Anxiety – Stop The Fear Right Now

This post is designed for people having panic attacks or severe anxiety right now. Feel free to bookmark for later use if desired.

Emergency Level (Panic Attack / Anxiety Attack)

That video is amazing.  Something about her voice and the river is highly effective – and it works fast. Listening once always works for me, but listen twice if needed.

Less Intensity Level Anxiety (but you’re still anxious and uncomfortable)

This post will guide you through anxiety relief from highest intensity to lower intensity. After listening to the emergency anxiety relief video above, I recommend this one:

This guy either keeps moving stuff around or breaking my link somehow. I own the mp3, so if this keeps happening I will figure out how to cut the mp3 down in size and upload it. Providing a link to his website as I do so, of course.

The video above also works nicely for irritable anxiety; anger, hostility, and aggressive impulses. It might take a little while. If it’s not working, try some other videos on this page.

If the prior video is too abrasive for your level, this gentle song might work. This sounds like massage table music.

Is it time to go to bed? Or are you at home and able to take a nap? Try this wonderful sleep hypnosis meditation below by Jody Whitely. A few minutes into the video she starts talking about melting… a soothing melting sensation, all your trapped energy just melting away.  That works great for me.

This one is probably not appropriate for emergency level anxiety. It requires a little more concentration. Try this one after something else here has taken your anxiety down quite a few notches.

The video below was actually recommended to me by a therapist in the past.

At the start, “Weightless” feels like it’s going to be too intense. But very quickly it molds into an incredibly soothing sound. It was written in collaboration with sound therapists.

You are on a shining beach at mid-day. Seagulls waddle by. The sun breaks through the clouds creating a silvery vacillating effect, adding to your relaxation.

“Drift” is awesome. But a little way in there is a mild “helicopter” effect thing that some might find too intense. This one is not for full-on panic level. Possibly it’s not designed for anxiety. But it works for me and it’s a great song.

Other tips:

Take a cold shower.

ICE COLD. It forces you to take in a big gulp of air. Almost against your will, really. It forces the issue if you are really having trouble slowing down enough to do breathing exercises. Trust me – if you have severe anxiety or panic – it won’t even be hard for you to keep the lever turned to ice cold the entire duration of the shower.

Last time I had a bad one, I took an ice cold shower and then listened to the “Emergency” video I plugged at the beginning of this post. Worked like a charm.

Pop a sugar free cough drop in your mouth.

It’s the menthol. Works for me, might work for you. Why sugar free? Because the ones with sugar taste like shit to me. I always have sugar free Hall’s lozenges around. It makes these videos even more effective. This is an old trick I learned from back in my stoner days. It relieved both the coughing and the occasional self-induced paranoia ;). It was an accidental discovery that menthol helps anxiety, but I use it to this very day.

Thanks for reading and be well.

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Tuesday

My rent check bounced. This has never happened to me. And I have never once been late on rent.

That was stressful. I had to run off to the savings account and get a cashiers check to cover it.

And then I had to jump back into work. Which was probably a good thing. But there goes my lunch hour hiking plans.

This lack of funds is a combination of forces. But one of those forces is alcoholic behavior and subsequent spending habits starting Thanksgiving and continuing on for a short period after.

Even that dehumidifier I bought is connected, because that toilet would not have overflowed if it was not for some physical consequences of having gotten loaded.

I was mad enough to drink, but it was just a thought and not a full on craving. That would have been pissing in the face of karma. I mean, much of this financial woe goes back to booze, so, no need to repeat thst behavior. I do have weed. And lots of it. It does not result in stupid decisions.

Now I want to walk and it’s raining out. The rain is supposed to stop around 7 so I guess I will go out then. I was tempted to mall walk. And I am not a mall walk type. I don’t think I could deal with the people.

Some guy in the last century wrote a book about a dystopia. Pretty famous, good book. I was at job corps (government program) when I read the novel, and it scared the daylights out of me. I don’t care enough to look up title or author right now. Communism, basically.

He mentioned screens. Hiding from the screens in the living room. This author predicted laptops and working from home. Heh.

This week I stood back some, watching and trying to give the recruiting team the benefit of the doubt.

Days go by and a candidate has not accepted an offer. I was staying out of it, give them space to do their jobs. See how they function. I am new working with this particular team.

