This results in your being unable to stop thinking about that incident where you were embarrassed at school or at work. You fully realise everyone else would have forgotten it by now but still it whirs and whirs endlessly in your mind. It is this stickiness which comes from the emotional glue that is produced in bucket-loads by anxiety. You remember too much, care too much and suffer too much. Unfortunately you are stuck! Balanced reactions when it comes to others is not in your repertoire.
2 Symptoms to do with avoidance
Fear or anxiety causes you to fight, take flight or freeze. The first relates to reactions such as irritability or anger. The second relates to avoidance or running away which is one of the commonest anxiety reactions. The second most common thing in subliminal anxiety is avoidance. Seemingly the person becomes unable to make decisions. They seek help but the will not on advice given offered due mainly to the fact that they are unable to trust. They become unable to instigate any effective social behaviour. They become fearful and withdrawn. They hesitate to act in any purposeful way. They are transfixed by fears illogical to others around them They essentially suffer with anxiety paralysis. Being paralysed with anxiety in this way most often leads to procrastination; and this to the utter disbelief of all bystanders can go on for weeks months and years. Avoidance is sine qua non of anxiety and anticipatory avoidance its main feature. So anyone who has the slightest anxiety about anything will avoid issues consciously or unconsciously. As stated above the only way that a procrastinating attack can be dislodged is by an appeal to obsession. Once the anxious brain can harness obsessionality which in many ways is simply an extension of the anxious process it has a way out of its predicament which is reactive often agitated and full of overaction. It however is a pathway out of procrastination so often the graveyard of all action in anxiety.
Symptoms to do with avoidance can be looked at externally as in societally or internally within oneself. Society attempts to reinforce the innate instincts that we share with all animals which is that we should take care lest there is danger ahead of us. It is normal for us to be fearful. Sometimes unfortunately we become so attached to our innate fearfulness that it begins to restrict our behaviour and our ability to partake usefully in the world and society. We begin to be inordinately fearful of people or situations. Our fear often becomes so great that we begin our career of avoidance. We avoid doing things that might awaken our fear. We know the answer but are too anxious to raise our hand in class. If someone asks for our opinion we freeze. You are then looked at oddly and that only makes it worse. Youi would love to go to parties but are so fearful that we won’t be able to talk to anyone or that they would find us boring and uninteresting that we again avoid. We choose not to go. We understand that we are depriving ourselves but the anxiety relief in not going is hugely greater than the imagined pleasure that we might get from actually going. For us it is the better deal.
From an internal perspective though we often use defensive mechanisms to limit and reduce our consciousness of our anxiety. How we will deny this anxiety relies on how we characteristically function. We might actually behave in a completely opposite way from how we really feel. Where we would rather be silent we talk too much often in a loud and exaggerated way. We take to drinking too much and behaving in disinhibited ways. People are often quite forgiving and will excuse such behaviours as being simply reflective of an extroverted or ‘fun’ person. Sometimes however the behaviour if persistently will go too far and result in an embarrassing or even damaging social situations. Now that ‘fun’ person is viewed by society as being antisocial inappropriately behaved in other words ‘not fearful enough’. Denial of symptomatology or in common parlance a lack of awareness of our selves is a commonly used avoidance mechanism. Inevitably it results in grief.
'Living vicariously through others is an inadequate compensation for a life'.
3 Symptoms to do with an inability to act
As stated above fear or anxiety causes you to fight, take flight or freeze. If the reaction is the last in other words to freeze this means becoming involuntarily paralysed. It is not a choice it is an inevitability. In this case you lack the ability to do anything or function in any way that is appropriate to the situation. Mostly you just go blank. In effect you do nothing. Freezing is a primitive but commonly used defence mechanism in animals and comes from the fact that many predators in the wild will intuitively avoid an animal that appears to be already dead and might have been that way for some time.
Most anxiety sufferers are paralysed partially or completely by their anxiety. They are so fearful about everything that they become standard-bearers for the hesitant, the slow and the timid. At school they are picked on for these characteristics. They become features of amusement, the butt of jokes. Being labelled by their behaviour they are seen as non-actors or societal non-contributors and because of this they are often bullied. The bullying is often unconsciously provoked by their perceived inability to stand up for themselves. Sociology teaches us that in an inherently unfair world those who can will take advantage of you and very few in society will oppose them. Aggressive behaviour is tacitly condoned in many environments certainly at work and openly on the playing field. This sets up an intrinsic conflict in the minds of many sensitive anxiety sufferers who often believe in balance and equality of opportunity but find they themselves are not afforded these in real life. Turning the other cheek at high school or work rarely gets you brownie points. To the bullied this unpleasant and unpalatable proof is often found in an equally unpalatable pudding. As frequently as it is denied leaders in our society often identify with aggressors unconsciously and unconsciously. In our society bullying is frequently tolerated and even condoned because it is commonly believed that the victims deserve their fate. They have brought it upon themselves and this karmic reference is embraced by many when it suits. The hypocrisy of life has many early victims. Many of the elderly experience increasing anxiety as their lives shrink. Their exposure to life and its stimuli is reduced and accordingly they become anxious and increasingly withdrawn. In a culture that worships youth they are seen as useless as well as powerless and suffer a similar fate to the bullied at school.
