Tag: Mental Health

Posted in Hello, Anxiety.

Hello, Anxiety: “NPA — Neal’s Protocol for Anxiety — Part One”

Posted on by Neal Saye

This blog category is the journaling and journey-ing of my quest to say (with cautious sincerity) “Hello, Anxiety” and to take a look at the condition from my “me-andering” views.

So, I remind you that a while back my therapist gave me a homework assignment to come up with some strategies for dealing with my anxiety when it shows up, an Anxiety Protocol, so to speak.

“Don’t make it too long with too many items or strategies. Or too complicated,” Rubi advised. (I’m good at droning on and on. And I excel at long lists and complications. I’m actually kinda proud of all that.) He also told me to make sure I begin each of my strategies with “intentionality.” That I need to be deliberately attentive and to intend that each strategy or effort be effective.

Okay, no problem, I can be short, uncomplicated and deliberate, if you insist, I thought, a little peevishly on the drive back from Statesboro.

I divided my protocol into three parts. The first deals with strategies which can help with both the physical and mental aspects of my anxiety. The second with mental, and the third with physical. Of course those divisions are academic only. The mental and physical ebb and flow into and through each other. But it makes for a neat three-part outline, which I will share as a printable handout when I finish posting all three parts.

Today’s blog post briefly examines NPA Part One.

I. FOR BOTH THE MENTAL AND THE PHYSICAL PARTS

(How I can attend to the experience of anxiety in my mind and my body.)

• Meditation — Any of my saved meditations from “10% Happier,” “Buddify,” “Apple Fitness+” or meditation on my own without guidance.

I LOVE the practice of meditation. But I’m TERRIBLE at it. My mind keeps wandering far, far off: “Will Season Four of ‘The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel’ FINALLY address Susie’s sexuality?! Stop it, back to your breath, Neal.”

Seriously, apps actually help me tremendously with navigating the confusing world of meditation. “10% Happier” with Dan Harris is my favorite. It’s a bit pricey at $100 a year, but it’s worth it. The app offers courses on meditation, as well as single, short meditations on just about any subject you can imagine. Also podcasts and lectures. It has been a lifesaver for me.

• Slow Side-to-Side Head Movement — Noticing colors, shapes, pictures, loved items, etc. as you move your head left to right.

This short practice is so easy and simple, but incredibly effective for me. As you begin to rotate your head slowly from side to side, try to notice any items that bring joy or peace or color, etc— inhale as you move your head to one side, then exhale as you turn your head back. Simple, distracting and calming. I love it.

• Inhaling and Exhaling

— “Breathing in, I calm the mind. Breathing out, I calm the mind. Breathing in, I calm the body. Breathing out, I calm the body.”

— In through the nose. Out through pursed lips (like through a straw).

— In, cool. Out, warm.

— In, yes, Out, yes

Joyful, slow, deep breathing. Calming for my mind and body.

• Hot soothing teas

I continue to be amazed at how a simple hot cup of tea can also bring about soothing calm to my mind and my body. Slowly holding the warm cup and savoring the aroma and taste and ethos help to bring about needed peace.

My three favorites: Green Tea Matcha (with toasted rice), Peppermint and Echinacea.

Here’s my Tea Carousel.

*************

Your thoughts, ideas, suggestions? (Was I short and deliberate enough?)

NPA Part Two coming soon.

Posted in Hello, Anxiety.

Hello, Anxiety: “Briefly Introducing NPA—Neal’s Protocol for Anxiety”

Posted on by Neal Saye

This blog category is the journaling and journey-ing of my quest to say (with cautious sincerity) “Hello, Anxiety” and to take a look at the condition from my “me-andering” views.

So a while back my therapist “Rubi” gave me a homework assignment (I like homework—its completion shows what a good boy I am): “Neal, I want you to come up with some strategies for dealing with your anxiety when it shows up. You’re already doing some of these, of course. This is simply organizing them. An anxiety protocol.”

“Maybe categorize it into mental and physical parts.”

“Well, how hard can that be?” I thought.

Rubi told me to make sure I begin each of my strategies with “intentionality.” That I need to be deliberately attentive and to intend that each strategy or effort be effective.

For example, before starting a simple five-minute calming meditation practice, I might say, “I sit in this meditation session with the intention that my current anxious experience will improve.”