Finally I call her. She replied to their e-mail that she needs the start date changed. Nobody replied and so she just sat waiting. It’s possible she replied to an auto-reply bot message, but still. No phone call from them to follow up. Before calling her, I had checked with them and they were like “well, she hasn’t accepted the offer yet.”

Then I circled back with them, told them she wants a change in start date, let them know she was waiting for their asses to follow up with this request, and directed them to reissue that new offer letter with an adjusted start date asap.

These people. I gave them the benefit of the doubt, but clearly I must be their shadow and ask for updates on offers every day.

To just sit there waiting for someone to sign an offer letter and not follow up to see what is going on. I know they are supposedly busy, but busy is not an excuse for something like that. If they are that busy then their company needs to hire more of them. This outsourced company is costing money because that is what my role is about. They had to hire me and my boss to watch their asses, do half their jobs for them, and take notes about where they screw up.

So, the hospital spent millions on this outsourcing and then had to turn around and spend more money on me and my boss (our payroll) as a direct result of partnering with an outsourced recruiting company. And the hiring managers? They can’t stand this other company. They tattle tale on them to me. Heh.

“Melissa, Melissa, help…Jedevi isn’t responding, he fucked this whole situation up, and my new hire start date got delayed by two weeks!” And here comes the cleanup crew that is me.

It was an irritating thing to contend with after the rent fiasco.

Now she’s off in her work stress thing and I am off in my stress. We were going to do something involving being in public but I lost my desire to be among people.

But anyway I have been trapped here all day, so I am going to go have a bath and a shave and figure something out for tonight.

MH Journey – Episode 3 – Therapy

One day she said to me:

“You’re hard to treat because you’re so smart. You really question everything. With most clients, I show them something new; a light bulb goes off and they use the new tool or piece of knowledge and benefit from it.”

Upon hearing this, my thoughts were divided. The first thought was, okay, if I am so smart maybe I don’t need therapy. That, in and of itself, is a good reason not to speak such a thing to any client. Purely from a therapy standpoint, I wouldn’t give a client any such fuel to run away if I were a therapist.

The second thought was… she just let her inside voice project outside. Perhaps she should not have spoke that statement out loud.

One conclusion which may be drawn from her statement is… that she prefers an easy ride. She prefers lesser intelligent/advanced/professional clients who possess little to no critical thinking ability, make her job easy and subsequently fawn over how great and how helpful she is, as this “light bulb” turns on in their heads.

It’s telling that I remember this conversation from nearly 5 years ago so well. It really pricked me.

And, of course, it flared up a mild streak of resentful narcissism in me; the negative quality that steals me away from the better angels of my nature. The quality that stands in direct opposition of my potential, and capacity, for spiritual connection, love, humility and positive change.

At the time, and I know I was less wise than now…and certainly unwell, but I just thought to myself, “This statement from a therapist confirms my worst suspicions. Most people are incredibly stupid… and in this life… I am slushing through a realm of unruly chaos, alone, against an incoming tide of stupid people and unending chaos that these lesser people cannot see.”

Those thoughts are the turning point. In those moments I think, why not become a con?

I’ve at times flirted around with the idea of telling lies just to play with strangers. Show up at a hopping bar and just Make Shit Up. Taking advantage of their ignorance. I have been tempted. I think this is why I am so fascinated with famous female cons who took this outlook on life a little too far and landed themselves in jail. Because they didn’t just fuck with people for amusement, they committed fraud.

Where was the tipping point for these young women? Where is the tipping point for your lesser known & more average “gold digger” inserting herself into powerful male circles?

Ultimately, I never went in that direction. And I never will. I choose to believe people are simply at different phases in their lives and they have wildly different family upbringing.

When I catch myself looking about and seeing a world of chaos, I remind myself they are swimming in it too.

When I find myself in the Bending Mirrors, perceptions leaning toward how stupid people are, among other nightmare chaos inside the bending mirrors, I know that it will pass and I will land back on my feet… to my better inner angels… and my cheery moments of joy, wherein I embrace the beauty of nature, connection, and the holiness of the moment.

MH Journey – Episode 2 – Therapists

I left off writing in this series about the difficulty of therapists.

The first one I can remember actually sticking with for a while was around 2018.

She was an interesting woman. She was probably close to 70 if not beyond, and she had a weird and formal look about her. Penny loafers, short bobbed haircut.

