I believe low self-esteem plays an extremely large role in social anxiety. In my head, I have to be this perfect person and have my life all together. Therefore, when scary social situations creep into my trying-so-hard-to-be-perfect life, a vicious cycle begins. I worry so much that people will think less of me if they found out about my anxiety and panic attacks. I worry about worrying! Which then only makes the situation more scary and on and on it goes.

Sometimes dealing with symptoms of anxiety or panic can be frustrating or even downright depressing. I've had days thinking, "Why me?" "Why can't I just be normal?" or other similar thoughts. Engraved deep down inside festered a mistaken belief that I was not worthy of being loved because of my anxiety.

Over time, I've learned that type of negative thinking will never improve my situation, it only makes it worse. The fact is I am not normal, and probably never will be.

Anxiety doesn't define me, but it is a part of who I am. And in order to control my anxiety I have to accept myself as I am right now.

POSITIVE AFFIRMATION ALERT:

"Even with my anxiety, I am a lovable and valuable person."

Positive affirmations may sound silly, but they really have been one of the best ways for me to cope and slowly build up my self- esteem. Positive affirmations are statements that describe a desired situation. This affirmation I use to help me remember that I am worthy of love even when things are at their worst.

A tip worth mentioning: Post positive affirmations around your home where you will see them often. By reading them often you replace the negative thoughts in your subconscious with the positive ones.

I also like the phrase, "Be Your Own Kind of Beautiful." Embrace that you are different, and look for the good. Anxiety may leave it's scars, but it does a soul some good too. I believe anxiety has blessed me to be more caring and compassionate towards others. It's kept me humble many times. It reminds me to keep an open mind and not be as judgmental to others as I fear they are to me.

"...the Lord seeth not as a man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart" (Samuel 16:7).

We grow the most during times of adversity as opposed to when everything in life is perfect. It is through opposition and adversity that we become stronger, deeper, and wiser individuals.

"Raising one's self-esteem takes changes in behavior. Behavior will change with practice and intention. Self-esteem is an achievement--a process that empowers, energizes and motivates. It is not something that we have, but the experience of things that we do. Self-esteem is the experience of being capable of meeting life's challenges and being worthy of happiness" ( La Belle Foundation S.E.L.F.).

My name is Douglas and I've been diagnosed with ADHD for ages. I was ADHD before the Space Age, then during the Computer Age, and now in Old Age. I missed being diagnosed with Minimal Brain Dysfunction when that was all the rage, but did score Hyperkinetic in the 70s, which was not nearly as exciting or cool as being telekinetic.

Surprisingly, I was a good student, but by high school I had grown tired of not fitting into society very well. I grew tired of the mocking peers and disapproving teachers, disciplinary grades, and the unending drudgery of homework. I grew angry. In college, I floundered and sought help with my ADHD and Depression, but when an ADHD medication gave me a rare side-effect of a motor tic disorder instead of helping me, I slipped into a deeper depression—even suicidal ideation. I dropped out of life and gave up.

By my late-twenties, however, I learned an important truth: being angry and depressed wasn't any fun. Thank Heaven for ADHD-bred boredom. Medications were off limits to me, but Cognitive Behavior Therapy wasn't. I started the long process of changing the way I thought in order to lift myself out of the darkness. After ten years, I even managed to like myself. I also learned how to manage myself and my ADHD in order to fulfill my duties as a full-time dad. Life was good.

Five years ago, I began blogging about my escapades with ADHD and Depression on A Splintered Mind. Co-morbid conditions make for fun times and gave me plenty to write about. Now I'm blogging for HealthyPlace and hope to lift the spirits of other adults with ADHD who find this whole disability thing a pain in the neck. Adult ADHD can be discouraging, but sometimes the only thing we can change in our lives is our attitude. I have found a positive attitude—even in the face of failure and disaster—helps me cope with the ADHD idiosyncrasies better. I am able to manage my ADHD and laugh at myself instead of beating myself up as I used to do.

And if nothing I write is of use to you, at least we can have a good laugh. I goof up so often, my life is a sitcom.

We get a lot of email at HealthyPlace.com every month. I mean thousands of emails. Besides answering emails to help people, I sift through them to gauge what's on people's minds. One topic that comes up frequently is alternative, natural, complementary treatments for depression, bipolar disorder, eating disorders, schizophrenia --- well just about every mental health condition out there.

A significant number of people who write us about alternative mental health treatments are interested because they don't like the side-effects of antidepressants, antipsychotics, antianxiey, or ADHD medications and are hoping that natural remedies, like herbs or supplements, or some alternative therapies such as neurofeedback or yoga will do the trick and relieve their unpleasant psychiatric symptoms.