2 Symptoms to do with avoidance
Fear or anxiety causes you to fight, take flight or freeze. The first relates to reactions such as irritability or anger. The second relates to avoidance or running away which is one of the commonest anxiety reactions. The second most common thing in subliminal anxiety is avoidance. Seemingly the person becomes unable to make decisions. They seek help but the will not on advice given offered due mainly to the fact that they are unable to trust. They become unable to instigate any effective social behaviour. They become fearful and withdrawn. They hesitate to act in any purposeful way. They are transfixed by fears illogical to others around them They essentially suffer with anxiety paralysis. Being paralysed with anxiety in this way most often leads to procrastination; and this to the utter disbelief of all bystanders can go on for weeks months and years. Avoidance is sine qua non of anxiety and anticipatory avoidance its main feature. So anyone who has the slightest anxiety about anything will avoid issues consciously or unconsciously. As stated above the only way that a procrastinating attack can be dislodged is by an appeal to obsession. Once the anxious brain can harness obsessionality which in many ways is simply an extension of the anxious process it has a way out of its predicament which is reactive often agitated and full of overaction. It however is a pathway out of procrastination so often the graveyard of all action in anxiety.
Symptoms to do with avoidance can be looked at externally as in societally or internally within oneself. Society attempts to reinforce the innate instincts that we share with all animals which is that we should take care lest there is danger ahead of us. It is normal for us to be fearful. Sometimes unfortunately we become so attached to our innate fearfulness that it begins to restrict our behaviour and our ability to partake usefully in the world and society. We begin to be inordinately fearful of people or situations. Our fear often becomes so great that we begin our career of avoidance. We avoid doing things that might awaken our fear. We know the answer but are too anxious to raise our hand in class. If someone asks for our opinion we freeze. You are then looked at oddly and that only makes it worse. Youi would love to go to parties but are so fearful that we won’t be able to talk to anyone or that they would find us boring and uninteresting that we again avoid. We choose not to go. We understand that we are depriving ourselves but the anxiety relief in not going is hugely greater than the imagined pleasure that we might get from actually going. For us it is the better deal.
From an internal perspective though we often use defensive mechanisms to limit and reduce our consciousness of our anxiety. How we will deny this anxiety relies on how we characteristically function. We might actually behave in a completely opposite way from how we really feel. Where we would rather be silent we talk too much often in a loud and exaggerated way. We take to drinking too much and behaving in disinhibited ways. People are often quite forgiving and will excuse such behaviours as being simply reflective of an extroverted or ‘fun’ person. Sometimes however the behaviour if persistently will go too far and result in an embarrassing or even damaging social situations. Now that ‘fun’ person is viewed by society as being antisocial inappropriately behaved in other words ‘not fearful enough’. Denial of symptomatology or in common parlance a lack of awareness of our selves is a commonly used avoidance mechanism. Inevitably it results in grief.
'Living vicariously through others is an inadequate compensation for a life'.
3 Symptoms to do with an inability to act
As stated above fear or anxiety causes you to fight, take flight or freeze. If the reaction is the last in other words to freeze this means becoming involuntarily paralysed. It is not a choice it is an inevitability. In this case you lack the ability to do anything or function in any way that is appropriate to the situation. Mostly you just go blank. In effect you do nothing. Freezing is a primitive but commonly used defence mechanism in animals and comes from the fact that many predators in the wild will intuitively avoid an animal that appears to be already dead and might have been that way for some time.
Most anxiety sufferers are paralysed partially or completely by their anxiety. They are so fearful about everything that they become standard-bearers for the hesitant, the slow and the timid. At school they are picked on for these characteristics. They become features of amusement, the butt of jokes. Being labelled by their behaviour they are seen as non-actors or societal non-contributors and because of this they are often bullied. The bullying is often unconsciously provoked by their perceived inability to stand up for themselves. Sociology teaches us that in an inherently unfair world those who can will take advantage of you and very few in society will oppose them. Aggressive behaviour is tacitly condoned in many environments certainly at work and openly on the playing field. This sets up an intrinsic conflict in the minds of many sensitive anxiety sufferers who often believe in balance and equality of opportunity but find they themselves are not afforded these in real life. Turning the other cheek at high school or work rarely gets you brownie points. To the bullied this unpleasant and unpalatable proof is often found in an equally unpalatable pudding. As frequently as it is denied leaders in our society often identify with aggressors unconsciously and unconsciously. In our society bullying is frequently tolerated and even condoned because it is commonly believed that the victims deserve their fate. They have brought it upon themselves and this karmic reference is embraced by many when it suits. The hypocrisy of life has many early victims. Many of the elderly experience increasing anxiety as their lives shrink. Their exposure to life and its stimuli is reduced and accordingly they become anxious and increasingly withdrawn. In a culture that worships youth they are seen as useless as well as powerless and suffer a similar fate to the bullied at school.