POWER OVER PANIC, by Bronwyn Fox

In preparation for the 6-week cancer treatment my dad starts today, I dug this book out from my hoard. Having gone through an era of psychotherapy (make than an eon, or an aeon if you're particular) I was familiar with a lot of the information on panic and anxiety related disorders, so tended to skim through those parts. But I also found some wonderfully inspiring words that I must save here, to read and read again. Here are some excerpts, and if you like what you read then please do go ahead and get the book. Lots of useful stuff for anyone who has a panic/anxiety disorder. Of course, I always recommend 2nd hand!! Let's re-use the old ones before the publishers have to go out and cut down more trees for new editions!

" .. The need to be in control is the main obstacle towards recovery. Recovery means the opposite. Recovery means we need to let go of the need to be in control. We don't realise our overwhelming need to be in control perpetuates our disorder ..

.. The difference between panic disorder and recovery means we have taken the power back and are no longer afraid of the attack or anxiety. We have shifted the power balance. There are no more 'what ifs', but instead we have developed an attitude of 'so what' ..

.. A major obstacle to taking back the power is the lack of compassion we have for ourselves .. we negate and invalidate our own suffering and pain. Most of us cannot see, let alone acknowledge or appreciate our own strength and courage, which has brought us thus far ..

.. We never take time to examine our thoughts. We don't even realise we can. We never watch the internal world of our thoughts as it spins this way and thought. We react to our thoughts without realising they are actually separate fleeting moments in time. We don't see this separateness. Instead, we believe we have no power over the continual progression of these thoughts, and the feelings caused by them .. We need to be in control of ourselves and our environment, yet the only thing we do not control is our thinking. We need to change this by letting go of the overall need to be in control, and control our thinking ..

.. It isn't the symptoms which create the fear. The way we think creates the fear, which creates the symptoms, which creates further thoughts, which creates further fear and the cycle continues ..

.. we cannot let the fear of what other people think get in our way of full recovery. If our face turns bright red, then our face turns bright red. If we feel faint, then sit down on a chair, on the floor, on the footpath, if need be. If we vomit or have an attack of diarrhoea, then we vomit or have an attack of diarrhoea. Let it happen. When we let it happen, we turn off the adrenalin and it will be over as quick as it starts. We will not have to waste all of our energy trying to keep it under control and thereby turning on more adrenalin. Our mental health needs to be more important than other peoples' opinions ..

.. Learning to be patient with ourselves is learning to be kind to ourselves. Being kind to ourselves means we are not putting ourselves under any further unnecessary stress ..

.. Most people do not give their recovery priority. Although everyone wants to recover, there can seem a million more important things to be done first. Our recovery has to become the most important thing in our life. Our loyalty has to be to ourselves. This can be very difficult for many of us because we feel we are being selfish in putting our own needs first ..

.. Making allowances is not giving in; it is working with the disorder. Doing nothing is giving in ..

.. Begin again. These two words can mean so much .. If we feel that we are not making progress, if we feel that some our attempts didn't quite work out the way we would have liked, let them go and begin again ..

.. Our ultra-sensitivity also increases the sense of guilt we feel towards our families because we can't do everything we would like to do. We need to be aware of the extra stress caused by this. We can spend a week worrying and feeling guilty over one small incident which we think of as a failure. Guilt only increases our anxiety. It keeps us locked into the cycle. We need to let it go, so we can move forward to recovery and to the time when we will be able to do everything we haven't been able to do ..

.. Despite the image we had of ourselves, we have always known that we never felt any sense of who we are. We never had a real sense of self. This essential element was always lacking in our lives, and it is from this that our feelings of inadequacy, lack of confidence and lack of self-esteem arose ..

.. Over the years we built the image of who we thought we should be. We lived our lives with an uneasy feeling that we were not who we appeared to be. If we were not who we appeared to be, then who were we? We didn't know. We were never able to answer the question ..

.. The seemingly inherent negativity of the disorder can actually be the most positive experience of our life. How many other people are given such an opportunity? The disorder has done so much of the hard work for us. It has stripped away the image of who we thought we should be, and has returned us to the basis of who we could be ..

.. Life isn't just about growing up, having a career, getting married, having children and so on. These are things we do during life, but they are not life. Life is continual evolution and development ..

.. We begin to see that responsibility for our peace and happiness is ours, and ours alone. We cannot shift the responsibility of ourselves to other people or other factors ..

.. As we become aware of these insights we begin to see we are letting go of more than the disorder. Life begins to take on a different meaning. Our ideals and values change. Things which were once important to us no longer seem so, yet it appears there is nothing else to take its place ..

.. we are walking into unknown territory and it can seem easier to stop where we are, despite our unresolved difficulties. What we don't know is that the unknown territory is that of the self. As the 'disordered' self breaks down it can mean the birth of our real self ..

