|
Encouragement/advice on exposure therapy?
All my life I've wanted to work. So much.
And there's this clothing store that I can truly imagine being SO happy working at for the rest of my working life until retirement.
I'm a 20-year-old female and I struggle with a majorly severe case of chronic generalized anxiety disorder. I can't drive because it's so bad. I do have my driver's license, but the past year my disorder has worsened that I just can't drive anymore, but I really want to so bad.
My parents are trying to get me disability benefits, but for the love of God, I do not want to live off disability.
It's made my major clinical depression so much worse. I do take meds for my disorders, but they don't help. I feel actually working would help me so much, but my anxiety disorder affects my thinking and makes it dangerous to do things that require lots of focus like driving.
But I'm thinking of trying to expose myself to things that scare me and make me super anxious like driving and working, but I just don't know if it's... safe?
I know I'll need a therapist for this, but I was wondering in the meantime of searching for a therapist, I could get some advice/encouragement from you all, please?
I want to work and drive and lead a normal life so desperately. :'(
[ ]
Want to answer more questions in the Health & Fitness category?
Maybe give some free advice about: Mental health?
When i learned to drive 43 years ago, traffic in a big city was not so bad as it is today. Even with all my driving experience, i find it stressful or aggravating to drive these these and feel bad for young people starting driving today. You want to be totally cured of your anxieties before you even consider it.
Next, you mention your parents trying to get you in disability. I worked as a caregiver for people on disability. I know that IF on disability your social worker can put you in touch with a person in the dept. who works with disabled people to help get them into jobs. It wouldn't be full time because most disabled would find it tiring to do full day or too stressful depending on their disability. That way you are not forced to have to work fulltime or 2 jobs just to make ends meet if you will at some point be living on your own.
You mention meds not working. I'll address that
next. Until I graduated HS, before there was sch a thing recognized as anxiety disorders, I had one. It was tossed in under the label "shy" but I actually had social anxiety. I knew it would cripple me as an adult in many ways and wanted to be rid of it. I prayed to God and got answers back. It was a simple plan. You are on the right track thinking that exposure rather than avoidance can help but please don't try it yourself. There is much more to it than that. A Dr. as you've mentioned would need to be involved. It takes more prep before, working with distorted thinking before the dr. goes along with you as you experience the situations that terrify you currently. Recently, I checked out books by a psychologist on treating depression and anxiety without medication and for most of people afflicted, it works better than medicine because it gets to the root of the problem, and with someone like yourself who really wants to get a normal life and will apply yourself. it doesn't involve years and years to get better. As you go thru the sessions with the Dr. you feel results pretty quickly. If it sounds too good to be true, then know that the psychologist turned teacher/author, at one point only believed medicine helps but when a collegue showed him a method called CBT, Cognitive behavioral therapy, his worst off patients got better quickly. He went on to create another method to break down false beleifs/thought patterns and labeled it T.E.A.M. tho i don't recall what it stands for. To get your hopes up and know there IS something that s helping people who've been in your position for way longer in life than you, I would recommend buying the book "When Panic Attacks" by David D. Burns MD. It covers not just panic acctacks but anxieties and more. What surprised me was to read what he recommended for a client with social anxiety as I had, it was the exact same things that God told me to do so many years ago. Before the parents go get the book, you and they may want to look at Dr Burns website. Though there are more Dr.s now trained in CBT and it is more acceptable, they may not know of the TEAM method created by Dr. Burns but it is also gaining popularity. If you can't find such a Dr in your area, somewhere on the website will be a person and number to call to get names of Dr.s in your area or close to.
[Link](Mouse over link to see full location)
There are books on depression too. Somewhere on the site are testimonials from people helped. It almost made me cry for happiness to hear so many finding a normal life finally like a woman in her 50s.Have your parents check it out. Its no gimmick as this DR.s method for my kind of anxiety did help cure me, I just happened to hear it from god.
If you or your parents have more things to ask, just go to my column and write to me from there. I'd love to hear from you in future to hear how its going as I really care about this sort of thing
]
More Questions: |