I have divided my protocol into three parts. The first deals with strategies which can help with both the physical and mental aspects of my anxiety. The second with mental, and the third with physical. Of course those divisions are academic only. The mental and physical ebb and flow into and through each other. I struggled a little categorizing my strategies.

But when anxiety comes a knocking, if I’m at home, I try to remember to head to my reading chair in our study …

… sit down and pull out my protocol sheet from the magazine rack nearby. (I also have copies in my calendar and online.)

If I’m feeling particularly stressed and anxious (say a 5 or more on a scale of 1-10), I have to push myself to get the protocol into my hands and onto my lap (instead of just going where anxiety leads). At that higher 5+ rating, my anxiety can even make, at first, my neatly laminated protocol sheet look pointy edged, sharp and too much trouble.

But I have worked with some of these strategies enough to know that if I give them a chance, they will not fail me.

For the next three “Hello, Anxiety” blog posts, I will examine each of the three divisions of my anxiety protocol. Please give me your thoughts and recommendations for improvements. This protocol is definitely a work in progress.

Stay tuned. But don’t get too anxious about it.

Posted in Hello, Anxiety.

Hello, Anxiety: “‘Covid’s Not Through!’ Edition”

Posted on by Neal Saye

This blog category is the journaling and journey-ing of my quest to say (with cautious sincerity) “Hello, Anxiety” and to take a look at the condition from my “me-andering” views.

So for some reason (denial? avoidance? embarrassment?—I excel at all three), I have been hesitant to blog about what has been going on in our lives recently. But I have decided that it will be … healthy to do so.

On January 17, HR—Husband Robert, remember?—tested positive for Omicron. Two days later, I did as well. No clue how that happened. We are both fully vaccinated with the booster. And we have tried to be so careful. We experienced relatively mild symptoms for about a week or so. Then I got better. Robert did not. He got worse. Much worse.

Initially our primary care doc thought he had a secondary infection of the flu and was given prednisone and a Z pack. He didn’t get much better. His body became so painfully achy that he started having trouble walking by himself. And his breathing got very labored, with a too-low oxygen saturation level. So much so that Monday of last week we ended up in the ER, with Robert on oxygen and a rainbow of meds.

Tests and more tests transformed the flu diagnosis into a serious case of Covid-related pneumonia, severe dehydration and a variety of complications. Robert was placed on the No Visitors Covid Floor at the hospital.

In spite of what I and everyone else would very much like to believe … Covid. Is. Not. Over.

When “all of the above” comes knocking at your door …. Let me rephrase that: when “all of the above” comes knocking at MY door, it brings along its viral buddy, Anxiety.

The first evening without Robert …

We have matching reading chairs in our study. But Robert wasn’t sitting with me.

He was sitting with Omicron. And Omicron’s sick friends, Pneumonia et al.

I was sitting alone.

Well, that’s not exactly true. I was sitting with my Anxiety and his buddy, Shallow Breathing, who more often than not shows up with him. Also trying to force themselves in for an uninvited visit: Too Many Thoughts. Fears. Negative Projections.

And I then felt TERRIBLE about being concerned with MY breathing, when my husband was in ISOLATION IN THE HOSPITAL with real breathing problems.

“Neal, you do have options here, you know. You’re not helpless.”

“You’re right,” I told myself, as I pulled out my homework from Therapist Rubi: the creation of a list of strategies to choose from when Anxiety comes a visiting.

NPA, Neal’s Protocol for Anxiety.

[By the way, my next “Hello, Anxiety” blog post is an examination of my NPA.]

From the “For the Mental Part” section: “My anxiety is like the waves in the ocean, it comes and it goes. It doesn’t stay forever. It never has.”

And from the same section: “Breathing in, I calm the mind. Breathing out, I calm the mind.”

Didn’t cure. But it helped.

***************

For some reason, a communication mistake we later realized, I was able to visit Robert for two of his seven days in the hospital. With PPE and a negative Covid test.

“Sorry Robert, I can’t stay with you very long. I have other patients who need my attention.“

************

I stayed concerned about Robert’s vitals. Monitors drove me crazy. Purveyors of potentially bad news.

In the darkest moments, the I-cannot-think-these-thoughts came. “Will Robert come home?”