As a rule of thumb, we usually point people to pertinent information on our site and encourage them to share that information and their concerns with their doctor. I guess it's not too surprising when they write back and say all their doctor believes in is psychiatric medication and psychotherapy. And that's the rub, says our guest on this week's HealthyPlace Mental Health TV Show.

Getting Doctors to Believe in Alternative Mental Health Treatments

Dr. Gerbarg isn't saying throw away the psychiatric medications. She maintains that based on 30 years of research and clinical experience, there are safe, effective treatments for a wide range of mental health challenges like anxiety, PTSD, depression, bipolar disorder, ADHD, and schizophrenia, as well as various medical conditions and that mental health patients can benefit from them.

Dr. Patricia Gerbarg is an Assistant Clinical Professor in Psychiatry at New York Medical College and a Harvard Medical School graduate (1975). Her research focuses on mind-body practices to enhance recovery from mass disasters, particularly the 9/11 World Trade Center Attacks, the Southeast Asia tsunami, and wartime events. She has lectured on integrative treatments in psychiatry at meetings of the American Psychiatric Association, the American Anxiety Disorders Association, the International Combat and Military Stress Conference, and many other medical conferences. She desperately wants to educate doctors in the U.S. about the value and effectiveness of complementary and alternative treatments in mental health care.

What About Alternative Treatments for Depression?

Unfortunately, De. Gerbarg's video interview is no longer available. Below is a different treatment professional giving her take on alternative treatments for depression. But you can get Dr. Patricia Gerbarg's award-winning book, How to Use Herbs, Nutrients, and Yoga in Mental Health Care. The book is written for consumers and clinicians. Dr. Gerbarg says it "presents research evidence and guidelines for Integrative Treatments, inexpensive solutions that give the best results with the fewest side effects." A guide to finding high quality supplements is included.

Dr. Gerbarg is also offering our viewers her free newsletter on Integrative Psychiatry available by signing up on her website.

Years ago, I tracked my anxious thoughts in a journal to define my triggers and reduce my negative thinking. Triggers are fears or situations that bring your anxiety to a heightened state. For example, speaking in public, riding in elevators, writing a check, or driving on freeways may trigger anxiety for some people. Eating in public around others has always been a big trigger for me.

I learned over time that my biggest trigger of eating around others was really just an outer layer of the onion. It wasn’t the actual act of eating that was fearful to me, or being in a public restaurant, it was the judgments of those around me that really got my heart racing.

Fearing Loss of Love

“There are two basic causes of anxiety: fear of harm and fear of loss of love. … Secondary causes of anxiety are situations which threaten to bring about either of these conditions, such as battle experience or loss of money or loss of social prestige” (Weiss and English, p. 23).

I fall in the category of “fear of loss of love”. Even though I know it’s silly, I want everyone to like me, and I avoid confrontation at all costs.

How does someone acquire a “fear of loss of love” and more specifically, have that fear manifest itself around eating in public?

All my life, I’ve been underweight. Somehow society evolved thinking it rude to call someone too fat, but not rude to call someone too skinny. Either way, someone is told he or she isn’t normal.

Growing up, instead of fat jokes, I got nicknamed “Chicken Legs.” Walking through the cafeteria, a table of boys would balk like a chicken, flapping their arms.

On a date, I had a panic attack that caused me to vomit on our way to my home. My date and his friends referred to me as “Bulimic” for the rest of the school year.

Skinny Jokes and Eating Disorder Concerns

In a society where meal proportions get bigger and bigger, I constantly heard, “That’s all you’re going to eat?” More than once, people that were sincerely concerned about me asked if I had an eating disorder. So I began to not enjoy eating around others. I got tired of the jokes that were never funny and comments about my weight. I began to worry that if I didn’t eat enough, people might think I had an eating disorder.

I walked into these situations already in a heightened state of anxiety and if something didn’t distract my thoughts, I ended up hurling somewhere. I then worried that would only confirm people’s suspicions of me having an eating disorder.

'Fear of Losing Love' Triggers My Anxiety

I know I do not suffer from bulimia or anorexia. I now know that my problem is anxiety, triggered from the fear of being judged, and is most prevalent around food because that’s where I’ve been judged most in my life. Other fears such as driving, going far from home on a vacation, or certain social situations also give me anxiety. I don’t blame any of this on the people that I mentioned. I fully understand that it is my responsibility to determine my attitude about these situations that I have been placed in. I only use it as a guide to understand how I got to where I am today.

Which do you fear? Loss of love like me, or a fear of being harmed, and why?

