IS PARANOIA THE CATALYST FOR MY ANXIETY?

Have you ever been Paranoid?  

We've all heard the term and I think we think we know what it means, but do we?
Or
Do I? 

I know that in my experience when I was younger the term "paranoid" meant the feeling that everyone is after you and you're crazy for feeling that way. People in movies and TV shows would be hold up in a dark hotel room with the blinds shut tight and no one coming or going. The person was also portrayed as someone insanely frantic sometimes.  Screaming and running from invisible enemies or dangers. I guess these characters could have been based on real events or real people but in my life now I know most people who are Paranoid don't really show it. Maybe because it's embarrassing or they perceive it to be embarrassing or maybe they don't even know their paranoid if that's even possible,  which I think it is, but don't know for sure.

As far as it being embarrassing I can safely assume that's a reason because that's why I think I keep my paranoid thoughts to myself and I know I'm not special and others must feel this sane way.
Very recently I've come to the conclusion that not only do I have paranoid thoughts, but also those thought may be the sparks that lights my anxiety a blaze. Hopefully that doesn't sound too dramatic lol.

Over the as two years I've made great progress with dealing with chronic anxiety. Specifically I've been able to become more aware and mindful of when it's happening and why and much quicker than I ever did in my life. I'm a way I think I've been reverse engineering my anxiety, if that makes sense. I'm able to "see" it when it begins and get a better look at what's going on in my head. My thoughts, my conclusions, my exagerations, etc. It's complicated, but now I'm seeing that once something triggers my fight or flight response no matter how big or small my mind and body go into action in creating that narrative,  or story in my mind of "how things are going to go" according to my anxious brain of course.

In the past I would be all wrapped up in the anxiety or even panic before I knew it was happening, which is too late.  I would let the story in my mind bring up my emotions and cause the chemicals in my mind to flow and without really doing much of anything,  I could literally be laying in bed, I would be in a full blown panic attack basically and completely self inflicted.
Just last week I caught myself deep in thought about something completely nuts all because of a 10 second interaction with a stranger.
I'll explain this example to give you an idea of what I'm talking about and how I have deciphered that what I'm experiencing is in fact Paranoia which can and sometimes does lead directly to my anxiety and in the past panic.
In this case my anxiety did not become overwhelming but it was definitely heightened and just so you know, I have not had a panic attack in over a year, which is great for me.
So, here is what happened: 

I work outside. I work for a company that brings me to many locations in a day and I have to work sometimes on private property; shopping centers, company parking lots, etc. 

This occasion I was in a small parking lot and to make room for myself to work I parked half on the parking lot and half on some grass. I thought nothing other than "aren't I smart for making this work for me!" little did I know I "fucked up" and was about to be  told to move. So, Im about to begin my work on a car in this parking lot when the owner of the adjacent company, not the company I was doing the job for, comes out and asks me politely if this was my van. It was so I said "yes" then the gentlemans tone and facial expression changed to anger and he said " ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME RIGHT NOW! MOVE THAT VAN! AND IF YOU DAMAGED ANY OF MY SPRINKLER HOSES IN THE GROUND I'M GOING TO MAKE SURE I SEND THE BILL TO YOUR COMPANY!" 

I said "ok" and move my van. End of interaction. Well, at least for him. For me it was another story. I began working on the car and for about 30-45 minutes I replayed the 20 second exchange in my head over and over again. I began questioning my judgement. Was I an idiot for doing this? Or inconsiderate? Then I shift over to wondering what he was doing inside of his shop. Was he stewing in there over what I did? Was he planning on coming out and saying something to me again, or worse coming over to fight me. Like, literally engage in fisticuffs? I know this might sound nuts but this is what was going through my head. I even began looking at every face who came and went through the parking lot and into his shop. Were these just customers or did he call one of his "guys" to come and handle me. Walk over to me and begin an innocent conversation only to lull me into a false sense of security and then sucker punch me or jump me or walk behind me and put a bullet in my head. I"m kind of laughing at this all now but that's where my head went, and still goes pretty often. I let my overthinking take me on an emotion journey into the depths of horror and worst of the worst case scenarios. Afterwards I tell myself that this is just too much TV and movies, but it's more than that. I'm able to stay in this frame of mind because yeah these things to happen on occasion. People can be monsters and do the most horrible things over the littlest of disputes. But usually nothing like this ever happens and the media, TV and movies just use the things to sell movies tickets, build ratings and get as much attention as possible. Still, this is where my head goes and it goes there regularly. So far nothing like this has ever happened to me but this is the process of my overthinking. I let myself build up something small into something enormous and outrageous. Eventually my work distracts me enough to move on and I do, but now that I'm being more mindful and aware I notice that more often than not my mind runs wild and it takes me some time to get things back to normal. 