Must have had some value because I stuck with it for at least 4 months over all, sessions once weekly I think.

But she annoyed me by continually talking at me and drawing pictures. She would draw the behavior chain analysis. Okay. Well, I remember it so that had some value.

She would draw this and that and it was more like a professor-student setup.

To her credit, I do think this is where I started advancing to the next level of understanding therapy a little better.

But it was by no means a perfect fit, and I was growing impatient.

She said, you know, you have truama. I said… well okay, let’s dive right in and wrestle this bastard down, let’s fix this.

She said we can’t go there yet because it will destroy you.

To this day, that irks me because nobody gets to decide what I can or cannot handle besides me.

Because if we have identified something and the expert does not want to go there yet, I hear that as either the expert does not actually know how to approach it (which I did not think about at the time) or the expert is sitting back and collecting a paycheck while doing very little.

She also said something that therapists should never say to people. Especially not ones who do, in fact, have a (very) small streak of narcissism going on.

I should qualify this – I believe narcissm is a spectrum thing. It isn’t all or nothing for most people. That con chick Anna Sorokin, the one who took new York City by storm with her big con game? That’s waaaay into the Deep End of full-on Narcissism. Like, the ones who are more or less sociopathic and have no empathy.

Well, there’s lesser degrees. You can have a much lesser version of narcissism which is essentially self-protective and you still have empathy for people and everything. You’re just basically a selfish and ego-driven twat sometimes. I’ve been there before. I have been humbled since. I can certainly be manipulative, but I use this skill for the power of good… to give and receive love. And to advance my career.

My big hero Billy Corgan is like that… on the narcissism spectrum. Textbook narcissist traits in him… everybody knows… but also tender, artistic, capable of harnessing and sharing positive power. He has flipped flop back and forth between villain and good guy through the years. I hate to say this, but there’s been times when he was nearly as bad as Trump with the grandiosity and ego and shit. But. Corgan is lovable and Trump is not. At least not to me. Besides, I don’t see Trump ripping guitar solos that defy musical logic and bring the stars down from the heavens in a powerful sweep of sonic glory.

We are getting a bit off topic here, though, aren’t we?

I am done eating so I guess there will be a next part. I will tell you how she tripped my mild narcissm and stoked my ego in the next one.

E’s first snow.

B recorded this, but I had to post it. It’s not *just* that he looks adorable. He also makes the cutest noises in the free world.

Haha. That’s B’s voice talking. Anyway. Yeah, it’s snowing.

Simon and Garfunkel

I hope this makes someone smile, because it delights me. I’ve been listening to a lot of Pandora. I made a Nick Drake station which plays a lot of Simon and Garfunkel. I am coming to the conclusion that I really dig this 60’s folk duo and could listen to them all day long while high on weed.

So then 2 nights ago I snapped this photo of Govinda and Emmett:

Hahaaaa

Yeah, B’s cats look like Simon and Garfunkel. I noticed this when I woke up this morning and I find it amusing.

I like Kathy’s Song.

If they had named it something else, you could easily think this song was written about England itself. And I like that. But no, it turns out Kathy was his girl, but she wouldn’t follow him to America because she was terrible anxiety and didn’t want to be in the limelight. I admire the lady’s self awareness at such a young age, but it’s sad because he missed her and was forced to move on when she stayed and he came back. And this song is about her. Some of the lyrics toward the end made me think about B last week. Like everything being chaos and unknowns and the only truth you know is that one special person.

I need to check out more of their stuff because I like that song quite a lot. There is a little folkie in me, for sure. I adore Nick Drake and I also love Tim Buckley. All these individuals are the best of the best in terms of songwriting. That is what keeps me going, the wonder behind the talent of all history’s greatest artists. They are all magicians. Watched an interview with Paul Simon from 1981 and really enjoyed it. He went on about what a weird dude Garfunkel is, and I like “dude you’re not exactly normal there, paul.” He was interesting and I enjoyed listening to him talk. He was intensely earnest. He was like a humorless Billy Corgan, in a way. It’s the same, except that Corgan has this Chicago humor where he makes fun of himself and comes across a little funny and charming. Where Simon in this 1981 interview was just like straight honest, almost to a fault, without any goofy humor. Similar creative genius flow and honesty, however. I get the feeling Simon’s way of presenting was, at least in part, a certain type of accepted Manhattan artistic personality. Like… they’re gonna tell it all.. and you’re gonna hear it, and they are going to be sacred and serious.