Then yesterday, Robert‘s pulmonologist and hospitalist decided he was strong enough to go home. With supplemental oxygen and blood thinners to help make sure the blood clots in his lower legs would not be a problem.

We rejoiced, with a bit of apprehension

This morning I felt so much better. Robert wanted his 1st cup of post-hospital coffee, and he wore his Santa pants! Which has to be a great sign.

Yes?

Posted in Hello, Anxiety., Mental Health

Hello, Anxiety: “Stay in the Moment”

Posted on by Neal Saye

This blog category is the journaling and journey-ing of my quest to say (with cautious sincerity) “Hello, Anxiety” and to take a look at the condition from my “me-andering” views.

As I mentioned in my last anxiety post, I nicknamed my therapist “Rubi” (for a variety of reasons, the foremost of which is that he’s a jewel, a gemstone of a therapist, even if I can’t spell “Ruby”). I also explained that my most recent “homework” has been to assign a numeric value between 1 and 10 to anxiety when it rears its head. To recognize it and feel it, but also try to come up with statements which might calm me by affirming truths about my worries, anxieties and fears. “I HAVE felt this way before, and it passed!”

Well, I had a chance to work on my homework Monday when anxiety did some ugly head rearing. Robert and I received some frustratingly unwelcome news. (Which I may write about in another post.)

Later in the afternoon I finally remembered to assign the anxiety a number. And by that time it had, of course, grown.

To a 6, maybe a 7. (I never feel exactly confident in this exercise.)

This higher level of anxiety for me is often accompanied by its two cohorts: my perceived inability to breathe efficiently and a fear of (this is disgusting) nausea and even throwing up, exacerbating the breathing problem. Probably far TMI here.

The fellow below is wearing what I perceive as my experience/problem/issue with notched-up GAD (Generalized Anxiety Disorder):

The headset provides him with a “virtual reality,” quite different from “normal.” Which seems a bit similar to how I regard my heightened anxiety. It tends to block out (put a red light before?) everything in my immediate experience except itself. So. Very. Frustrating. I keep “staring” at it, feeling it, and to my exasperation, I guess in a way I become my anxiety. And it becomes my reality. Not my blog’s most often see-how-happy-Neal-is version.

GAD’s version of Neal.

I texted Rubi to tell him the news Robert and I received. Well, that was the presenting reason I messaged. I also wanted, I suppose, SOME IMMEDIATE HELP. He’s a therapist, for goodness’ sake.

After some soothing, warm empathy and encouragement, Rubi helped me see that there was actually a little green light right there on the side of my anxious “headset.” Maybe not an instant out, but a way around or through. Easy for him to say, he was looking from the outside. See how clear it is from that perspective!

“Just stay in the moment. Anxiety is all about what hasn’t yet happened.”

Rubi gave me a little jewel.

When I’m not wearing the headset, I too can easily see the green light. But when the contraption is strapped so very tightly on my head?! Hmmm.

Also when I’m in the moment of strong anxiety, I tend to forget that there are other things in the moment as well.

* My breath.

* My bodily sensations grounding me to earth and to life.

* My personal truth statements waiting to remind me that I am resilient and I’ve gotten through all this before.

* The sudden epiphany that Rubi’s homework level is a 6 or 7 and NOT a 9 or 10.

* My even-with-anxiety dignity.

Anxiety too often has me looking straight ahead, in a dark place, at red-light fears which haven’t even happened yet.

Good therapy teaches that I can raise my hand to find the green light switch.

Confession: I certainly like saying, “Goodbye, Anxiety!” (pretending that it is gone for good … “I’m so fixed!”) a whole bunch more than “Hello, Anxiety” (not quite so welcoming and definitely without the exclamation point).

But don’t tell Rubi. That will just mean more homework.

Posted in Hello, Anxiety.

Hello, Anxiety: “‘A Christmas Memory’ and My Therapist(s)” Part Two

Posted on by Neal Saye

This blog category is the journaling and journey-ing of my quest to say (with cautious sincerity) “Hello, Anxiety” and to take a look at the condition from my “me-andering” views.

