The Anxious Morning

Have you seen the hubbub and debate surrounding the serotonin and depression study out of University College of London? I want to talk about it because it’s important ...

I want to take the opportunity to talk about the concept of self-forgiveness and giving oneself grace. I think we may be laboring under the assumption that these things are supposed to look a certain way. But really, they can look many different ways ...

Was Roger Waters writing about agoraphobia?

He was not, but when you look at the first verse of Pink Floyd’s “Time”, you can almost imagine that he was. The lyrics are strangely familiar for anyone that’s spent any time stuck in a safe place hoping for something to break the spell of agoraphobia. Often the days can feel wasted and a sense of hopelessness and despair can kick in. I will never forget the feeling of trying to stay busy, making projects that I could do inside my bubble, and sometimes just trying to kill time while knowing that I was missing chunks of my life as time passed ...

Sadly, some of our friends in the community are trying to recover while also being stuck in abusive relationships. That abuse can take different forms. It may be physical, but not always. Emotional, mental, spiritual, and even financial abuse are also real things. If you are in a situation like this, I see you, and I understand how difficult it is and how it is making your recovery situation even more challenging.

We all know "trauma informed", but I would like to propose that we need a companion concept here.

Anxiety Disorder Informed.

That also needs to be a thing.

I just noticed that I’ve only done one Q&A edition of The Anxious Morning, so I asked the fine people in my Facebook group to submit questions, so here are some answers that I hope you will find helpful. I think we’ll make this a monthly feature on The Anxious Morning!

Sometimes I can share parts of my anxiety and recovery experience in the hope that I might help you to avoid some of the mistakes that I made.

This is one of those times. This is a story of regret and, hopefully a lesson to be learned.

Apologies that this one is a bit longer than usual, and a bit more emotional. That might happen sometimes.

In the northern hemisphere it’s that time of year where summer vacations are drawing to a close and kids are going back to school. Lately I am hearing more references to rising anxiety centered around this event. Do you experience back-to-school anxiety?

I’ve probably said a thousand times that we do not recover with words or thoughts. This remains true. But old school “cognitive reframing” does have some use when we can allow it to inform new actions and new behaviors. So as tribute to the gods of cognitive reframing, here are five cheeky sounding - but actually serious - questions to ask yourself about your anxiety.

When I started my Masters program earlier this year I told you guys that once in a while I’d update you and fill you in on how it’s going, what I’ve been learning, and all that jazz. My grad program is ten weeks on / one week off for two years straight. This week is one of those off weeks so it seemed a good time for a quick update.