Progress Report

Hello again friends!

I just wanted to pop in for a moment to tell you that I no longer consider myself as struggling with anxiety, and it's wonderful! I have to thank you all for being here in my darkest days, and now I can share my bright days of relief.

Yeah I still have the occasional anxiety, but it does not rule my life anymore. I've even been drinking coffee literally every day and that was always a big trigger for me. I owe my recovery to therapy and a great support system, but I give myself the most credit because I was the only one who could decide to get better. I was hell bent on getting over this, and here I am 6 months after my mental breakdown.

A lot has changed in the last 6 months. I've stepped down at my job into a position with less responsibility, I've decided to move out of the big city and much closer to home, but the most important change was mentally. I changed the way I perceived anxiety. I changed my thinking habits, and that alone was the biggest obstacle.

When I have anxiety, I only allow myself to feel it in that moment. I don't carry it around with me in my head all day like I used to. And when I do feel it in the moment, I've learned how to cope until it passes.

The thing about anxiety, is once you learn to how to beat it, you are empowered and even challenge it to come back. Because you're not afraid of it anymore, you're not hiding from it and hoping it doesn't come back. Like they say, it's like trying not to think about a pink elephant.

It's been very therapeutic for me to blog my progress, I do so on another site and offer my experience to anyone who wants to pick my brain about my own healing process. So I invite you to do so if you would like. I recovered organically, without medication (well I do have emergency benzos just in casies) and although you might have forgotten what life is like without anxiety, it's there, just waiting for you to come back.

It is so possible to get through this. I struggled on and off for about 7 years, but 6 months ago was when I reached a breaking point. It was time to face it head on and get rid of it for good. I can't say that it won't ever come back, but at least now I know how to reverse it.

This is wonderful news!! I am so happy for you. It sounds like you have made wonderful decisions for yourself and worked hard to overcome your anxiety. Thank you for the encouragement for those of us who aren't there yet!

Don't ever lose hope, no matter how you feel. It was always nice to read success stories, it was a great comfort to me personally. You don't really come across them too often because when someone recovers they tend to leave forums and forget about the whole thing. But it's still pretty fresh in my mind to the point where I remember how much I appreciated reading about how I really could come out of it. From the beginning it was my goal to come back and give back to everyone that was so important in my recovery.

Just remember that recovery is very up and down. You'll have good days and you'll have bad days, but eventually the good days will outweigh the bad until the bad days don't even exist anymore.

Hi MM

That is great news I am happy for you long may it continue.

Keep us posted with your progress.

Hibee

Wonderful news!!!! Thank you for posting this! I'm a big advocate of therapy and working on changing your mindset!