Here is another picture of the boys cuddling. They love each other so much. It’s really sweet. B started a fire in the fireplace and they loved it. Which amazed me. They are a fur covered animal. How can they enjoy being next to heaters and the fire so much. But they do.

B is a fantastic cook. Screw American food, she made authentic Mexican from scratch. She’s all roasting some good-smelling pepper so that she can then blend it with other stuff in a blender and strained all the husk off so that it’s now home made enchilada sauce. So good.

She will hand chop onion, carrots, and cabbage and then put all this in a jar soaking in white or apple cidar vinegar, throw in some garlic and cumin seeds, and then she’s just made Curtido. I consistently eat more of this cabbage dish that I had planned on. I didn’t know I liked cabbage before I met her.

I realized the other day that I used to be good at being alone. Physically and emotionally. And now I am not that good at it. Which freaks me out a little. But it’s a fact.

Today will be a chill day. I write by hand quite a lot too. I will write by hand. It’s boring compared to what I do here. It’s more like checking in with myself each day. A mindful type of activity. Public is hard for me right now; pms anxiety. Otherwise I would invite her to check out bazaars and go to a video game arcade. But probably walks and hikes in quiet places is all I can handle. I gotta go to bed early tonight. I am a little behind on sleep.

MH Journey- Episode 1 – Therapists

Like many people, I’ve had a difficult time trusting mental health therapists enough to properly work with them.

The longest I stuck with one was between 4 and 6 months. I’ll get into that story a little later.

A few roadblocks stand in the way. First of all, I have encountered therapists who appear to do very little beyond listening and collecting a paycheck.

My understanding of what they are supposed to do is pull information out of you, then challenge you, make you think in a new way, and assign homework.

I respect the intent of that mission.

And perhaps some of the problem is my own impatience. You’ve filled out their questionnaire, they have education enough to put details and a diagnosis together fairly quickly, and now it’s time for them to roll up their sleeves and do the work.

If they seem to doddle around too much, they are wasting my hard-earned money. Like it or not, this service exists inside the construct of capitalism. They provide a service, we are supposed to get something out of the service we paid for.

In fact, I can’t think of any other product or service, presently, where if you decide you’re not satisfied – tough titties – they collect the funds anyway.

Therapists may view this as incredibly short sighted, but they seldom talk about the money issue. And yet, it’s a major blockade for many people. There are related issues connected to lack of selectivity. I’m in the U.S. – if I sign up for Kaiser HMO tomorrow, I am limited by way of my health insurance (often one choice between two or three shitty choices) to only see the Kaiser therapists who work in that one Kaiser facility.

I’ve decided – and here I represent everyman – that due to the low premium cost of the insurance, medical & prescription considerations, and other factors, that Kaiser is the best plan for me. Since mental health is not the only consideration here, I am stuck with a limited choice of therapists. And who knows how many among that group of 10 or so which ones will be of the paycheck collecting do-no-work variety or simply not a good match for me. Or, and this is seldom talked about, trainees fresh from college who don’t have the experience to deal with someone like me. Maybe none out of this small group have any experience with eating disorders period, much less a highly niche, relatively unknown eating disorder called ARFID.

So, you can see how all of these factors swirl together to create a wall blockading access to care. Not just for me, but for many. It’s not just a broken system, for those with trauma stuff, it’s also our own internal issues around trust. Between the two, we observe a perfect storm of inaccessibility.

*okay, I am starting this series. Episodes will often be short because I only blog for as long as it takes to eat a meal. Sometimes it takes an hour, sometimes a half hour. Today was a nice short day and I must return to work.

Two Subjects.

This is a tricky title, because you think I’m talking about the attached painting (which could also be true) but I’m actually going to talk about two completely different subjects.

First, this:

B is an artist, and I commissioned this. I told her I had a vision of a white/golden bird and a lizard. And I wanted her to draw something showing the bird defeating the lizard. She exceeded my expectations on this. I love that it looks like they are inside an ocean wave, or the elements or something.