[Today’s post is an overdue continuation of “Hello Anxiety: “‘A Christmas Memory’ and My Therapist(s)” Part One, from a couple of weeks ago: https://nealenjoy.com/2021/12/30/hello-anxiety-a-christmas-memory-and-my-therapists-part-one/]

After finishing my teary-eyed reading to Robert of Truman Capote’s A Christmas Memory, and seeing my own quirky parallels to the story, we finally arrived in Statesboro for my weekly therapist appointment. And I was ready to “BE FIXED!” As I am at every session. And come to think of it, as I am every new morning. Isn’t that what I’m paying for?! And living for?

*****************

I really love therapist Lori Gottlieb’s beautifully humorous and heartwarming examination of therapy in Maybe You Should Talk to Someone.

Hmmm.

Which, okay, I’ve read three times now, so my copy should be called You Should DEFINITELY Talk to Someone. In the book, Lori (first-name basis now) explains to me that … “One of the most important steps in therapy is helping people take responsibility for their current predicaments, because once they realize that they can and must construct their own lives, they are free to generate change.” She goes on, “A therapist will hold up a mirror to patients.”

Oh gosh, that sounds like far too much work. And the mirror is not one of my best friends.

******************

It’s a bit of a challenge to drive to my therapist’s actual office, at least if you’re arriving from the main avenue out front. You see, he shares this beautiful, slightly crumbling but genteel old white house with several other therapists (Oh, if walls could talk!), and when you turn onto the paved driveway, a little narrow wooden garage appears straight ahead, or what you think is the garage. If this is your first time, you are a bit confused about the layout because the garage doesn’t seem to have a back wall. “Should I keep driving through? Surely you don’t park in a carport with no back wall and where the drive seems to continue.” You slowly inch forward, trying your best not to bring the entire old structure down by grazing the rickety walls. Your effort finds you, slightly exhausted, finally pulling into the mostly-dirt-with-a-little-gravel parking lot out back.

Whew! You haven’t even darkened the therapist’s door yet. You wonder if there’s a trick entrance there as well.

And then it hits you. At least it hit me: I just drove through wooden metaphorical therapy! [TIB (Truth in Blogging): it didnt hit me that first day, but weeks, maybe months later it did.]

Negotiating through therapy can be a confusing and hazardous drive.

You think you know where you’re headed, but then the lane narrows and you find yourself in unexpected, unsteady and unexplored spaces. “It’s too tight in here. Even breathing can be a struggle.” But effective therapy shows you doors you may not have noticed before, in unanticipated places … avenues through. Even if the ways aren’t paved, perhaps covered with dirt, challenging and uncomfortable to push through.

I can’t just keep referring to my therapist as “my therapist” ad nauseam. And I can’t just tell you his real name, because then you might try to go through the garage to see him and claim him as YOUR THERAPIST. And we patients (consumers? clients?) can get very possessive and territorial.

So let’s call him Rubinstein, Rubi for short.

********************

Today, leaving Robert and “A Christmas Memory” in the car, I open the back screen door and walk through the porch into the practice’s common waiting area. I sit down, albuterol inhaler in hand, onto one of only two small, ancient, uncomfortable and rickety-squeak ladder-back chairs. (Don’t get me started on metaphors again.) Soon I hear Rubi walking down the steps from his second-floor suite to fetch me.

Metaphorically Climbing the stairs, I position myself onto the left side of the little couch (everything’s not quite right yet), arrange the oversized throw pillow into its weekly fit behind my back and sit into the session.

Rubi has this simple yet Superpower ability, without saying a word, to slow down and ground my rushed, shallow breathing by making eye contact and then deepening and lengthening his own breath. I follow. It works every time.

After therapist/patient chit chat, I ramble on about the drive, my reading of the Capote story, Robert’s response to the story, my tears and my dysfunctionally functional, alcohol-soaked family backstory. (HOW does he listen to people like me?) And of course I get moist eyes for the second time in an hour.

One of Rubi’s most practical and helpful pieces of advice is to “assign a number level to your anxiety when it comes, Neal. Attend to it.”

Most of the time, however, when anxiety raises its head, I forget ME and just see HIM/HER/IT. “I must fight this monster!” But Rubi is teaching me that anxiety is not the real enemy. It’s how I try to “manage or control” my anxiety.

I have such difficulty “owning” my anxiety as a part of my lived experience because I often get so caught up in the belief that anxiety truly is my great enemy, instead of perhaps an overprotective friend trying too hard to help.

“It’s all about noticing what you feel, instead of just feeling what you feel,” Rubi explains. “And it’s SO important what you tell yourself about what you feel.”