I was diagnosed with bipolar 1 on October 6, 2006. I remember the date like it’s my birthday. It’s the day my whole world collapsed and I became a person I didn’t recognize. I was branded, disgraced and humiliated (Living With Mental Illness and Self-Stigma). It was I who took in the online questionnaire to my psychiatrist, hoping that I was wrong.
I thought I wanted to know what was wrong with me, why I couldn’t function like my peers. Instead of reassurance that I was not this ugly word, my doctor looked at me and told me that he had already diagnosed me with it. Great. When was he going to tell me about it (Dealing with Doctors Who Won’t Tell You Your Diagnosis)?

Looking back I wonder if it would’ve been better if I hadn’t known the truth. The next year of my life was hell. I experienced visual and auditory hallucinations. I was angry, confused and distraught. Was this really my life? I was pregnant with my second child when I found out I had bipolar. My anxiety levels were out of control and my sleep patterns were even more messed up than they had been in my entire life.

I began to blog about my experiences and I wondered where I was headed. Would I be one of the 20% that committed suicide? I remember sliding a sharp knife across my wrist to see what it felt like. I promptly put it away. My family needed me so I had to find the strength in me somewhere to resist.

I resisted, but it was difficult. I cried, threw tantrums, clawed at my skin to release some of my internal pain. It was painful to wake up in the morning, or the night as it often was. Everyday brought with it a range of emotions that tested me. I mourned for the person I thought I was and the person I now thought I was. I was my bipolar.

The brand upon my skin was painful and obvious to me. It was all I could think about. This is not my life, I wanted to scream! I wanted to claw the Bipolar out of my soul, but it stuck like heavy duty super glue. It wouldn’t get out. I had been this way for a while, only now it was so much worse because I was pregnant. Pregnancy and bipolar are never a good combination. I was in my own personal hell.

My psychiatric nurse suggested therapy. Ugh. Therapy. A lot of talk about the past and how I had a horrible childhood. How would that really help me? But I went and I insisted that we delve into the problems at hand instead of how I got there. Eventually I told my kind therapist everything. Eventually the branding on my skin became less painful. I learned that the bipolar was in me, but it was not me (Accepting That You Have a Mental Illness).

I still cry when I go into an episode, but I'm also more resigned that this is my fate. The branding is not gone, but it is less painful. I've learned that my life will never be that of a super star (High-Functioning Bipolar Disorder). There are days when that's okay and days when I soulfully reject the idea of a bland life. I miss the euphoric mania, but I don't miss the crashes. I've learned to be okay with the bipolar inside of me. But, stumble I shall. Such is a Bipolar Vida.

My name is Aimée. The spelling is French and it means “Beloved” which is ironic considering how much I worry about others judging me. I grew up in a big family, in a little town right on Lake Erie, in Ohio, and currently live in Utah.

I fill many roles and titles in life. However, being the Executive Assistant to a very small, very busy little girl we’ll call “Little P” remains my greatest calling. I’m VP of Home Operations alongside my biggest supporter, my hubby, “Mr. T”. I also work 30 hours a week at home as a Customer Care Representative for a company that creates educational software for children. I am active in my church as an Activity Day Leader, working with 8-12 year old girls. My plate is full, but my cup runneth over.

I have struggled with anxiety for as long as I can remember. The earliest panic attack I recall happened in high school around the year 2000. However, I wasn’t properly diagnosed with Social Anxiety until 2006. That's when I started the blog The Reality of Anxiety where I found that I love helping people cope and manage their anxiety by sharing tips that I have learned through my personal experiences.

There I was in the bathroom, innocently blowing my nose and bopping to music on my iPhone at 12:30am. I had many things left on my ToDo list that needed doing, and with the quiet a sleeping home brings, I could finally focus. I flushed the tissue away and began to wash my hands, deep in thought about all those undone things. That's when I heard a splashing noise.

[caption id="attachment_18" align="alignleft" width="240" caption="by Tintillanta"][/caption]

For the briefest second, I stared at the sink and wondered why the running water on my hands sounded so strange. In the next second, I whipped around and verified what my mind told me in a lightning burst:
The toilet was overflowing!

Another half second was spent realizing that the plunger was upstairs, but a scrubber was to the left. Without hesitation I grabbed it and while standing on one foot, I created an ad hoc suction effect by pumping the scrubber up and down frantically. I hadn't seen a toilet overflow this badly in years. There was at least a half inch of water covering the floor, but the disaster had been averted.

What the heck happened? I had only used three tissues. But another thought occurred to me. Why couldn't I respond this rapidly and effectively on everything else? Why hadn't my ADHD gotten in the way?

This incident reminded me of a time in college when a phenomenally bright roommate, who could speak fluent Mandarin Chinese, burst a pipe. He had plugged up the kitchen sink somehow and had grabbed a coat hanger and rammed it down the drain to clear the blockage—straight through the u-bend. He stood there dumbfounded as water spilled all over his feet. I leapt off the couch, flew through the air, dove for a pot, and saved the day. I could barely speak English without getting my foot hopelessly tangled with my tongue. How could I have out-thought such a bright guy‽

Perhaps I have simply missed my calling in life to be a plumber. Or maybe I have just rediscovered that adrenaline is my friend. Panic, fear, anger, excitement — intense emotions trigger the flood of clarity from adrenaline—sharpening my mind into a shiny blade. But only then.