Now, I just want to say that I do always get myself back to center and usually it doesn't last the entire day or carry over into the next day, but it has on occasion. This is just one recent example, but nearly every day I find that my mind kind of runs wild with paranoid thoughts about the worst case scenario in almost any and all situations. Especially if what I'm doing is something that I think is "wrong" or punishable. Like with this guy in the parking lot I felt embarrassed and stupid for doing something that was really just a simple mistake and I let my guilt drive me into the fantasy of a murderous fugitive, or at least what I think a murderous fugitive might go through thinking everyone is after him for his crimes, etc. This can be every morning for me when I'm running late to work, or if I did something I'm technically not supposed to like something against company policy or something I know I was told as a child not to do, etc. I know that might sound a little over simplified but it is usually why I get into this state of mine. So, for example if I'm running late to work I begin having an argument in my head with my manager, or someone higher up on the corporate food chain and I find myself defending myself vigorously. It takes a lot of my energy from me to be honest and in most cases what I imagine and how I imagine it to take place is rarely how it plays out in reality so why all the dramatics? Truthfully I'm not totally sure, but I think it's because I already am an anxious person with an anxious mind, a chronic overthinker and hypochondriac. So my theory is that my anxiety leads me to have paranoid thoughts and my paranoia leads me to anxiety. It's a vicious circle. Only now, very recently have I been noticing the paranoid thoughts and paranoia. Months ago and years ago I would just slip into this fantasy world and it was truly just a big part of my every day/all day internal thoughts. The more I think about it now the more it makes me feel horrible. The one thing that makes me feel better is that I am aware of it now and being mindful is a step in the right direction. The more I'm aware of it, the more I can catch myself sooner and slow down the process and hopefully soon stop it quicker. In the long run the goal of course is to stop it before it starts. Having dealt with anxiety for so long I know that I won't be able to do this overnight, but it also won't take as long as I fear it will which is forever. 

The anxiety, overthinking and hypochondria have been a part of me for longer than I know. A very young age I assume but don't know when it all began for sure. It really doesn't matter when it started, but it is important that I take the proper steps to ensure I continue to heal the way I have been. It's been a long process with big ebbs and flows of hopefulness and hopelessness. In the past year I have been more hopeful than ever but I still have some pretty bad days and terrible moments. My imagination literally runs wild on me. 

So, going forward I am going to do my best in keeping tabs on my paranoid overthinking catastrophe scenarios and hopefully reel them in faster and faster until I'm able to stop them in their tracks before they start or atleast soon after they start. 

What do you think? 

Do you think paranoia is something that could be considered a catalyst to anxiety or is this just anxiety causing paranoia and is there even a difference? 

I really want to hear from you. 

Good luck out there! and thanks for reading! 

The Louniverse 

NOT LETTING FEAR RUIN YOUR DAY AND YOUR LIFE.

I was just about to go onto Google and begin a search about a feeling that is bothering me. I have health anxiety, I'm a hypochondriac.  So, my leg hurts in a place where I can see there's a vein. For some reason the combination of these two things sends me running to the Internet for answers and reassurance. Two things I RARELY find in a Google search about something that's bothering me either physically or mentally.

Sound familiar?

If so please keep reading. I am writing this for you. You the person reading this and me in the future also reading this. Fear has controlled my life through anxiety for as long as I can remember and today is no different.  I was just about to begin a search online through Yahoo message boards,  Web MD vague "93 possible diagnosis" sections which are always horrifyingly terrible or blogsposts from other sufferers, doctors, YouTube videos, Facebook posts, etc, etc
You know this pattern.
It's starts there and ends with more anxiety,  more questions, more irrational fears, more, more, more
Unrest
Uneasiness
Sleeplessness
Imbalance
The list can go on forever

However, the more I "research" my anxiety the more I realize we all have exactly the same symptoms, fears and follow the same train of thought nearly to the tee minus of course some very tiny individualized nuances of symptoms specific to us.

