I'm an Anxious Yogi and You Can Be Too!

This pose is easier than it looks.

Yoga. You've probably heard a therapist mention it before. You've definitely heard of mindfulness, meditation and other elements of yoga in the mental health world if you've been part of it for more than a minute. It's one of the many tools you can keep in your toolbox for fighting OCD and mental illness in general. If you're not trying it or practicing it already, I urge you to try. I find it helps, and you might too.

You may already be thinking one of the following things:

• I'm not flexible enough for yoga.
• I'm not the right age for yoga.
• I'm not the right religion for yoga.

Everyone is flexible enough for yoga. Everyone. Yoga is not about achieving acrobatic feats of flexibility. Sitting in a cross-legged position is yoga. Hell, even lying on the floor on your back with your palms facing up is yoga. Which brings me to age. This is not a barrier for yoga. Elderly folks and toddlers do yoga. Finally, yoga can be completely secular. It's up to the yogi whether they want to do things like chant, seek spiritual guidance, etc. Me? I just hit the mat with my tight muscles. I'll leave the chanting and spiritual awakening to more enlightened folk.

So, we've established that most of the barriers people put up with yoga are bullshit. I should also add that you definitely have enough time to practice. There are no rules. You can do yoga for five minutes twice a week. No one cares. This is your practice.

I know you can. You know you can. Let's move on to why you should.

• Mindfulness
• Goals
• Self-satisfaction
• Pain relief
• Party tricks

The above are really just a few of the benefits I've reaped from practicing yoga. We learn mindfulness to keep us in every moment. As mentally ill folk, we need that. Yoga is all about being in the moment, in your body, in your mind, pushing yourself gently, and being forgiving of yourself. Setting goals helps us have something to work for, which leads to being satisfied when we achieve those goals. Stretching helps relieve tension. For me, it relieves pressure on my sciatic nerve. Finally, some yoga poses that are easy look really hard. You'll have some bragging rights when you nail them, but you'll also be fine if you don't.

I'm a very anxious person. There are days when I'm so wobbly I can't even do basic yoga poses. However, there are also days when I can hold up my body weight in balance poses I never would have dreamed possible. On those days, yoga focuses my mind and body. I'm anxious. I have OCD. I'm in my thirties. I have a hundred reasons not to do yoga, but I do it anyway. It's good for me. It can be good for you too.

Why You Shouldn't Be Embarrassed About Going To Therapy

Let's cut right through the poetic language here and nail down the point. Having a mental illness sucks. The symptoms you get can be frightening. What's worse, they can impact your life in profound ways. When you find yourself in the position of having compromised mental health, you have a choice. You can try to do something about it or you can let it get worse. However, doing something about it means admitting there is something wrong and allowing other people in on your problem–including a therapist. Is there anything wrong with doing that? No. In fact, it is commendable.

According to the National Institute of Mental Health, roughly one out of every five adult Americans suffers from mental illness. That means that one-fifth of adults in the United States could benefit from seeing a mental health counselor. It is not as if mental health issues are strange, rare occurrences that make you some kind of outcast. They are serious and legitimate health concerns that can seriously impact your life. Therapy can also impact your life, in a very good way. Therefore, there is no reason to be embarrassed. No one with any compassion at all would see seeking mental health counseling as something to be mocked. It is something to be applauded.

It is hard to live a successful, happy life when you are mentally and emotionally unbalanced. A therapist can help you cope with that and bring balance to your life. There is never a time when bettering your life without detriment to others is shameful. Would you be embarrassed to go to the doctor if you had pneumonia? Probably not. The same principal applies. Something is wrong with your health and you are seeking to fix it.

Sadly, the stigma surrounding mental illness causes people to feel like they should hide it. Hiding mental health problems lessens your chances of getting help. It is very likely that you only get one life to live. You do not want to live it under the pressure of hiding a mental health problem. Furthermore, you do not want to allow your mental health issues to get worse by avoiding seeing a counselor out of embarrassment. Try to eschew shame in favor of empowerment and live a better life.

See the resources section of this blog for help finding a therapist in your area.

