Feeling fantastic

Saturday 10th December

I continue to amaze myself (and often my husband) on a daily basis. I don't mean that I've done anything particularly noteworthy, simply faced a situation in a totally different, positive way.  I started writing this entry this morning from a work colleague's sofa bed following our team night out last night.   

I certainly don't want to keep dwelling on the past but certain situations make me realise that I really have overcome my fear.  There is no way I would have ever stayed at someone's house who wasn't a really close friend or relative.  Last night I was totally in her hands (so to speak) as to where we went and what time we went home.  There was alcohol involved, busy bars and clubs, a town I don't know and two teenage children back at her house (one had also been ill during the week).  I had a fantastic night with no anxiety whatsoever.

One step at a time

I have learnt a lot this year and we are now into a time of year where many people can
feel overwhelmed and unable to cope, I thought I would share a strategy that has continued to work for me.

Everything you do can be broken down into smaller, easier to manage, pieces so rather than facing a task that you feel you can never achieve, set yourself smaller targets and praise yourself for achieving them.  This can be personal or work related.  If even the thought of breaking the task down send you into a panic, don't worry, break it into time slots instead. Perhaps allow yourself an hour to complete as much as you can then take a break.  Don't put pressure on yourself to achieve too much, you may actually end up completing more than you hoped for, which will make you feel much better than falling short of an unrealistic expectation.

I train team leaders and supervisors where targets are an important part of managing their own development as well as setting them for staff.  A good way of setting a target is to use SMART.  This is an acronym for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-bound.  There are other variations but essentially they have the same meaning.  When setting your own personal targets it can be useful to use the same process.  Make sure your target is clear, so that you will know when it has been achieved, think of how you will check or measure that it has been completed, make sure it is something you will be able to ultimately achieve and it is realistic with a time factor.  Don't think that this means you won't be able to achieve something big, just make sure that the time frame is suitable for the challenge.

Wishing you all a very happy Christmas and New Year, I'll be back to report on my dancing debut in January!

Two months on...

My last Thrive session was on 2nd October, Paul was an incredible support, challenging me when I needed it and listening, offering additional suggestions and examples to help me to understand things.  Since that anxious first week, I looked forward to my weekly visit knowing I was on the path to a better, happier, more confident life, ruled by me and not my horrible fear. 

I mentioned my 'Thrive Factor' at the beginning was 55/70.   Having challenged and changed my thinking, my overall Thrive factor at the end of the programme is 5/70!!

I also mentioned taking up a new craft.  This was book folding and I found a quote I loved.  I realised after I'd purchased the pattern that it was one of the most difficult patterns I could have chosen but undeterred I purchased a second-hand book from my local charity shop and began the cutting and folding process.  I was determined that I wanted to complete the project by the end of the programme so I would have something tangible to remind me of my achievement.  The book now stands on my shelf where I can see it every day.





The other hobby I had already taken up (in May 2015) was dancing.  I attend a weekly class with my husband but there are times when he can't attend due to work commitments.  These weeks, I happily go by myself and dance with one of the other men.  I even help out new dancers and I have made many new friends and have learnt so much. We are still very much beginner level but since completing Thrive I have signed us up to compete at the Winter Gardens in Blackpool in January 2017! My only aim for that competition is to get around the floor without forgetting any of the steps.  I will update you after the event!


Another significant moment was Monday 21st November when I had a dentist check-up. This was my first visit since the traumatic experience that led me to Thrive.  I never thought I would feel so happy about a visit to the dentist.  No anxiety, no worry and I came out reflecting on how much I have changed. 
  

Although I loved my job before, I feel so much happier and confident at work now.   I also no longer create anxiety about sickness, if something happens I know I will be able to cope.  

The way I look at life has changed for the better and although I am proud to have made these changes myself I cannot thank my consultant Paul enough for his part in my journey.  

If you would like to find out more about The Thrive Programme click on this link 

My consultant was Paul Lee (based in Wolverhampton).  His website can be found here: Thrive with Paul

Finally, since completing the programme I have made my own video on youtube which you can view by clicking here: I cured my emetophobia with Thrive

I have written this blog over a very short period of time, using the notes I had made during the programme.  I will continue to update when something significant happens.

Let it go!

As an Auntie to a six-year-old niece, I have been very exposed to Disney's Frozen!  During one of the many repeats of the soundtrack, I caught a few words of 'Let it go'.  I listened again intently and then found the lyrics online.  They could have been written for me!  The whole song has meaning but I have highlighted some of the more poignant lyrics.

Listen to the song here

Pre Thrive.....feeling down and unable to tell anyone your true fears...

