.’

They then added this new information to their ABC.

A Activating Event:

• Trigger: upcoming assignment to be handed in

• Inference/danger: ‘The assignment might not be done as perfectly as I would like, and I would feel I have let myself and my tutor down if this were to happen; I might run out of time to do it due to my procrastination; I might not get the assignment in to my tutor in time, and so I might end up failing this module; this might lead me to end up failing the whole course in the summer and having to repeat in the autumn; the energy I might have to use to write up the assignment will lead me to feeling more fatigued and eventually more anxious; if this happened, in the past, I would have been bothered that I might end up having a panic attack.’

B Belief/Demands: ‘My assignment must be done perfectly and be in on time with my tutor, and if this does not happen then I am a failure; I must not fail this module or the whole year, and if I do I am a failure; I must be certain that I do not get more anxious or have more panic attacks, and if I do it will be awful and I am a failure for letting it happen.’

C Consequences:

• Emotional reactions:

• Physical reactions: initially, tense muscles, shortness of breath, jaw sore from clenching, stomach in knots, body shaking and trembling and heart pounding; later developed persistent fatigue, difficulty concentrating, stomach pains and a tension headache

• Behaviour: kept avoiding starting the assignment; when he did start, was constantly checking and rechecking to see if

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