What To Do When Your Therapist Leaves You

I knew it was coming. K, my therapist, is moving on to greener pastures. We've been working on my bullsh*t together for about three years now. She's helped me through getting married, two relapses of OCD-related anxiety and depression, countless family dramas and learning how to love myself. I'm still working on most of that, but I'm still alive, so she did her job. She did it well and I really like her, so I'm understandably sad that she is going. However, I'm very happy for her and maybe a little bit hopeful that change isn't so bad. If your therapist up and leaves you for something better or just because they change offices like I change med schedules, you can do what I'm doing–at your own peril.

1. Pretend it's totally cool. Say things like "That's awesome." "I'll be fine." and "Don't worry about it."
2. Go about your scheduled therapy like nothing is different. Talk about your family, your job and your "homework" like you would any other day. Change the subject when it comes to the impending breakup.
3. Acknowledge the fact that not only has your therapy buddy decided to move on, you have to find a new therapist.
4. Panic.
5. Cry.
6. Frantically research therapists in the area in case the other ones at your soon-to-be estranged therapist's office are d*ckwads or flakes.
7. Continue to go to therapy and act like nothing is wrong. "Who me? Worry that the therapist who talked me through a wedding when I couldn't leave my house without panicking a year earlier and who called the doctors when I stupidly checked into an in-patient facility and explained that I'm not an addict or a psychopath, so give me my meds and then let me go home is not going to be calling me on my sh*t anymore? That doesn't sound like me. I'm fine."
8. Pull up your big girl panties and seriously talk about the next move, meaning finding a new therapist.
9. Find new therapist.
10. Try to find fault with new therapist whom you have yet to meet.
11. Resign yourself to new therapist.
12. Say goodbye to old therapist while crying and telling her to keep in touch with you, as if that is an ethical move on her part. "What do you mean boundaries?!"
13. Meet new therapist.
14. Chill because new therapist is cool.
15. Cry all the way home because old therapist was cool too.

. . . and that's all I have so far. I'll give you the other 20 steps once I've completed and identified them. Good luck on your journeys from therapist to therapist. I know we all do it and some point or another.

My Therapist is Leaving Me

I know that changing therapists is part of being mentally ill and getting treatment. We all have reason at some point or another to start "seeing someone else." I've done this only once before. After a single session with a therapist who had somewhat outdated ideas, I found the therapist I have now­–K. We've "been together" for about three years now. I know this is the exception. I've met people who have had upwards of 10 different therapists over time. I always hoped that wouldn't be me. During my last session, I learned that K would be leaving the practice where I see her for greener pastures. I have mixed feelings.

When I met K, I was in a similar situation to the one I'm in now. My anxiety was in overdrive. I was having multiple panic attacks a day instead of one or two a month. I was having difficulty eating, working, sleeping, etc. For three years, she helped me get through my ups and downs. She helped me manage to stay sane long enough to marry my amazing husband in a real ceremony and reception! She's done a lot for me, including starting me on exposure and response prevention a few weeks ago. I'm in the middle of that treatment now, and I'm switching therapists.

Now, I'll get into my bag of mixed feelings. On the one hand, I am extremely nervous that it will take several tries before I find a therapist who knows anything about ERP. K didn't, but she knew me. I'm also nervous that this will be a setback. On the other hand, I am so happy for K, whom I think will do great in her new position. On yet another hand, because I have three, this could be a good thing. I'll learn to cope with someone new. This person may have tons of experience with what I'm going through, and maybe I'll like them as much as I like K.

I've shed a few tears. I've had moments of fear over this impending change. I have my doubts about the future, but none of these things are alien to me. All change is a challenge for me, and I've faced so many challenged over the course of my illness. The timing is probably terrible. It will probably throw a wrench in my treatment for a bit while I get to know someone new. However, that may make it more beneficial. I'm going to have to adapt and overcome. What better treatment is there?

I'm definitely going to miss K, though. I hope she'll be okay without me.

Why Do We Have Low Self-Esteem?

Wait? You can buy self esteem?!
Courtesy of Dave Hogg

Low self-esteem is a feeling that you're worthless, insignificant and/or not as good as other people. You may feel like your body is not attractive or as attractive as other people's bodies. You may feel like you are intellectually stunted, unfit, etc. In short, a person with low self-esteem feels inferior to other people. This is a very difficult feeling. It can interfere with your level of energy, employment, relationships and many other things. It leaves you vulnerable to people who want to take advantage of you. If you have low self-esteem, you know the negative effects it can have on your life, but what causes it? How do people come to feel so badly about themselves?

