For a story that could fill many pages, “simple” always tends to be better in the realm of anxiety…

In my case, I think anxiety always been a part of my life since childhood. I was not very aware of it and it never seemed to inhibit me from doing what I wanted or from accomplishing whatever I wanted to accomplish back then.  Life for me during those earlier years was simpler and I guess nothing really warranted as big of a dramatic response.  

All of that changed in my late 20s – where like many people – the anxiety became all-encompassing and debilitating.  My experience was hallmarked mostly by confusion, trying anything and everything I could to “solve” the problem.  

I had all the usual symptoms – both physical and mental: panic attacks, intrusive thoughts, weird dissociative experiences, memory issues, concentration problems, the full gamut.  I am a pretty high-performing person in life and so I leaned on my problem-solving capabilities to address the debilitating anxiety: breathing exercises, meditation, journaling, therapy, you name it – a real “throw the kitchen sink” at the problem approach.  I did experience some minimal improvement, but life was still pretty much excruciating.

I will pause here to say, I think something that kept me stuck for so long was trying to understand WHY this was happening to me.  What were the circumstances that led to this moment? What choices did I have to change them?  I thought if I could just “figure this out,” I could be healed, which from a logical perspective somewhat makes sense.  

At least for me, part of this journey is realizing that “figuring out the why” honestly doesn’t matter.  Everyone has a different story and set of circumstances that get them to this point.  Understanding them at a high level and noticing the behaviors and beliefs that contributed to the situation I found myself in has merit, but examining every microbial detail of my thoughts, situation, etc. is an endless loop that only feeds the cycle.  I guess, in a nutshell, what I am really saying here is, at least for me, anxiety is not really healed by analysis. It seems to fade into the background as you learn to live alongside it as peacefully as you can, and not contribute to the drivers that keep the anxiety machine going.  Maybe that is the acceptance that my CBT coach, Neal Sideman, is always preaching about….

Nonetheless, I was lucky enough to understand that my anxiety was an issue, and I was proactive about finding support. That’s when I came across Neal Sideman, who provides CBT coaching for panic disorder, agoraphobia and other anxiety issues.

There aren’t enough words to really describe Neal’s kind approach; also, it is clear speaking with him, he truly understands – being a former sufferer himself.  I tend to be pedantic at times, and I think my favorite thing about working with Neal is his ability to ground and simplify what is going on to make it really understandable and digestible.  When anyone is in such a difficult set of circumstances, impressionability is quite high and thus being in the care and guidance of someone like Neal makes all the difference in taking steps toward healing as supposed to continued suffering.

I will end here by saying my time with Neal did dramatically improve my life. I went back to doing all the activities and experiencing life – which is wonderful – but I am now at the stage where I am pushing beyond who I previously was and continuing to self-develop.

There is not really a fixed moment – at least for me – where I would consider myself “cured” or “healed”. I do not know if that ever comes.  What I will say though is it feels more like a gradient that improves slowly through time.  I hope this perspective offers some usefulness for others.