I usually tell myself that I’m weak, that I need to try harder, that other people don’t deal with these crazy issues. And, by all means, to put up a good front! Be “the best little boy in the world.”

So I’ve got some work to do, and obviously some tight garages to drive through, some ladder-back chairs to sit on and some stairs to climb.

My “homework” assignment from this session is to continue giving a numeric value to my anxiety. To attend to it. To see it. But casually, not too intensely, he emphasized. (I tend to overdo homework.)

I think Rubi is holding up a mirror.

Until next time.

Posted in Hello, Anxiety.

Hello, Anxiety: “Two Definitions, not Wun”

Posted on by Neal Saye

This blog category is the journaling and journey-ing of my quest to say (with cautious sincerity) “Hello, Anxiety” and to take a look at the condition from my “me-andering” views.

Here are two definitions of ANXIETY. First, from Oxford Languages:

Well, Oxford Languages summed it up pretty well: “Worry, Unease, Nervousness,” otherwise known as WUN. (Truth in blogging: I just made up that acronym.)

Unnecessary sidebar: Did you know that “wun” is an actual word?! At least according to the unrivaled urbandictionary.com.

Uh oh, “Walking with the occasional burst of running for a few seconds, or minutes at best,” not to mention “let’s hope I survive” both sound eerily, anxiously familiar.

************

A “hypothetical“ convo between Anxiety, Developing Truth and Me:

Me: “Anxiety ain’t gonna wun over me. I’m gonna wun from it.”

Anxiety: “We’ll see.”

Developing Truth: “Neal, it’s not about being adversarial, combative or managerial with Anxiety.”

Anxiety: “Again, we will see.”

Developing Truth: “Breathe and try again, Neal.”

Me: “Okay. I ain’t gonna wun from it. At least I’m gonna try not to.”

Developing Truth: “That’s enough for now.”

Anxiety: “We. Will. See.”

************

The second definition of Anxiety is from “my sister,” Anxiety Girl:

Whew, that’s enough defining for wun day.

Posted in Hello, Anxiety.

Hello, Anxiety: “Introduction”

Posted on by Neal Saye

Spanning the past year or two, a Perfect Storm of sorts has swirled around my life, mind and body, making direct hits from time to time. The storm was/is created by the following major factors (among others):

* The pandemic’s upheaval of “normal” life as I/we knew it. Causing, at the very least, worry and unease. Affecting everything from family dynamics to personal health concerns.

* The deaths of my dad and brother, as well as husband Robert’s father, stepmother and grandmother, all within the last couple of years.

* The angry and dangerously hateful climate of divisiveness within our communities, states, country and political systems. And the constant, sometimes difficult-to-ignore media coverage.

* Realizing and coming to terms with my life as an older married-to-a-guy (!) gay man, closely connected to my two daughters and their families, as well as my loving ex-wife.

* Being married to a wonderful black man and taking a serious and difficult (often very painful) look at issues of racism and social injustices in our nation and world.

* Even the seemingly silly fact that I’m getting older (I’ll reach the milestone of 70 next January!) and dealing with aging issues, which can seem both unfriendly and foreign.

So a few months back, I came to realize I needed some help. (Duh.) After reading Lori Gottlieb‘s encouraging and often hilarious Maybe You Should Talk to Someone (for the second time), I started looking for a therapist.

It took me a while to narrow the offerings down. Have you ever googled “Therapist near me”?! After all, I stand in the produce aisle, taking forever to decide on the “best” tomatoes, based on color, size, texture, aroma and how-do-they-compare-to-my-childhood-memories-of-homegrown?

What was I looking for? I guess this …

… even though at that point, I had not thought about or considered the word “anxiety” itself. I was experiencing it but not naming it.

I finally found him, and it only took a few sessions for him to gently say one day, “Neal, I think it’s pretty clear that you have generalized anxiety disorder.”

I was a tiny bit insulted. I think what I desired to hear was somewhere along the lines of, “Oh my goodness, Neal, you are a terrifically well adjusted man. Now go and BE that. You can do it. You ARE it!”

When I could breathe easier, I realized he was right.

This new blog category is the journaling and journey-ing of my quest to be able to say “Hello, Anxiety” and to take a look at the Perfect Storm. I invite you to join me.

But I’ll supply the tomatoes.