Anxiety and the Gut feeling
Something I am trying to understand in therapy at the moment is why I am sensitive to other peoples emotions, my current understanding is that trauma led to this sensitivity, it's motivated by fear and this triggers my survival mode.
I get a gut feeling, like the effect mild anxiety has on your gut/stomach and often I instantly understand what the person is communicating or the direction a scenario will take, without knowing why. I think that when I don't pick up on the obvious non verbal signals, subconsciously I notice a pattern through a well developed hyper vigilance and my gut sends me that signal.
I have relied on this feeling to guide me away from harmful situations since my early teens, but worsening anxiety levels interfered with the balance of this and I became unable to distinguish the rational from irrational threats in the same way.
Does this make sense? Can anyone else relate to this?
I can relate to this quite well.
I sense that it's something called "intuition."
"Intuition," I believe, has a tangible, rather than a necessarily "spiritual" basis because it's based upon previous facts and previous experiences--though that might not be evident to one on a conscious level.
I don't always go according to my "intuition." I've regretted that sometimes.
However, it most definitely has a basis.
I would say that you are naturally an empathetic person.
To tell you the truth, it took quite a bit of time and life experience for me to become suitably empathetic.
androbot01
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Age: 53
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You're sensitive to other people's feelings because you're a human being.
Is this the same dork who's trying to help you recover from autism? If so, you need to ditch this guy.
As a child I would become aware of patterns in behaviour, and associate them for e.g. with a required self protection strategy, the problem was that these patterns existed everywhere and are not always associated with an actual harmful situation, with time I learned to question a physical manifestation of anxiety and this I think led to intuitive skills, something I would like to develop again.
Are you referring to Waterfalls thread? I was writing about a prior friend who was also a psychotherapist, she did view many things as behavioral and fixable i.e. choosing to respond with anxiety, highlighting my maladaptive coping strategies. The counsellor I am visiting in a low cost R.C. therapy setting does focus a lot on my childhood, and most discussions circulate back to childhood experiences, but she seems open minded enough to incorporate my views into her approach the following week. This happens with every therapist I have visited, once they hear the details they almost never move past my childhood.
Regardless it is helping me to talk and communicate about the things that happened which I do not fully understand yet.
androbot01
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Joined: 17 Sep 2014
Age: 53
Gender: Female
Posts: 6,746
Location: Kingston, Ontario, Canada
I went through a similar experience and am still hyper vigilant. It's part of who I am now. I have GAD and SAD and I manage it with medication and relaxation techniques. But, yeah, everything to me is a potential threat.
Oops, my bad.
I really don't think one chooses to responds with anxiety. It's a physical response. You can be proactive in dealing with it, but you can't eliminate it. This, to me, is blaming the patient for their ailment.
Well, that's good.
Yes.
And I agree with what Kraftie wrote about intuition. I try to heed mine, when I do it usually turns out to have been a good thing. When I don't, I often wish I had.
In order to blend in socially and retain the friends I had, I pushed myself to do things that triggered my anxiety e.g. meeting social expectations, believing that if I broke through my comfort barriers enough times, then I would be a stronger person for it. It would have been much better for me if I hadn't done this, I obliterated my social circle. I done my best to not be anxious in those situations, but it was not a reaction I could control, I just tried to hide it and seemed even weirder.
I'd like to trust my intuition again, the anxiety is still interfering with it though; I've tested it a few times but it wasn't accurate, I'm still perceiving threats where there are none.
androbot01
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Joined: 17 Sep 2014
Age: 53
Gender: Female
Posts: 6,746
Location: Kingston, Ontario, Canada
Yeah, I no longer force myself to attend things that make me anxious. I just don't enjoy things the way others do. I did lose a friend over this, but she wasn't a real friend.
Constant anxiety really sucks.
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