This is about recovery from addiction, this drawing. As we both have the same issue, I figured it would be good for her to draw this as well. I teased her about the lizard because it’s face is a little bit cute. I said it looks like one of her cats. To this, she responded that negative “habit energy” will naturally present as friendly and comfortable. I smiled. That is an excellent rebuttal to my teasing.

I believe the above is the final version, but her earlier drafts looked pretty cool and I’ll post them at the bottom of this post.

Second subject:

B got me a Tarot Deck yesterday. I shuffled the deck, and naturally I had to ask about the thing which has been in the back of my mind constantly this weekend.

I pulled a single card and said the name “Ashley” out loud. This is the card I got. I think I was asking silently for some kind of confirmation that there’s something going on after life ends, and you know, is there peace now.

Here’s the book description of the meaning behind this card:

“Respite. Rest after illness. Repose. Replenishment. Solitude. Exile. Retreat. Temporary seclusion. Abandonment.”

And here, upon typing this up, my face contorts and I get that feeling where your eyes are all wet and you’re like, “no, this isn’t happening right now.”

I’m normally a bit skeptical about “woo” stuff, but I’ve had surprising/creepy moments, and this is one of them. I shuffled the shit out of that deck, and I pulled from the middle. The female figure in the card even looks a little like her when she was young. The figure plays with and cares for cats on this card, because it’s the Tarot of The Cat People deck. But it could symbolize guinea pigs in this context. The little pigs were her companions.

The ironic thing about all this shit, ha, is that Ashley was not down with woo. Like, not even a little bit. Hahaaa, she was so scientific and occasionally published myth-buster articles about pseudoscience. One of her last book reviews was a gushing celebration of a book that also does pseudoscience mythbusting. I just read that article last night.

Well, the grieving ones can do whatever the hell they want to find comfort. That’s what I have to say about that. I’m generally skeptical myself, but there’s some spiritual openness here.

The part that says “temporary seclusion”, I would like to think that reincarnation is a thing and that there’s some holding bin somewhere before souls get reborn. And that this is what “temporary seclusion” could mean.

Anyway. That was my brow-raising moment last night. And then I did some additional card pulling about me, for my own path and purposes.

I’ve got sticky notes on my wall and bathroom mirrors. Reasons not to drink when I feel like I want to. Little messages. “Hangovers are worse than you recall right now”, “Puking and the shits”, you know, all the glamourous stuff. “No. You can’t stop at 1 or 2.”

It was an idea I came up with myself. Writing shit in a journal wasn’t cutting it, I needed to put the information in front of my face in green, pink and orange.

Here’s the work in progress version. I thought I had two but I can only find one, so that will do.

Here is the artist and her cat Govinda. She gave me permission to use this great pic because otherwise I wouldn’t post a pic of someone without asking.

Here’s her blog:

https://thoughtdoula.wordpress.com/

Here’s my other favorite picture she did for me. Hahaa I have posted this before but this shit never gets old. It’s a unicorn squirrel.

It’s a little silly of me to post from my laptop, because I should try to eat dinner at some point and this means potentially posting for the third time today. In the WP reader, the other two posts tend to get buried under the latest one. On some feeds. So if I post again, followers may only see the top one and of course my “blog n eat” session from my phone will be the stupidest one.

-Z

For Melissa – Recipe for spaghetti with garlic and oil. I am seriously just republishing this so I can find it quickly and write it down later. Ha.

Also known as spaghetti aglio e olio.  Personally I use linguini  but you can also use spaghettini but NEVER angel hair.  You want a thin macaroni, spaghetti is really too thick and angel hair, in my opinion is gross. The way I do it is the way I like it – there are variations to-taste. […]

For Melissa – Recipe for spaghetti with garlic and oil.

New Sunday

Blessed cold, it nips at me as I rise. But, I celebrate it. Fog shrouds the trees outside my window and a little spark of joy ignites the ready engine of my heart.

Off to the grocery store, hurrying along, for now, even at this early hour, the people begin to gather and slowly lines form.

Loading things into the trunk and phrases like “it’s a new day” and “no more wasted mornings” parade through my head, and I inhale the fresh air and think of the little bit of excitement ay thoughts getting outside later. After brunch and coffee. And even if I end up too lazy later, the morning dream of it was sweet and comforting.

Coast and Cats

I think Govinda might be a Maine Coon kitten after all.