.. In the beginning it is difficult; there is fear, there is anger, there is frustration. 'Why do I have to go through this, why can't I just be normal like everyone else?' What is 'normal' anyway? Use the anger, the fear and frustration to push past these new fears. With each step, we gain new awareness, new knowledge and increased strength. The process becomes easier and more tolerable. This is life, this is growth, a continual evolution ..

.. It is a time of learning to listen to the inner voice of the self, which is more than willing to help us. If we stop and take the time to listen, the inner voice will be our guide. All too often we do not hear ourselves ..

.. We have to become aware we do have a choice in everything. In making the choice we need to be aware of its implications. We can choose and set limits if we need to. We can choose to move at our own pace. It is going to feel unfamiliar, we will feel vulnerable and the fear will be there, but so too is the self's determination to grow ..

.. Being afraid is all right. Being hesitant is all right. Feeling vulnerable and defenceless is all right. They are all part of the ongoing development of our self. When we begin to work with it, we won't know where we are, where we are going and what will happen to us along the way. This is all right too ..

.. all the resources necessary will be found in our self and we will find them waiting for us at each step. Not only will we find them waiting, we will find they have been there all along."

- from Bronwyn Fox's Power Over Panic

the aliens .. eaerth

Leave a door open.

Nature will find her way in.

Earth was never ours.

It helps if you're already insane.

Ah, the joy of caregiving. Although this was taken after Dad's lung infection in December 2007 B.C. (Before Cancer), it's a picture that speaks a thousand words. It verbalises so beautifully why I am an excellent caregiver, and why I have not lost my mind over all the stresses, fears, worries, anxieties .. there was no mind to lose.

P.S. the mad caregiver - me - is on the right; the silently suffering sedate care recipient - Dr. Tonsils of egg-painting fame - is on the left.

P.P.S. Don't miss the green snake in the background .. oh, all right, it's just a garden hose.

Snape. Who loves him?

'Professor Snape is alive and well and living inside my head'.

I typed this sentence into Google, and the first thing to come up in my Search Results was a delightful little essay from a fellow Snape-lover, who has verbalised, so nicely, just why it is that people obsess -- painfully, tangibly -- over someone who does not actually exist.

Those of you who DON'T obsess will wonder how it's possible. I can't explain, but I can tell you that typing out the words "someone who does not actually exist" felt a bit like blasphemy to me!

Back to the essay, though, "Who Loves Severus Snape?", written by a blogger named Agnieszka. Here are a few excerpts, and click here for the full essay if you need to read more! (Don't read if you are one of those people who has -- shock and horror -- not yet read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows; the essay contains spoilers).

"Severus Snape is written to be loved and redeemed, but the love and redemption take place not within the text but within the experience of the reader. For the readers who love Severus Snape, there can never be real fulfillment because he is a fictional character, a creature of the imagination. But there can be real longing, as a fantasy about a fictional character is no less emotionally real than a fantasy about a living person who becomes fictionalized in the process of fantasy.

There is a similarity between loving a fictional character and loving a dead person. Both the dead and the fictional exist in the thoughts of the real and living. Rowling points to the idea that our manner of interacting with the dead is like unto the manner of interacting with fictional characters. When Harry interacts with the people brought back by the resurrection stone he is aware that they live in his imagination. At the end of Harry's interaction with the Dumbledore in the ghostly King's Cross, Harry asks

"Tell me one last thing," said Harry. "Is this real? Or has this been happening inside my head?"

to which the King's Cross Dumbledore replies

"Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it's not real?"

- from a blog entry by Agnieszka

Twiddling my thumbs in anticipation of an arthritic future

Well here I am, waiting for people to check their inboxes and then (hopefully) sign up to join this online group I just started - COPE: Caring for Our Parents and Elders. Having just become a caregiver for my father, it seemed like something to do.

Half the people I know who are my age are also going through the same responsibilities, stresses, fears ... we talk on the phone once in a while and keep meaning to meet over coffee, but there never seems to be time, or else our schedules always clash. So I figured an e-group might be the next way to reach out and connect, and also share ideas and resources. Anyone out there in the same situation, feel free to join - it's at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/caring4parents

It's been a rough weekend for me. Dad was doing "okay" so I spent most of Friday sleeping. I find sleeping is about the best escape from "all this" (i.e. the whole dad-being-ill-and-I-am-taking-care-of-it-all thing). The other day I realised that my favourite part of the day was at night when I was asleep .. unconscious and oblivious to the world. Not a great attitude to have, which is partly why I decided I needed to connect with others in the same boat. Sadly, no one else has joined the group yet, so while I'm waiting, I'm blogging here, basically talking to myself. Nothing new about THAT! LOL

Saturday I went from sleepy to angry. I was just ANGRY all day long. At the situation. At my parents for being sick and needy and old. At my siblings for not being here for the horrible bits. At myself for not being strong enough. At Prince Caspian (the movie) for being released at a time when I just can't manage to get away to the cinemas. At my husband for not being here to support me (although in his defence I should say that his absence is largely because he does not exist.) Angry at the world in general, and I could not figure out "a healthy way to express one's anger" as all the self-help books talk about, so ended up just smoking a lot of cigarettes, eating a bunch of chocolates, and .. to be honest, I can't remember what else I did yesterday. Oh yes, moved some furniture around. That always makes me feel good. And eventually the anger fizzled out.