The snow glows white on the mountain tonight

Not a footprint to be seen

A kingdom of isolation, and it looks like I'm the Queen

The wind is howling like the swirling storm inside

Couldn't keep it in; heaven knows I've tried

Don't let them in, don't let them see

Be the good girl you always have to be

Conceal, don't feel, don't let them know

Well now they know..........

Post Thrive.... if you listen to the song, the tempo picks up here and life changes...

Let it go, let it go

Can't hold it back anymore

Let it go, let it go

Turn away and slam the door

I don't care what they're going to say

Let the storm rage on.

The cold never bothered me anyway

It's funny how some distance makes everything seem small

And the fears that once controlled me can't get to me at all

It's time to see what I can do

To test the limits and break through

No right, no wrong, no rules for me,

I'm free!

Let it go, let it go

I am one with the wind and sky

Let it go, let it go

You'll never see me cry

Here I stand and here I'll stay

Let the storm rage on

My power flurries through the air into the ground

My soul is spiraling in frozen fractals all around

And one thought crystallizes like an icy blast

I'm never going back, the past is in the past

Let it go, let it go

And I'll rise like the break of dawn

Let it go, let it go

That perfectionist (perfect girl) is gone

Here I stand in the light of day

Let the storm rage on

The cold never bothered me anyway!! 

Next time - Two month update

Challenging Safety behaviours

The hardest thing to change...

One by one I challenged the external Locus of Control statements, along with the Social Anxiety and Self-Esteem points.   Like most things in life it hasn’t been easy but it is most definitely worth it, I’ve had to put in time, hard work and effort to look at my limiting belief systems and unhelpful thinking styles and changing them to more helpful, positive ones. 

There I was happily working my way through the changes when I realised it was time to start challenging my safety behaviours.  This was difficult at first as I couldn't see how I was going to get past most of them.  Here are a few of the most significant ones:

Hand Gel
I always carried hand gel in my handbag and would consider that I over-used it (often to the point that food would taste of it that I touched!).  I had two bottles on the go the day Paul asked me to consider giving it up.  I gave him the bottle I had in my bag at the time and when I got home I fully intended to put the other bottle in the car as a back-up.  The bottle never made it to the car and two weeks later I decided I would hand it over to Paul!  

Anti-nausea tablets
This stems from several visits to the doctor as a young adult for symptoms such as nausea and bloating that were unexplained.  The first time I visited, aged about 18, my doctor asked whether I might be pregnant!  (I wasn't).  I was then prescribed a series of medication that didn't work until at some point in my thirties when I was prescribed anti-nausea tablets.  These did at least stop me from feeling sick so I kept requesting repeat prescriptions.  Eventually, a couple of years ago I found out my problem was lactose intolerance and I started to avoid dairy products where possible (which reduced the nausea significantly).  About a year ago I tried to give up the prescribed tablets and was recommended homeopathic ones.  I always kept these with me 'just in case'.  When I first challenged this behaviour, the tablets made it as far as the bathroom cabinet.  Two days before the end of my programme I felt brave enough to wash them down the sink!

Public transport
This includes bus, train and of course ferries!  I love my holidays and am not at all afraid of flying (although I spent the majority of the flight monitoring people around me for signs they might be sick!).  My sister will tell a story when it was just the two of us on a flight last year, during an attempt to land the pilot encountered a problem.  She and many others were panicking thinking the worst was about to happen.  I was calm and kept telling her we would be fine.  If the man next to me had been sick though it would have been a different story!
On a recent holiday to New York my husband booked a boat trip.  We had been on a boat trip in the Hudson on a previous trip, on a large vessel (as I mentioned, I tried not to let my fear stop me from doing things I really wanted to do).  On this occasion, however, the boat was a schooner and as I watched it bobbing about in the harbour an hour before we were due to board you can imagine the anxiety - not helped by the woman who was trying to put me at ease telling me that if I was sick the crew would look after me!  My husband was on the verge of giving up and going back to the hotel but I went through with it and did actually enjoy the experience (despite feeling nauseous through anxiety the whole time).
I have used trains but was always anxious about it.  During the programme I challenged myself to take a train into Birmingham by myself which I did without anxiety.  I enjoyed it so much I repeated it again before the programme ended.  On a recent trip to London I managed to fit in all means on public transport...taxi - train - bus - tube - boat - DLR - cable car and plane (simulator!).  I could have cried with happiness on the boat as this has always been the biggest anxiety creator for me.  I just sat back and enjoyed the trip - and the sparkling wine!

I have challenged and stopped carrying out all of my safety behaviours and I have tried so many new activities in addition to working through the book that I wonder what I was doing with my time before I started!  

Next time - Let it go!

 

Self-Esteem

Feeling like a failure!