We get a "feeling" or a "thought" our body begins the process of fight or flight usually, 9 times out of 10 before we even know it and boom we run to the Internet and self diagnosis and worse seemingly convince ourselves of the worst case scenario. 
I don't get aches I get deep vein thrombosis. I get lung cancer, throat cancer, swollen lymph nodes, the silent killer widow maker heart attack! 
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
I'm either fine or having the longest lasting slowest killing heart attack in human medical history.
Right?
We know we're fine but still find ourselves breaking out in sweats. Trembling. Nauseous and scared.

All of it sucks. But it is a choice.

Now I know that sounds weird. Why would ANYONE choose these things. Well, we do and we dont, but we definitely do.

An ache or a pain or a feeling, a thought, anxiety, fear,  horror,  panic...
All natural, all normal. 
WE anxious bunch of beautiful little coconuts take these normal short lived human emotions and drag them out and over think ourselves into some of the worst living a human can give to itself.
The truth sucks and it's no excuse but then again it is a condition and it is happening and feeling powerless is just as natural and normal. So, breath. It's fine. You're alive today despite all the above problems and the problems you'll find later tonight when you take your cloths off and see [insert scary body part]

It's ok.

Now, even as I'm typing this my anxiety is hard at work. My anxiety is crafty. It's after all, me. It's knows me like I know me. I can't outsmart it but I can ignore it, right?
Right now it's telling me that everything I've just written is bullshit.  No one wants to read this and basically this is all one big long attempt at reassurance. 
It's just me distracting myself from my feelings by writing this thing to distract you from your feelings all while reassuring me and maybe you.
And maybe that's true.
No. No its not.

I'm writing this because I know what anxiety is. I know how anxiety, health anxiety and all this fear has turned my life into a stagnant cycle of repeating past mistakes, getting stuck in bad unfulfilling situations and not living a life. Plain and simple. 

NOT. LIVING. A. LIFE.
Anxiety is a full time job for me on top of my other full time job.
It distracts me from every single aspect of my life every single minute of every single day for as long as I can remember.
I do not remember NOT being anxious.
Fear takes up nearly all of my energy. All of my mental capacity.  It ruins everything while leaving me just enough to participate in life from the perspective of a free to walk around prisoner's stand point. I can go and do whatever I like just as long as I don't mind the never ending over thinking chatter in my head.  The over sensitized body and the irrational fear encyclopedia chained to my feet wherever I go.
You can't call out of work by telling your boss "you can come into work today because there's just too much on your mind"
You're too busy fighting a battle in your head and cannot interact with the outside world today.
So, sorry family. Sorry job, sorry significant other, friends, and everyone else. 
Sound like your life at all?

Everyday I imagine a knight fighting a dragon. Everyday both the knight and the dragon die.  No one wins. 
Am I the knight or am I the dragon? 
Is the dragon my anxiety?
I think they're both me. They have the same eyes.  The Knight fights to the bitter end every time. He nearly defeats the dragon completely then usually is struck with a fatal blow.  A last gasp of the Dragon who is also fatally wounded and they both go down. Interpret that how you like. I think of it all the time.
Stalemate. No winner, but I feel like I still lose.
I change myself and limit myself and alter my demeanor and emotions as to not wake the beast up but in doing so I become a shadow of my former self. I am barely a person in those moments and that's my everyday.

I let my fear control my entire life.
It's lead me to so many positive outlets that have never truly helped because the fear is the strongest. It outlasts everything in me.
I've learned to meditate, breath, take a minute or ten or twenty or an hour and rest. Eat healthier. Stop smoking cigarettes, lessen my caffeine intake and I can go on forever.
All of this is because those things at one time or another gave me anxiety about my body and I dropped them in order to appease the fear. 

No more.  I'm still going to continue to eat healthy and not smoke cigarettes and not over use caffeine but I'm doing it because it's healthy and I feel good and that's it. If I have coffee I won't think about heart attacks or strokes.
If I eat something not so healthy I won't think about purging myself with water to flush it out of me ASAP because of a myriad of irrational reasons. 
I do things for me now.  Starting today. 
I choose to be happy not because it's going to pay off someday or distract me from the moment or keep the dragon asleep but because I want to be happy. That's it.
It's a choice.
Always was and always will be.
I know it. You know it. Now let's begin a practice. 
Just sit down, take a few deep breaths, close your eyes and feel the surroundings you're in RIGHT NOW.  This is the moment.  This is reality.  This is everything.

I truly hope this blog post has helped at least a little bit.  I hope you related to it and know that you're not alone and that most importantly You. Are. Fine.

I'd love to hear from you!

Sincerely, 

Lou Raio
AKA
The Louniverse