Hello everyone,
I am a reader. I love it. And I love learning. I am beginning to think that my dreams of the past may come alive, yet. (I always wanted to be a doctor, but had to give up my dream to raise my son... So maybe, my anxiety is forcing me back into something of the medical field... Who knows...) Anyways, back to my story.

Well, for some reason I have not been able to read my normal books because they scare me for some reason.
I am getting there now that I know what is going on more.
I bought this book last night called Hope and Help For Your Nerves, written by Dr. Claire Weekes. (been wanting to ready it)
I am amazed at what I learned.
Learning about anxiety and the why's has really really helped me.

Lately, I have this "overwhelming" feeling of either despair or fear. I don't know which. It just washes over me and bam - here come the thoughts of being alone, and my family not always going to be here and when they pass away, what will I do, etc... It's nuts I tell you. I normally don't think this way at all - and I mean at all. I am so busy with life, I don't have time for those kinds of thoughts.
It has been driving me nuts to find out what it is and why.
Why does it happen and why now and more so, why am I so scared?
Well, I got my answer and I will share it with you.
Simple, really - though when you are anxious and then frightened of your thoughts - nothing seems simple or too simple at the same time.
Here it is... It just my nerves "bluffing" me. Simple. We become stressed out for some reason or another, and then get over-sensiitized and don't rest, and WHAM - we wind up with anxiety and fizzled nerves. We sensitize. Makes sense. That's why watching the news really really scares us, or reading or seeing something.

So listen to what Lucinda says.. Face, Accept, Float, Distract, Let Time Pass.

Time will heal us. We need to let it. Our bodies and brains want to get better, but like Lucinda says, we add fuel to the fire by scaring the dickens out of ourselves and then analyzing it - either because we are just that way or because our bodies are so sensitive during this time.
Let that scarey thought and feeling come, watch is float by, let it come again, watch it float by, etc... Eventually, it will stop.

I am going to try this wholeheartedly, no matter how scary a thought or situation - and trust me, my scarey thoughts really bother me right now.

The positive dialogue thing - yes absolutely do it! This builds your confidence and self esteem levels up to tackle this thing in the way Lucinda and Dr. Weekes describes.
Don't monitor the day to day stuff. Just keep doing it and keep going.
If you are really emotional one day, and numb the next - like me - let it be. Your body is adjusting and it will find balance. Let it, and try not to over analyze any of it!
Harder to do, I know this first hand.
Don't worry about making decisions right now, especially if they are big. Put them off until you feel better. Trust me, the decision making process will come back to you.

Okay, I am done now...
Let's go get our lives back, people... And let's have that picnic! I am ready to drive and fly and "FLOAT"!

Healing in Process you sound so much like me. I too always wanted to go to medical school and applied right before I got pregnant with my first son. So many physical/emotional things have happened to me that I've recovered from that I know I can help people with and want to but sometimes I feel anxiety is holding me back or maybe it's like you say and it could be forcing me back into something.
I too have had trouble reading (and I'm a reader) Everything freaked me out for a while. But just like Dr Weekes says in that book you will be able to read that book because it's about you and your nerves. This book has been my anxiety handbook. I take it with me everywhere. I use my attacking anxiety cards as bookmarks in it.
I too had those same despair/fear feelings. I would be in the grocery or at yoga and all of a sudden I would feel like I was going to disappear, die or something and I would never see my family again. Or that something bad was going to happen. So after reading this book I just started facing, floating and accepting. It's just like she says about how you will have to face these strange feelings of depersonalization, or other weird things many times a day and that's what's happened to me. So I just started passing through them without freaking out or running. They used to dominate my day or occur every 5 minutes or so, now I'm happy to say this past week I count maybe 15 times in the whole week that this happened and the great thing is it really didn't bother me. Pretty remarkable since this had been my reality for 4 months. Anyways, this book has really helped me. Good luck with your goals.