You CAN recover from anxiety and panic. I did. You can too. I was a lifelong anxiety sufferer. Nothing I tried worked, until I finally stumbled on the approach that made all the difference – the acceptance method based on the work of Dr. Claire Weekes.
I am now fully recovered, and know that I will never return to that state.
Anxiety can be a devastating condition that causes severe suffering from which it may seem impossible to escape. It resists attempts to make it go away, which adds to our fear and desperation. Acute anxiety can trigger panic attacks. Prolonged anxiety can lead to depression.
What we don’t realize in the midst of our suffering is that, while it feels serious and unsolvable, anxiety is actually just a bluff. There is a way out, and we can make a full and permanent recovery from both anxiety and panic attacks.
Anxiety Symptoms
The variety of anxiety-related physical and mental symptoms is almost unlimited. There are so many it’s impossible for me to list them all, but here are some of the more common ones:
Physical Symptoms
- Headaches
- Feeling of a “tight band” around the head
- Blurred vision
- Stiff or painful neck / back
- Dizziness, feeling light-headed, fainting
- Feeling weak, tired
- Trembling hands / body / legs
- Tingling skin / Pins and needles, itching
- Agitated / unable to rest or relax
- Sleeplessness (insomnia)
- Heart palpitations, racing / thumping heart
- Chest or abdominal pains
- Shallow breathing / Hyperventilation / Unable to get a deep breath
- Dry mouth
- Difficulty swallowing, lump in throat, choking sensation
- Upset stomach, diarrhea
- Frequent urination
- Blushing
- Flushed face, hot flushes, sweating
- Ringing in the ears
- Hypersensitivity to light or sounds
Mental / Emotional Symptoms
- High levels of fear & anxiety
- Racing thoughts
- Scary, weird or disturbing thoughts
- Night terrors
- Obsessive thoughts / Compulsive actions
- Thinking one is going crazy
- Difficulty focusing
- Short-term memory loss
- Highly sensitive to everything
- Feeling impatient / short tempered
- Frequent anger, emotional outbursts
- Fearing one’s thoughts and reactions
- Afraid of harming someone / self
- Feeling agitated yet exhausted
- Overwhelming feelings of despair, sadness, crying a lot
- Experiencing a lack of joy, numb
- Loss of confidence, blaming oneself
- Feelings of shame & guilt
- Disintegration, unreality
- Feeling incredibly alone
- A sense of bewilderment
- Feeling hopeless, no motivation
- Depressed
As you can see, anxiety can cause a bewildering array of symptoms. The variety and intensity of the symptoms can convince us that there is something seriously wrong with us – that it must be more than just anxiety. But it is important to understand just how much anxiety can bluff us. Symptoms caused by anxiety are not serious, no matter what our thoughts try to tell us.
Anxiety is a tricky condition. Whenever we become “comfortable” and are able to tolerate our current symptoms, it will throw something new at us. When one symptom disappears, another can quickly take its place.
It’s almost as though anxiety is a separate entity that is desperate to survive. Our attempts to recover threaten its existence, so it throws more and more anxious thoughts at us, keeping us off-balance, reacting, and searching for answers.
Anxious Suffering
Anxiety loves to give us symptoms that really bother us. The more we hate and fear a symptom, the more our anxiety gives it to us. It seems the more frightened we are, the more our anxiety likes it.
The symptoms that bother you may be no issue to someone else, and vice versa. The symptoms that don’t bother you much come and go without you really noticing or paying attention to them. It is the ones that you fear and hate that you react to strongly. And it is this powerful reaction that causes them to stick around, and (if they leave) to come back again and again.
Our anxiety seems to have a goal of keeping us afraid of our thoughts and symptoms. It ultimately causes us to become afraid of experiencing fear/anxiety itself, and to avoid places or situations where that might happen. It is this fear, combined with our unsuccessful efforts to fight off or avoid the anxiety, that causes us great suffering.
Suffering is the combination of our fear of the anxiety condition, fear of situations that may trigger it, our prolonged and unsuccessful efforts to overcome the anxiety, our resulting physical, mental, emotional and spiritual exhaustion, and our despair that things will never change.
Where You Are Right Now
If you have been suffering from anxiety for a while, you are probably frustrated, desperate, maybe frantic. You just want to get back to normal or how you were before you suffered. No doubt you feel lost, bewildered and ashamed by your condition. You may feel defeated and depressed because of your inability to get better, and even have doubts about whether you will ever recover. The struggle has exhausted you.
But most of all, I suspect you are feeling very scared and alone.
Your Experience is Normal (& Common)
Firstly, it is very understandable that you feel scared. It seems like anxiety has trapped you in a world of pain and suffering with no apparent way out. Let me put your mind at rest right now: I felt exactly that way for over 30 years, and yet I was able to recover completely once I found the right approach.
I have personally witnessed many other sufferers who were in the same state and recovered using the very same method. I believe that all of us (you included) can recover from anxiety with the right approach, persistence and time.