I mentioned low self-esteem in the first blog.  Of all the quizzes I have done throughout the programme, this one caused the most emotion for me.  I think due to the fact I had such a low opinion of myself and I had created the phobia I was battling to live with.

My original score on the self-esteem quiz was 25% (15/20). This was definitely self-criticism and limiting beliefs and not from my family background.  I always thought of myself as a failure, that I wasn't good enough.  Why hadn't I achieved more.  I told myself that my gravestone would read 'could have done better'.

My perfectionist thinking was dragging me down and I couldn't see all that I had achieved. This was the case in all areas of my life.

When I first completed the Action on processing my positives, I did struggle to come up with ten things from the previous few days.  The ones I did come up with were largely based on doing things for others or their comments making me feel good.  Paul made me re-think and start to process the positive things that I did for me.

By now I was on about week three or four of the programme and I felt like a light had come on and everything started to come together and become clearer.  It was like a huge weight was being lifted from my shoulders.  I can’t explain the elation I now feel.  Every day I see the positives in the small things, not wishing the days away until something exciting takes place.  I have so much more confidence in myself and my ability and I enjoy taking on new challenges and testing myself.  

I am now so proud of myself for all of my achievements, big and small, including completing the Thrive Programme and overcoming the biggest obstacles of my life.  I changed my belief on ALL but one of the 15 self-esteem points and by the end of the programme my self-esteem was (and remains at) 95%!!!

Next time - Challenging safety behaviours

My Journal

Putting pen to paper...

Throughout the weeks I worked through the book (Cure your Emetophobia and Thrive) a chapter at a time, completing the actions and then talking about them and the rest of my week with Paul at the end of the week. 

Right from the start I was determined that I was going to do this and although there are spaces in the book to write your notes, I decided to make my own journal.  You might notice a small 'Elsa' sticker on the notebook - this was a gift from my niece and quite significant but I will fill you in on that in a later blog.

The first entry in my journal is the Action about noticing your inner voice.  Looking back now, my thoughts were full of worry, self-doubt and anxiety (sickness and otherwise).  I had nothing happy going on in my head.  It's only now that I can see what the fear was doing to me, it was consuming my life.

Chapter three in the book suggests taking up a hobby.  About 18 months ago I took up dancing with my husband and with full-time work, dancing and working through the Thrive programme,  I didn't want to put added pressure on myself so I processed the dancing experience for the purpose of the Action and I decided that instead, I would try something new each week.  I started a new craft that I could do at home in my own time and later on in the blog I will show you my results.

I found it really useful to write down my experiences to share with Paul at the end of the week, making it easier to remember them and giving me something to look back on as I progressed through the programme.

Next time - Self Esteem

Starting the Thrive programme

The first step...

While I waited for my book to arrive I watched some of the testimonials and thought this was exactly what I needed.  Further research on the website while waiting for the book to arrive lead me to my consultant - Paul’s website.  Rob tells you that you can work through the book yourself (and there are lots of testimonials to back this up) but I was a bit sceptical so I contacted Paul and set up an initial consultation later that week. 

I started the Thrive Programme the next week and anxiously returned to Paul’s office, not knowing how this would go or what to expect.  That first meeting Paul explained the relationship between the Locus of Control, Self-Esteem and Social Anxiety and completed a quiz to see where I sat on all three.  I scored a total of 55 out of a possible 70 which meant that my self-esteem was very low and my social anxiety very high.  I became very emotional that I had such a low opinion of myself.

I now realise that I spent every ordinary day working my way through the crap, always looking forward to the next big event and not seeing the bigger picture.  I was my own worst critic; nothing I ever did was good enough in my mind.  I couldn’t see beyond perfection, if something I did wasn’t perfect it wasn’t good enough, which meant that nothing I did was good enough.  I probably came across as unsociable, quiet and shy.  It was easier to keep my mouth shut than say something that might make me look stupid or cause people to laugh at me.  

I had a lot of social anxiety including what I wore - I often felt under or over dressed and thought once again I’d got it wrong.  In a social situation, I rarely knew what to say, wasn’t keen on meeting new people and found it easier at a party to just get on the dance floor to avoid having to talk to anyone.

Although I am creative and like to try new crafts, my initial thought was always ‘I don’t think I’ll be able to do this’ followed by criticising whatever I had made and finding fault with it, even though it was my first attempt. 

I made list after list to make sure I didn’t forget to do something.  If someone gave me a compliment I found it difficult to accept.  ‘Were they just saying it for something to say?’. They can’t have actually meant it!  I was nervous, worried and stressed most of the time, ‘What will people think of me?’ ‘Have I worded that right?’ ‘I’m bound to get it wrong’ ‘They will think my house is a mess’.  In every situation, however, I tried to put on my brave face and pretend I was confident.  Inside, however, my stomach was in knots and I was certain my face was bright red.

