There has been a shorter gap between blogs this time and I hope to continue that. To those faithful souls who are still following, thank you.
The last few days I feel as though I have been caught in the line of fire of a weapon set to fire automatically and with little pause between rounds. Sad to report this is because there appears to me top be an increasing number of triggers for my anxiety not less. This, frankly, is frightening, I simply do not feel I am getting any better and the anxieties (well documented in earlier blogs, always about financial matters and very often about my sons' futures) feel less like anxieties and more like realities. To illustrate this I offer an example from this morning: the unemployment figures released this morning showed a surprise increase of just over 37,000. Some commentators jumped on the 'gloom bandwagon' predicting all sorts of disaster, some not much short of Armageddon! Others were more circumspect arguing it serves to underline the fact that a recovery is bumpy and this recovery is proving to be no exception. Selfishly, I panicked interpreting it as a disaster for my sons' futures even though the eldest will not enter the jobs' market for at least two, more likely three, years. And when they do so they will both be graduates from excellent universities, holding academically rigorous and respected degrees, to say nothing of their wider skills.
So why is it, I keep asking myself, that I continue to be enmeshed in this 'vulnerability trap'? Why does my mind fast track a piece of media information down the channel which reprocesses it as further proof, proof mind you, that I have a problem and so do my sons? As a CBT practitioner I would be saying something like 'ok, so where is the evidence; where is the evidence that an unexpected increase in unemployment in one quarter spells doom and disaster for my sons? Given the timelines, academic profile and life skills mentioned above there really isn't much evidence if any at all. And I am fortunate that my own employment is secure and will continue to be so.
A more appropriate response would be to feel desperately sorry for those who have lost jobs in the last quarter and spare a thought and a prayer for their future to improve very soon.
Many people have said to me I should just 'get a grip' - if I could, I would and I would have done so a long time ago. It's not that simple. The triggers will probably come thick and fast for a while as the economic commentators compete for our media attention and in doing so they have often been very selective with their presentation and interpretation of data - there are, after all, 'lies damned lies and statistics'!
A very dear friend who is not an economist but works much closer to the market place where the majority of my triggers emanate from continues to assert by e-mail, text and telephone conversation that despite the triggers which presently abound nothing has changed for me or my sons and my anxieties are groundless. She is kind and patient beyond the definitions of those adjectives. Ultimately I need to find a way of believing it for myself then my life would not be smitten my sporadic but regular and horrendous sadness and misery - and I don't mean that to sound self-indulgent I am just speaking the truth plainly.
Another very dear and close friend, a brother priest, said to me a while ago 'this isn't about money'. He suggested, with some persuasiveness, that the anxiety and its attendant sadness and low mood are rooted elsewhere. I think he is right and yet whilst accepting that analysis the reality is the anxieties are a real and continual powerful and destructive force in my life.
So can I do anything else? I'm finding it very difficult to treat the anxiety as an unwelcome houseguest as my psychologist suggested and engage in some opposites, activity which denies the anxiety, a kind of emotional counter-terrorism! The houseguest has taken root in my favourite chair and that emotional counter-terrorism presently seems to be completely ineffective in ejecting him. But I will try harder. Of course I can also keep an open mind about 'cause and effect' - I'm uncomfortably familiar with the effects and what I feel are the causes ('triggers') but I might need to look a little deeper - and I am pretty sure I know where to start!
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