Fear of relapse

I am afraid of a relapse at anytime..I am getting mild panick attacks from time to time when thinking about that scenario.. it's taking away my attention and bringing a tug of war inside me that's between me and my sinister black shadiws .each time I relapse I am left with anxiety scars that never get healed for some days.. the shock creates a anxiety and this anxiety episode will keep me worried for the next two three weeks unless t
I experiance the shock again... Don't know anything else ..
The usage will make my situation more panicky like addicing extra anxiety elements to it.. but the delusion or fallacy will make me think different..

Stay strong!
Anxiety is a beast that grows when you feed it. Every time you have a panic attack, you have the opportunity to choose not to feed the beast (to continue living without reacting to the anxiety - and the feeling will eventually go away). This is INCREDIBLY hard, but if you react to the anxiety / hide away / reassure yourself / ruminate / etc, it will only feed the beast and you will subject your future self to an even greater panic attack and it will only get harder to not feed it.
You have to create the conviction that you're not going to react to it when you're not in it, and then when it happens, stick to it. It will get easier in time. But it's very difficult to do and a slow climb out of it. It's the only thing to do though. The alternative is a downward spiral. In time you will be able to look back and see how far you've come, and be proud of yourself and shocked at how much better your life is. It takes courage and discipline, but anyone can do it.
All the best and hope you're doing well.

catnaps wrote:Stay strong!
Anxiety is a beast that grows when you feed it. Every time you have a panic attack, you have the opportunity to choose not to feed the beast (to continue living without reacting to the anxiety - and the feeling will eventually go away). This is INCREDIBLY hard, but if you react to the anxiety / hide away / reassure yourself / ruminate / etc, it will only feed the beast and you will subject your future self to an even greater panic attack and it will only get harder to not feed it.
You have to create the conviction that you're not going to react to it when you're not in it, and then when it happens, stick to it. It will get easier in time. But it's very difficult to do and a slow climb out of it. It's the only thing to do though. The alternative is a downward spiral. In time you will be able to look back and see how far you've come, and be proud of yourself and shocked at how much better your life is. It takes courage and discipline, but anyone can do it.
All the best and hope you're doing well.

This seems to be the general advice for anxiety-type problems, and it's expressed quite nicely here (I sometimes find the advice patronising or even insulting).

In reality, things are a bit more complicated. I used to get a lot of anxiety before going out with friends. "Don't avoid going out with them, keep going out and the anxiety will go away!" would be the usual type of advice. However, it turns out that it was a toxic group of friends! Sometimes taking another kind of action - cutting the "friends" out of my life in this case - is the right thing to do.

In other cases it may be appropriate to take small steps and not rush things too much and get overwhelmed, if possible.

Thank you for the insight floatingtree!

You're right that sometimes it's more nuanced than that and for everyone it's different what will work. So thank you for sharing that.

I also feel bad for implying that not reinforcing the pattern is the ONLY thing to do. I didn't mean it like that, just that it was the right choice to make in that situation. There are lots of things that can help; therapy, meditation, living a healthy lifestyle, medication, etc.
Also, like floatingtree stated, sometimes changing something in your life or environment is the key. Maybe there's something else in your life that's causing all this anxiety that you need to address? Maybe changing your environment can help? There are a lot of options for improving your life that can affect you in more ways than you realize, and go deeper than you realize.

For me, there were times when I changed something in my life and felt a weight lift afterwards that I didn't realize was there, or had told myself I didn't care about at the time -but after realized how much it actually weighed on me.

I hope you're doing well and I hope you've been able to find things that work to help alleviate your anxiety. All the best.