I started by challenging the beliefs from the quizzes that make up my ‘thrive factor’ but during the programme I also had to work on my safety behaviours.  This was difficult at first as I couldn’t see how I was going to get past most of them.  Slowly but surely, though, I challenged them one by one.

The Locus of Control chapter asks you to work on challenging the five points you think will be easiest to change.  (from external to internal) I will just mention the first one I chose which was saying ‘fingers crossed’ or ‘touch wood’ and I added saluting magpies which I had learnt from my Aunt.  Thinking about it now I realise that it caused me so much stress for no reason whatsoever.  If I thought I had missed a magpie I would become stressed, considering what might go wrong – what was I thinking? 

So at the start of the programme, I decided to go for a walk with the sole intention that if I saw a magpie I wouldn’t salute it!!  I walked for about three miles and saw a magpie – mission complete!

Since that day I have not saluted a magpie; they now make me smile about how far I have come.  As far as ‘touch wood’ and ‘fingers crossed’ – they weren’t a huge part of my vocabulary but I have stopped using those phrases as well as Good Luck to my students sitting exams.  It’s not down to luck – if they have done the work they will do well.  

Next time - My journal

Living with emetophobia (the past)

My story...

I created this wordle to express how I felt having Emetophobia

For around 20 years (possibly even longer) I suffered from a phobia of vomit (Emetophobia). I thought this was just part of who I was and although it was a problem, I didn't see it as something I would ever be able to change.  After all...who likes being sick?

I'm going to try to give an overview of how I felt without going into too much detail (I don't want to 1. bore you and 2. become a colluder for another sufferer - that's not the aim of my blog)

Over the years, the phobia became worse and I was more and more anxious about situations where sickness might be involved (even if sickness wasn't involved, I imagined it would be, creating anxiety about a situation before it even happened).  I often ended a day thinking phew, I didn't have to deal with anyone/me being sick today!  What a way to live my life!

All day every day I thought about sick…’What if I’m sick’ ‘I feel sick’ ‘Will someone be sick?’ ‘He/She looks like they might be sick’ ‘Will that (food, activity) make me sick?’ ‘There’s a bug around, I can’t cope if I catch it’.   When I felt nauseous I would start to panic and worry 

which made it worse.  The worse I felt, the more panicked I became, often to the point of physically shaking with fear.

I don’t have children (my choice and not based on my fear) but I look after my nephew and niece occasionally, and this in itself caused great stress.  Where possible I made sure I wasn’t alone with them for too long and for the duration of their visit I was on edge.

I can remember every situation I've been in that involved vomit....one particularly bad experience had me standing outside a friend's house aged about 20 when I was at university where another housemate came home at the same time as us (having drunk too much) and started vomiting in the alley that we had to walk through.  He was so ill he fell to the floor and I stood at the end of the alley unable to move and screaming in panic.  My friend managed to move him out of the way while I ran past and into the house.  

I remember feeling relieved when I finally found out that it was a 'real phobia' and there were other people in the same situation as me.  I read forums which I can now see enhanced my fear as these other people were offering ideas of how to cope, although what they achieved was just adding to the foundations of the original fear.

I carried out so many safety behaviours on a daily basis to ‘prevent’ myself from becoming ill.  Just to give you an idea, these included ALWAYS carrying hand gel and anti-nausea tablets in my bag, not using public toilets, not touching handrails or door handles with my bare hands (I used sleeve, knuckles, elbow!!), avoiding public transport as far as possible, becoming concerned about my own health if I even saw the mention of sickness on facebook, hiding my eyes or leaving the room if there was a suggestion of sickness on a film or TV programme.  

I thought I was positive, thought I had my life together, I was forty in the summer of 2016 and I felt I was embracing it but now I can see that really I was putting on a brave front to cover all of the insecurities and fears that went with having Emetophobia.

In the main, I have always been resilient, able to bounce back and not afraid of challenging myself.  I knew that I became worried and nervous in a lot of situations but again, I thought that was just who I was and I could manage my feelings and push through to cope with them.  This summer, however, I dropped briefly into struggling mode, having two panic attacks and feeling so emotional that I cried every day for a week which was totally out of character.

A significant day was a Monday in July and a very traumatic visit to the dentist after a weekend of panic and worry about it.  When I came out I broke down and although my sister had suggested I visit the doctor, I knew that wasn't going to be the best thing to do.  I was certain they would have prescribed anti-depressants which I didn't feel was the right thing for me.

I returned home determined that I was going to do something about it.  That's when I found the Thrive programme by Rob Kelly and I ordered this book from Amazon.

Cure your emetophobia & Thrive

Next time - Starting the Thrive programme