James' words sound just like me talking to myself. He described it so perfectly as an invisible debilitating disease. I've made an exposure therapy video of leaving from my front door to driving into NYC. It was difficult as all hell but I am so glad I did it because it gives me actual data and real footage to look back and see myself in being courageous and brave. I cannot thank either of you enough for taking the initiative with this self help approach. I hope we all get back to living a "normal" life as we used to.
Great stuff, I was anxious at school pre internet (it was the 1990s I'm not a grandpa) I had no idea what it was, how times have changed with channels like this.
Thank you for showing this video, my story is the same as James. The health anxiety is ruining my life, it controls me day in day out it is awful. I hope you and James both beat this.
Thank you Lisa, sorry to hear that you are being held back by health anxiety. I really hope we can make some good progress. The plan is to really share our findings in the hope that it helps others take steps too. If we find something that works well, you'll be the first to know.
The government funding is spread so thin that the NHS are in an almost impossible position. We really hope we can make some progress and hopefully help motivate other sufferers to get out there in the process. Thank you for watching :)
So I've been watching some of your most recent videos and I noticed that most of them are uploaded with very low audio volume, If your video editor has an "audio normalization" option be sure to turn it on, also check if it allows you to increase the volume that the source video comes with by default, cause sometimes it's hard to listen to the videos like that, thank you
Do you mean an underlying psychological issue or physical issue? I'd always recommend visiting your GP if you're concerned that your anxiety is present as a result of an underlying physical issue. If your anxiety is being caused by an underlying psychological condition, then this should really be looked at first. Or your anxiety will persist until this is dealt with. Anxiety in my case, is usually a result of physical symptoms, or in response to my fear of those physical symptoms. The idea behind the exposure therapy is to put yourself in a situation where you experience these symptoms and to desensitise yourself gradually. Learn to accept the physical and emotional changes and learn to accept that they will not harm you.
I can only speak for me, obviously, low self esteem and almost constant bullying lead to me suffering with various types of anxiety. It got to the point where I felt anxious about feeling a bit anxious and it would snowball and get out of control. The bullying happened between 5 and 25. They don't call'em the formative years for nothing.
Sorry to hear that. I'd imagine that the anxiety contributes to the low self esteem and vice versa. Has the bullying stopped now? or is that ongoing? I would hope to say that if you can work on alleviating your anxiety response, then you may be able to take part in things that would in turn help with your self esteem and confidence. Have you tried any therapy for your anxiety issue?
Has it stopped? Yes and no, I'm 44 and still get the odd sticky situation where I become the victim. Sometimes you switch on the autopilot, but the mode is "lost lamb in an abattoir" other times "everything's cool" . As I mentioned in another comment on another video I'm still waiting for a counselling appointment. 15 weeks in total. Hopefully that means sometime before April 6th (I had an initial phone session on Dec 21). Feeling a little desperate, like I'm holding on to a life preserver in the middle of the Atlantic hoping a ship will come by soon.
That waiting time is terrible. It's so bad that sufferers have to wait so long for these appointments. If, in the mean time you want to talk about this or just have someone listen, then I'd be more than willing to lend you an ear.
