(Theory) Is your anxiety only the remembrance of a memory?

[The_Fr33_Man]

In the midst of writing a long post about my progressive positive recovery i had a thought about what it means to experience anxiety. It happened a few days ago when due to my detox anxiety was at an all time low, i suddenly found myself getting nervous simply by registering the outline of a person, which turned out to be something else.

It was almost as if the mere memory of being nervous around people created the fear out of nothing... What usually happens then is my mind tries to deny the nervousness thus creating an imaginary struggle where thoughts try to argue and control each other.. you know the usual futile struggle.

So, is your anxiety caused by the actual person or the memory of the person, if the latter you could be further down the road to recovery than you think

[Duke of Prunes]

My anxiety experience doesn't involve any memory or thought at all, it's just a mental fog/discomfort that makes my mind go blank whenever I have to function in some kind of spotlight, and running through the memories of that afterwards makes me avoid those situations again.

If I take stimulants or smoke a sub-recreational dose of weed (mainly sativas and sativa-dominant hybrids), I feel grounded, clear-headed, talkative and a little more motivated.

It's pointless trying to create a unified theory of SA when it's clear from the wide variation of symptoms/triggers that there isn't one single cause, and the fact that particular drugs completely eliminate all traces in particular people (e.g. stimulants for people who also have ADHD) shows that it's not necessarily always psychological.

[The_Fr33_Man]

Originally Posted by Duke of Prunes

My anxiety experience doesn't involve any memory or thought at all, it's just a mental fog/discomfort that makes my mind go blank whenever I have to function in some kind of spotlight, and running through the memories of that afterwards makes me avoid those situations again.

If I take stimulants or smoke a sub-recreational dose of weed (mainly sativas and sativa-dominant hybrids), I feel grounded, clear-headed, talkative and a little more motivated.

It's pointless trying to create a unified theory of SA when it's clear from the wide variation of symptoms/triggers that there isn't one single cause, and the fact that particular drugs completely eliminate all traces in particular people (e.g. stimulants for people who also have ADHD) shows that it's not necessarily always psychological.

Oh no, this isn'ta unified theroy, im only trying to reach out to those who have a similar problem. Also, it sounds like your sa is similar to mine in which its a physiological issue rather than a psycological one, have you done any tests for liver funciton, heavy metals or done a detox in the past?

[Duke of Prunes]

Fear ‘out of nothing’ definitely sounds physiological/neurological. The avoidance and anxious thoughts seem to be more like learned behaviours from leaving the real problem untreated through childhood/adolescence.

I'm a bit sceptical of heavy metals and undiagnosable pseudo-diseases that supposedly have natural ‘miracle’ cures being behind SA. There's a lot of hypochondriacs and scam artists that take a disease, make up a fake name for it using some Greek/Latin words to make it sound serious, omit any signs or symptoms that characterise the real thing and can be used to definitively diagnose it, and then spread it around as if it's the next big thing in medicine, while simultaneously criticising the medical industry for supposedly doing the very same thing (except with hard evidence instead of cherry picked, out-of-context citations from ancient journals).

The molecular level is where the focus should be. Undiagnosed neurological abnormalities/predispositions are probably more common than most people realise. There are countless gene variants (aka archives of mRNA, which are subsequently used as instructions for building proteins, e.g. receptors/transporters) that are found with certain psychiatric diagnoses and personality traits. It's just implausible to diagnose somebody based on some combination of genes, and impossible to take a brain apart and examine it without knowing exactly where to look so as to get the smallest sample possible or without rendering the patient brain damaged.

In my case, I think I've found the right buttons, or at least ones that have some direct or indirect effect on the real problem and have readily-prescribed drugs to hit them (in my case, stimulants).

Treating the psychological aftermath of being unmedicated for so long is the real challenge, but in my experience, it's actually detrimental to get into psychological treatments without investigating the real cause first. All it takes is a step out of your comfort zone to re-trigger the underlying symptoms and remind you why you were avoidant in the first place, leaving you feeling even worse than before.

[diplodocus]

I think it's the emotional association you have with something. Emotions are hard to control as they tend to just happen subconsciously so it seems like we have no control over them. Well we don't directly so that's half correct.

[Mr. Nobody]

Originally Posted by The_Fr33_Man

i suddenly found myself getting nervous simply by registering the outline of a person, which turned out to be something else.

reminds me a little bit of a Taoist parable called 'The Empty Boat' by Tao Master Chuang Tzu.

If a man is crossing a river
And an empty boat collides with his own skiff,
Even though he be a bad-tempered man
He will not become very angry.
But if he sees a man in the boat,
He will shout to him to steer clear.
And if the shout is not heard he will shout
Again, and yet again, and begin cursing -
And all because there is somebody in that boat.
Yet if the boat were empty,
He would not be shouting, and he would not be angry.

[AxelFendersson]

^ Well, yeah, of course he won't be angry. The empty boat couldn't have avoided him. But the manned boat could have. So the collision is someone's fault.

[The_Fr33_Man]

You are right on the scam part, con-artists know no bounds, I'v seen countless adverts and good sales pitches for persons with anxiety, its good to see you have alot of experiance with the specifics of your anxiety.

Originally Posted by Duke of Prunes

All it takes is a step out of your comfort zone to re-trigger the underlying symptoms and remind you why you were avoidant in the first place, leaving you feeling even worse than before.

I hear that, many times during the more toxic stages of my detox does the symptoms unearth a ton of memories that keeps one so rooted in the past and the "what if" future.