My anxiety levels have spiralled again - triggered by what I call 'sound bite journalism', the kind of reporting that gives you a scary statistic without telling you the whole story. It's undoubtedly a technique which sells papers but for those of us whose anxieties are triggered by references to money or statistics and who then mould those references around our own (emotional) experiences to confirm all the bad news we know to be true (especially when it isn't, which is nearly all of the time) it's frightening and depressing. Frightening because, in my case, it makes me believe all of my anxieties are true again and despressing because the anxiety has come back again.
One of my favourite techniques to ease all of this and get some perspective back, to challenge all the negative thinking and see it for what it is, rubbish, is to talk to my dog, make a fuss of her, stroke her ears and watch her sit there and take it all in and wag her tail as if to say, 'do you know what, your worries are unfounded and all will be well'.
Yesterday morning I turned around to give my dog the last piece of my toast as I have done so many times over the years; she wasn't there because she died on Monday. She was the most faithful, loyal, non-judgemental and accepting friend. I'm not really sure what to do with myself - I don't really have the heart to eat all of my breakfast toast.
