What To Do When Anxiety Symptoms Are Extreme

Video Transcript

Thanks to your information, I now know a lot more about anxiety and how to overcome it. While I’m no longer afraid of my symptoms, there are times when they are terrible, making it difficult to function, like dizziness, nausea, trembling, difficulty walking, and severe head pressure and headaches.

My question is, what can I do when my symptoms are extreme and debilitating?

My (Jim Folk) overall comment is to cope the best you can, and whatever works for you, keep doing it. That’s what I did when my anxiety symptoms were severe.

For instance, when my dizziness was so bad I could barely stand up, I went and rested, catnapped (if I could), deeply relaxed, or slept (if I could). Sometimes, that caused the dizziness to ease, and sometimes, it didn’t. When it did, I resumed what I was doing, and when it didn’t, I continued to rest…maybe even trying to sleep until the next day.

That also meant removing myself from a situation until I felt better no matter what the situation was. Sure, there were times when I felt embarrassed for having to leave, but I eventually got over that. I knew that to recover, I needed less stress, not more. Removing myself was the best way to reduce stress in that situation.

Some people understood and were supportive, and some didn’t and weren’t supportive. I learned not to worry about the negative people. They didn’t have to recover from anxiety disorder, so they wouldn’t understand. Recovering was my main goal, and I didn’t let anything stand in my way, even other people’s negative feelings and opinions.

I took that same approach for all my symptoms when they got so bad that I could barely function. For instance, sometimes I would be away from work or family situations for several days until I felt better. And even then, I limited my interactions to what I thought I could manage without adversely affecting my recovery.

My immediate family knew what I was doing and why because I had explained to them what I was dealing with and what I needed to do to recover. Again, some people understood and were supportive, and some weren’t. I offered grace to those who didn’t understand and weren’t supportive.

At that time, I was involved in many business-related activities, such as running our family’s business and being the president of a local association when negotiating with the government.

Because those activities were highly stressful, I resigned from my position with the association and withdrew from negotiations. I knew that if I were to continue in those roles, I wouldn’t recover due to the constant stress. And since my recovery was my number one priority, removing that stress was important. Even though it was difficult, it was a good decision.

I also paced a lot. When my symptoms were severe and barely tolerable, I “walked them off.” Walking burned up nervous energy and stress hormones, making my symptoms bearable.

Sometimes, I melted down in despair because it felt like I couldn’t take anymore. But, I regrouped and pressed on, knowing that if stress reduction was the way out of my symptoms, I needed to persevere no matter how discouraged I sometimes became.

As I became more familiar with all the ups and downs of recovery, I eventually learned to be less reactive. In time, I became very good at passively-accepting how I felt no matter what my body and mind threw at me. That was a turning point in my recovery.

Even though my body was wracked with symptoms, I contained well, tolerated them, and kept my focus on my recovery. I realized that the less I reacted, the more it helped my body recover.

Everything became easier as my recovery work started to pay off. I knew what I was doing was working and that if I kept up my recovery work, I would eventually eliminate hyperstimulation and its symptoms. That progress bolstered my confidence, which helped with my recovery.

No matter the severity of the symptoms, I passively-accepted them, didn’t react to them, didn’t fight with them, didn’t get upset about them, removed myself if I needed to, and continued to rest.

“Stress reduction, rest, and time” became my mantra.

As my body recovered, I re-engaged with life slowly, offering myself grace when I needed to back off. Over time, hyperstimulation completely subsided, and I lived normally again. Except this time, I was more aware of and responsive to stress.

Dealing with my anxiety issues and managing my stress has worked well for me all these years.

Yes, I had to work through the fear extinction process for all the fears I established during my anxiety struggle, but I was patient with that process, too. I celebrated when I was successful and offered grace when I wasn’t. Slowly but surely, I regained my normal life and anxiety disorder became a distant memory.

The skills I learned throughout recovery were valuable and helped me stay anxiety disorder-free all these years. So, while working on your recovery, know that the recovery process teaches and anchors skills you wouldn’t otherwise get. There is great value in working through the ups and downs of recovery.

Of course, much more could be said, but briefly, that is how I worked through times when my symptoms were severe.

Toolkit for recovery success: Do whatever it takes to cope with strong symptoms, practice passive-acceptance, develop a non-reactive mindset, faithfully reduce stress, get sufficient rest, be patient, and give the recovery process plenty of time. You will get there if you persevere.

Last, perseverance develops resilience. Resilience is a cornerstone of lasting success because it directly addresses the third condition of fear.

During recovery, develop resilience because it is one of the “silver bullet” remedies for long-term success.

May God bless your recovery efforts!