Managing Feelings of Impending Doom

When people embark on a therapeutic journey to combat panic attacks and generalized anxiety one of the toughest issues to overcome is the feeling of impending doom.  Often as people improve and start to feel hopeful, they find themselves waiting for the other shoe to drop.  This feeling drastically inhibits their ability to truly feel happy and healthy.  Like most other anxiety behaviors, the tendency to be fearful of the unknown future is generally an ingrained pattern that has developed over an extensive period of time.  This means that the development and incorporation of new behaviors will also take time to take effect. 

I often talk to my clients about the idea of change as a continuum.  My favorite metaphor to use to describe this continuum is the alphabet.  Just as when you are reciting the alphabet you would not go directly from A to Z, when you are making changes in your thinking and behaviors you cannot go from worrying to not worrying.  There is a whole alphabet of letters, or steps in the healing process, in between.  Often we are so focused on our goals that we fail to recognize the steps we must take along the way. 

The first step on the journey of gaining mastery over feelings of impending doom is recognizing that these feelings are usually self-imposed.  These worry feelings are a reaction to your need for control in your life.  For so long, trying to control things and planning for the worst case scenario have allowed you to feel in control of your life.  This was an illusion.  Truly being in control of your life comes from trusting that you have the ability to adapt to and manage any situation.  It is not realistic to believe that bad things will not happen.  They will.

However, negative events have a lot less power in your life if you feel prepared and capable of handling them.  You need to practice telling yourself often that you are capable of handling problems that may come up and that you are stronger than you think.  Reflect on difficult situations that you have handled well to solidify that thought in your mind.  When the next bad event occurs, focus on what you did well in the situation instead of all the things you did wrong.  Remember change is a continuum and, while you may not immediately be able to handle problems in your life the way you would like to all of the time, effectively handling these problems part of the time is a step in the right direction.  Validate every movement in the right direction and build on it.  Before you know it you will hopefully be free from impending doom.

Comments

[Carridine Poran]

All caught up again!

I like your image of the Alphabet here. I find being positive about taking steps toward my goals a bit difficult and so this idea of recitation provides me with memorable insight. It is like the difference between taking in a route on a map all at once with your eyes and tracing that same route with your finger.