Put me in a classroom, for example, with a live model to draw with dozens of students around me with skritching pencils, squeaking seats, shuffling feet, and whispering voices and I stand there with my mind as blank as my canvas. I remember those days all too well; my instructors thought I was an idiot. If only the model had overflowed a sink or pulled a palette knife on me. Now then they would have seen me spring into action.

All is not so bad, though. Adult ADHD may be a burdensome annoyance, but it also comes with a joyful side full of creativity, humor, light, and the occasional saved day. As I write here for HealthyPlace.com, I'll be exploring the upsides and the humor of Adult ADHD. There are a lot of stupid mistakes to be sure, but there are also the quirky moments of inspiration that need to be celebrated. I invite you to come along and celebrate with me.

I’ll never forget staring myself down in the mirror of the restaurant thinking to myself “This is not normal. There is something very wrong with me.”

I had just escaped my 24th birthday lunch celebration with all my coworkers, to the bathroom where I crouched, legs shaking, my neck burning, and vomiting in the stall.

[caption id="attachment_20" align="alignleft" width="150" caption="By run dorkas run"][/caption]

Despite seeing several doctors, I was never diagnosed with an anxiety disorder. Because my symptoms relate to many other health issues, I mistakenly presented my problem as a stomach issue. According to the Anxiety Disorders Association of America, “…people with anxiety disorders seek relief for symptoms that mimic physical illnesses.”

I thought for years that maybe I had allergies to certain foods, IBS, or something of that nature because I would get sick when eating out in restaurants, a lot. I scared myself into thinking I had an eating disorder. However, all the research I conducted never made sense, until I learned about anxiety and panic attacks. That’s when the light bulb went off and my turning point had arrived.

The “not knowing” left me feeling helpless and alone. Finally putting a name to my problem gave me a sense of empowerment. I could now do something to fix my situation. And to my great relief I met others who suffered from the same symptoms. In fact, “approximately 40 million American adults ages 18 and older, or about 18.1 percent of people in this age group in a given year, have an anxiety disorder (from the National Institute of Mental Health)”.

In 2007, I created a blog called The Reality of Anxiety initially to store important information that I could access quickly at work. This way, I wouldn’t have to carry my huge workbook with words like “ANXIETY” and “PHOBIA” printed so large and bold on the cover, it could be seen from miles away. It became a therapeutic journal and a place to practice exercises I desperately wanted to learn. Then others began to leave comments of encouragement and understanding that to this day are priceless to me. To be understood, when it feels like no one around you could possibly understand, brought me so much joy. My mission changed from wanting to help myself, to wanting to help others so no one would be in the “not knowing” place anymore.

I am so excited to have the opportunity to start The Nitty-Gritty of Anxiety blog and reach out to a greater audience. My mission remains the same today. I plan to share the things I learn on my journey to help you better identify and manage your anxiety and panic disorders.

Cristina Fender, diagnosed with Bipolar I in 2006, is a wife and a mother raising two young girls in Texas. Her oldest is six going on thirteen and is obsessed with Twilight. Her youngest is two going on zero since she prefers to be the baby of the family and is currently refusing to use the potty like a big girl.

Cristina spends most of her time chasing around kids and picking up after them while dealing with bipolar symptoms.

This award-winning blog, Bipolar Vida, features a journal of her life and how bipolar effects how she lives her life. Living with bipolar can often be difficult. Every day is a new experience. The ups and downs of Christina's life detail her journey. Even in the worst of times, she tries to find the good in her life. So, every day she opens the blinds to see the sunshine. Sometimes she doesn’t win the battle, but she’s determined to fight and win the war against bipolar.

Bipolar Vida Blog Welcome Video

Bipolar Vida Blog Wins Top Patient Expert and Top Health Blog (May 20, 2010)

Here's what Organized Wisdom's Medical Review Team had to say about Cristina Fender and her Bipolar Vida blog:

"Mental health blogger, Cristina Fender, shares quality and personal bipolar disorder insights. Cristina breaks through the taboo barrier and journals about her feelings, thoughts, and experiences while living with this disorder. Her HealthyPlace.com Bipolar Vida blog chronicles her life as she "tries to open the blinds and see the sunshine." While she professes to not always win that battle, she sheds light for others struggling with bipolar disorder."

OrganizedWisdom® is a health and wellness information recommendation site. [Note: Shown as 'Permanently Closed' on Google Maps, September 29, 2017]