Farewell from Treating Anxiety (+Anxiety Resources)

Many thanks to everyone who has read and commented here at Treating Anxiety over the past 18 months. This is my final post so Happy Holidays. Here’s hoping 2012 brings us peace, however small the moments in which it's found.

For all the closeness the Christmas period purports to bring into our lives it can also come with a dose of loneliness, the pang of isolation, or the strange unknowing of the world that is disconnection or dissociation. To counter that sort of thing I'll be participating in a mindfulness exercise of a global scale: A River of Stones.

The Everso Quick Version:

1. Notice something properly every day during January.

2. Write it down.

That's it. You can stop reading now. Go out and buy yourself a gorgeous notebook, start writing your small stones on January the 1st, and you'll be in the river. Small stones will help you connect to the world, in all its richness & complexity & juiciness.

That which brings me back to the present in a grounded fashion is helpful in managing anxiety; Meditation isn't always a big thing. Focus, calm, staying now needn't be a production. It is in the simplest activities that I've made some of the most profound leaps in treating my own anxiety. The way a bus ride cultivates flexibility of mind and combats my irritability (the polite term) or not, depending on the day; Getting to know myself through observation.

Panic can seem like a static thing -an immovable, Sisyphean fixture in one's life, after a diagnosis has been made. It's there. You learn to live with that as though it's fact. My hope for next year is that I can do a whole lot more unlearning as I go, starting with a few words about a few simple things in my reality on January 1st.

Anxiety resources

Last but not least some (highly selective) anxiety resources for both recovery and reflection as well as crisis support. It's that time of year. It does get hard for many people. Really hard. (Does anyone get 'saner' around their family? And goodness knows time off work etc. may just mean more time for anxiety to kick up dust.)

· Anxiety Disorders Association of America

· Australian Centre for Posttraumatic Mental Health

· Beyondblue

· Confessions of a Serial Insomniac [Award-winning blog on therapy, complex PTSD, major depression and social anxiety with psychotic and dissociative features.]

· Coping After a Crisis [PDF]

· Freedom from Fear [A national not-for-profit mental health advocacy association founded in 1984. The organization’s mission is to impact, in a positive way, the lives of all those affected by anxiety, depressive and related disorders. ]

· Heal My PTSD

· Metanoia [Suicide prevention and mental health education: The mission of Metanoia is to break down barriers that keep people from getting the help they need.]

· RAINN [Rape, abuse & incest national network]

· Samaritans [confidential crisis counselling]

· Social Anxiety Support

· Svasti: A Journey from Assault to Wholeness

· Third of a Lifetime [Sarah E. Olson puts together a consistently stellar weekly feed of the best tweets for trauma and PTSD survivors.]

Wishing you all the very best in treating anxiety,

Kate White