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Ask HN: How to break anxiety/fear-avoidance cycle?
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Re: Ask HN: How to break anxiety/fear-avoidance cycle?
#62Did anyone else say drugs? The only thing that’s ever worked for me is working on things I’m truly interested in, crushing anxiety due to a deadline coming up, and drugs. Getting adult adhd diagnosis in my late 30s has been life changing. Make sure your goals are your own and your tasks meet the goals.
Took me years, but I finally started buying stimulants illegally and yeah, they're life changing. They're not the ultimate solution, only useful when I need to focus on something and just do it™, but it's the perfect tool to train my brain. I can see now why kids are put on Adderall/etc then they stop taking them in adulthood. It always seemed very strange to me, but yeah, they help create habits that will stick for…
Be very careful, especially with taking too low of a dose. If you take too little too often, you can build ultra sensitivity to dopamine.
Re: Ask HN: How to break anxiety/fear-avoidance cycle?
#63If you keep that up eventually your head will dry up and fall off. Stop that.
How should one "stop that"?
Re: Ask HN: How to break anxiety/fear-avoidance cycle?
#641) look for some psychotherapy. Really. You'll read a lot of advice everywhere, people in very good-faith sharing what worked to them, but you'll spend a lot of time experimenting to check what works best to you. A good therapist will speed up this process a lot.
2) now, my piece of advice, which worked well to me: read The War of Art from Steven Pressfield. Forget the criticism about his religious tone -- people doing them didn't read past the second part. There's something really interesting in the act of "personalizing" procrastination. It seems it makes it more tangible, approachable, avoidable, I don't know. It was cheap last time I saw, give it a try.
Re: Ask HN: How to break anxiety/fear-avoidance cycle?
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
Netherlands : https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therapie#Wetgeving (in Dutch) : "With the exception of some therapeutic professions, the term therapist is unprotected in the Netherlands and Belgium."
Interesting. Here in Germany you need to be a part of some special guild or something to call yourself a therapist
No, the pure label "Therapeut" is not restricted in any way. Some specific labels for types of therapists are, e.g. a Psychotherapeut has to go through an approbation process like other medical titles.
Re: Ask HN: How to break anxiety/fear-avoidance cycle?
#66The easiest advice i have for you is still very hard. You must move beyond your shame and guilt that keeps you afraid and alone, and you must have a regular two-way relationship with a community of your peers and betters that you all use to help each other out of these sorts of blocking situations. You may well fail if you try…alone. But where you’re weak, someone else is strong, and vice versa. Exploit this. This is…
May I ask where you have sought out such communities?
Not OP, but I've had limited success finding others interested in talking about mental health.
Re: Ask HN: How to break anxiety/fear-avoidance cycle?
#67I just read the question. If you are anxious from your birth or childhood due to parents, or rejection by other children, etc., believe me, no solution exist. You will be anxious all your life. Just accept this sad fact and this sad life. You will never be relaxed nore happy. Why? Because your brain has already developed extremely strong neuronal paths and structures and patterns and overdeveloped organs involved in…
I don't think there's evidence for this for anxiety, but I think this is true for dysthymia (persistent depression), however this isn't necessarily what OP has, although to me it does kind of sound more like dysthymia than anxiety. Generalised or specific anxiety disorders can be treated much more effectively than depression, persistent or otherwise.
If it is persistent depression, you are right. I have dysthymia, and have had it since childhood, and there isn't really hope. Those who have remission, almost always relapse after a year. It is something you learn to cope with, rather than treat. We just have to come to terms with the reality of the situation, that in this life we won't experience the joy that other humans do.
Re: Ask HN: How to break anxiety/fear-avoidance cycle?
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
Interesting. Here in Germany you need to be a part of some special guild or something to call yourself a therapist
No, the pure label "Therapeut" is not restricted in any way. Some specific labels for types of therapists are, e.g. a Psychotherapeut has to go through an approbation process like other medical titles.
Right but when someone looks for a therapist for mental health in germany they look for a "psychotherapist", since that is the one that offers psychotherapy
Re: Ask HN: How to break anxiety/fear-avoidance cycle?
#69The easiest advice i have for you is still very hard. You must move beyond your shame and guilt that keeps you afraid and alone, and you must have a regular two-way relationship with a community of your peers and betters that you all use to help each other out of these sorts of blocking situations. You may well fail if you try…alone. But where you’re weak, someone else is strong, and vice versa. Exploit this. This is…
May I ask where you have sought out such communities? Not OP, but I've had limited success finding others interested in talking about mental health.
OP seems to be in an educational context, in which you swallow your fear, go to office hours, spill your guts, and usually are pleasantly astonished to discover that the group you need is already there and you can start improving immediately.
Re: Ask HN: How to break anxiety/fear-avoidance cycle?
#70Stop trying to perfect your work, try to complete all of your work. Sometimes that means turning something in that you know is wrong.