Secondly, be assured you are far from alone. There are an estimated 40 million sufferers in the United States – about 1 in 6 of the adult population – and a similar percentage around the world. We are not really aware of just how widespread anxiety is because sufferers tend not to talk about their condition. In fact we tend to be so ashamed of it that we go to great lengths to hide it from others. We suffer in silence.
What you are going through is far more common than you probably realize. Furthermore, since the thought patterns that create and maintain the anxiety state are essentially the same across the spectrum of anxiety and panic disorders, the same approach can work for every type of anxiety, and can work for you.
Trying to Work It All Out
As anxiety sufferers, we spend an enormous amount of time and energy trying to work out why we suffer, what caused it, and how we can bring an end to it.
Many of us consult Dr. Google (big mistake!), and this rarely ends well. For a start, there are very few articles about cases where the symptom was benign or caused by anxiety because people aren’t motivated to post them. But we see lots of horror stories, most of which were just other anxiety sufferers being bluffed by their condition, and so we get a very negatively biased view of our symptoms. Add to this the fact our scared and sensitized mind ignores any good news and latches on instead to even the most obscure but frightening things, and we have a recipe for health anxiety.
Our minds are so powerful that simply reading about some symptoms related to a serious illness can cause us to experience them.
As stated, the symptoms we experience can be so severe and convincing that we are sure there is something seriously wrong with us. Feelings of panic can make us think we are about to have a heart attack or stroke. So it’s not surprising that sufferers of panic attacks are common visitors to the Emergency Departments.
In 2013, an estimated 1 in 25 of the population in the U.S. were admitted to Emergency because of an anxiety or panic attack. This speaks to two things about anxiety: it is VERY common, and it is VERY convincing that there is something seriously wrong with us.
We are Never Reassured
Despite multiple visits to the doctor or hospital, test after test coming up negative, and being declared healthy, we may still find it impossible to believe it is just anxiety. Even when we know the symptoms are just anxiety, we still fear them. Reassurance has very little effect on reducing our anxiety, and in any case, each new symptom triggers a fresh round of fear and worry about our health.
When our symptoms are diagnosed as anxiety, the medical community seems to have few answers for us, other than prescribing tranquilizers and/or antidepressants. These may provide us some relief, but it is usually partial relief, and often only temporary. They may help us cope, but they are not a cure. We may be referred to a counselor, psychologist, or Cognitive Behavior Therapist, but if your experience was like mine, these rarely helped much.
The Search for a Cure
I suspect you have tried (as I did) just about everything you can think of to achieve recovery from anxiety or panic, and nothing works. You have reached a point of desperation and are fearful that you’ll be in this state for the rest of your life. I have been where you are. As someone who suffered from severe anxiety for decades (most of my life), I know just how stuck, frustrated and in despair you feel.
I tried medications, counseling, psychotherapy, cognitive behavior therapy, exposure therapy, hypnosis, meditation, positive thinking and affirmations, and more. I spent thousands of dollars over the years on self-help books and courses, but nothing worked. At the end of it, my anxiety was just as bad as ever, and I had lost almost all hope of ever recovering. Then, finally, a few years ago, I came across an approach to dealing with my anxiety that actually made a difference.
The Acceptance Method Works
The Legacy of Claire Weekes
Dr. Claire Weekes’ acceptance method has transformed countless lives, providing a roadmap for recovery from anxiety that emphasizes understanding and acceptance rather than fighting and avoidance. Her approach continues to achieve wider recognition and adoption in the treatment of the anxiety state due to its ongoing effectiveness and success.
My Experience of the Acceptance Method
The acceptance-based approach taught me how to recover from anxiety by changing the way I responded to my anxious thoughts and symptoms. I learned that anxiety is a bluff, and not nearly as serious as it felt. It changed my experience of anxiety and allowed me to gradually desensitize and heal.
The method did what every other approach failed to do for me – it taught me how to recover from anxiety naturally, just by accepting my anxious thoughts and symptoms.
Most importantly, where countless other approaches failed, the Claire Weekes’ method led me to complete recovery. For the first time in my life, anxiety no longer dominates my every waking moment, and is no longer a factor in every decision I make.
I now live a life so full of peace and contentment that I couldn’t even have imagined it when I was suffering. To be honest, I would have settled for much less, so I am unbelievably grateful for the life I have now. And I KNOW that my recovery is permanent.
In short, I gained my life back!
Now, I want every anxiety sufferer to have the same opportunity to recover from this devastating condition as I did. For that reason, I have placed a great deal of free information on this website. Be sure to check out my blog.
I also compiled everything I learned into the Acceptance Method as described in my book “IT’S ONLY ANXIETY: How to Recover from Anxiety & Panic“.
Ready to start your journey to recovery? Grab a copy of ‘”It’s Only Anxiety” today and learn the powerful acceptance method that changed my life!
~ Carl