And today .. today I'm just getting on with it. Wondering what to make for dinner that will be healthy and tasty for Dad yet not include ingredients that give my Mom allergic reactions .. sigh .. a vague feeling of dread for whatever lies ahead -- and there is sure to be Something ahead -- and the beginning of a spaced-out feeling as my mind decides it's time to dissociate from all this and think happy thoughts about Professor Snape instead.

So a quick trip to Hogwarts before I start rummaging for groceries .. and a promise that I will take time out for me -- and this blog -- on a regular basis again.

Foreword thinking

It's not often I bother to read the foreword of a book. And even rarer that I spend time thinking about what I've read in a foreword. The foreword I'm talking about is by Dr. Arun Gandhi, grandson of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (a.k.a. Mahatma Gandhi and no relation to Sonia, Rahul & co.)
The book is Mahatma Gandhi - His Life & Ideas, by Charles F. Andrews. If you saw Attenborough's movie, that's the cute, earnest Scottish priest who hung out with Gandhiji. I'll get to the book later - it was written when Gandhiji was still alive, and looks to be an interesting read as well, but first things first: the foreword.
I read it only last night, and what I have learnt from it keeps going through my mind. I'm used to finding treasure at book fairs, and the fact that I very nearly skipped past reading it, but didn't, makes me feel as though I found treasure within treasure. Here are some excerpts that have been working on my mind.
"Whether we 'pursue' or 'possess' makes a very big difference in our outlook on life. Pursuit of truth requires us to be honest, humble, open in mind and spirit, and willing to listen and evaluate a situation impartially .. it is this form of positiveness that leads to the creation of a culture of nonviolence .. Possession of the Truth is an attitude that has its roots in arrogance and leads to a closed mind and spirit. It also leads to a rejection of all thoughts and influences that are contrary to our own. This form of outright rejection of differences evokes negative attributes in human beings like suspicion, prejudice, hate, division, and so on, leading to a culture of violence."
"It is the literal translation of the word ahimsa, according to Gandhi, that has done the greatest harm to its universal acceptance. A majority of the Hindus and all of the Jain community have translated ahimsa to mean non-violence, as in not doing any harm to anyone under any circumstances. The consequence of such absolutism is hypocrisy. The absolutists, therefore, will not commit any violence themselves but will get someone else to do it for them. This also leads others to believe that nonviolence is impractical and unattainable .. as long as there is the will to live among human beings, some violence is an inevitable part of life. This is why Gandhi said ahimsa cannot be translated to mean 'nonviolence'; it should really mean 'love'."
"Ahimsa is as much about positively doing some good as about negatively not doing any harm .. we cannot practise ahimsa effectively by ignoring the positive and focusing only on the negative .. protest against war should be accompanied by action for better understanding and relations between people in the country and outside. When we indulge only in the negative without the positive then we have disasters like the hippie movement of the sixties. Millions came out against 'the establishment' but there was not much thought given to the positive aspect of an acceptable replacement. Being against something is understandable, but the action becomes laudable if there is a clear definition of what we are for. To most people all over the world peace has come to mean the absence of war or the absence of violence. Gandhi said peace can only be achieved if we are able to eliminate all forms of exploitation."
"Physical violence is the type of violence where physical force is used -- war, murder, beating, killing, spanking, and so on -- while passive violence is the type of violence where no physical force is used -- hate, prejudice, discrimination, waste of resources, uncaring attitude, etc .. All of us practise passive violence all the time in many different ways, causing hurt or deprivation to someone somewhere. For instance, our over-consumption of natural resources in the world leads to inequitable distribution and poverty. The poor become angry at the rich and attempt to get illegally the essentials of life that they are denied legitimately. This begins the cycle of violence .. "
"Anger, it is said, generates more than 80% of the violence that we experience in our lives. Yet, as a society, we have consistently ignored this powerful emotion so that all of us have learned to abuse anger rather than use the energy positively. We either lash out verbally or physically in anger and in both cases we create a situation with a potential for violence. It is, therefore, passive violence that fuels the fire of physical violence .. if it is our intention to put out the fire of physical violence and create peace we need to cut off the supply of fuel that ignites the fire. This is why Gandhi said "we must become the change we wish to see in the world.""
I've always loved that quotation of Gandhiji's, so I'll stop at this point. Also I am five minutes late for the Harry Potter movie on Pogo TV this afternoon. I shall come back and post more on this remarkable foreword later today!