A negative opinion of one's self can come from many different things. It can begin during a person's formative years. If a child's parents, family or classmates are mean to him about his appearance, intellectual capacity or any other aspect of his self, he may grow up to share their opinions. Growing up hearing, "You're ugly." "You're fat." or "You're stupid." on a regular basis can cause you to think everyone feels that way about you. You may become afraid to make friends, have relationships or even apply for a job because you assume that no one would want you for anything because you are what those cruel people said about you.

Low self-esteem can arise later in life too. For example, when a person begins having romantic relationships, they can develop a habit of looking down on themselves. One mentally abusive relationship is enough to make a person go from confident to self-loathing. An emotionally abusive person typically employs a slew of insults to control their significant other. After time, you can start to believe those insults are true. This is not very different from having emotionally abusive parents or being bullied in school.

Body image-related low self-esteem does not always come from insults. People are sometimes born looking different from others or an accident dramatically alters their appearance. Sure, this can lead to insults. However, low self-esteem can come from simply looking in the mirror and at other people. It is a rare person who feels comfortable when they look very different from others. A person may also look to the media to get their idea of what they should look like. This can lead to ideas that they have to be overly fit, dangerously skinny, tiny-nosed, perfectly made up, have brilliant hair, etc. Unfortunately, low self-esteem that comes from feeling like this can lead to far worse problems, such as eating disorders.

Finally, we of the mentally ill sort know that low self-esteem doesn't always have an outward cause. It can come from deep within, boiling up from the miasma of depression and anxiety. When this abysmal sense of self worth is coupled with the other low thoughts that come from mental illness, hopelessness is not far behind. However, there's "good news, everyone!" Mental health counselors can work on this with their clients. It's not a quick fix, but you will learn to treat yourself better and not rely so heavily on other people's opinions. Yeah, I'm still working on this.

Surround yourself with positive people. Try to be a positive person. Eventually, your mind will follow suit.

Can Counseling Help People With Anxiety Disorders?

Arthur Rackham for Undine

Counseling can work wonders for people with anxiety disorders. The tools a counselor can give people stricken with any of these disorders or even just occasional panic attacks, coupled with the ability to speak with an unbiased party about their issues can take the place of medicine for the treatment of panic disorders. However, several factors will determine how successful counseling will be for the treatment of panic disorders. Very often, it takes a combination of counseling, medication and personal effort to see big results.

For counseling to help with any kind of anxiety disorder, the sufferer has to be willing to try to make it work. If a counselor suggests something like exposure therapy, the sufferer has to trust their counselor and try not to let their fear get in the way of treatment. Oftentimes, counseling will fail in treating panic disorders because the sufferer can't or won't allow their counselor to help them.

In order for a counselor to help a panic disorder sufferer, it is best if the counselor is well suited to the counseled. If there is anything about the counselor that makes the sufferer uncomfortable or defensive, it will be difficult to get results. On the other hand, it does take time for a person to become comfortable with and begin trusting their counselor. Therefore, if you are just starting counseling, give it a while before you switch counselors. You may find that as you get to know your counselor, your treatment works better and better.

The intensity of the anxiety disorder will also have a lot to do with how well and how fast counseling will help. For example, if a sufferer cannot leave their house without having a panic attack, going to counseling is going to be hell for them. It will be awhile before that person is able to feel safe going to see their counselor. Furthermore, it is harder to break the cycle of a panic disorder when it has been festering for a long time and has had the chance to become severe. Panic attacks become like a habit for many people. Sufferers get so used to them that they expect to have one and subsequently do because of their negative thinking. Counseling can and does help people like this, but it takes patience on the part of both the counselor and counseled.

A good counselor will have great listening skills, be understanding and have a comprehensive knowledge of ways to treat panic without medicine (see a prescriber or psychiatrist for that). They may tell you to try to get regular exercise, eat healthy foods, try exposure therapy, keep a journal, etc. All of these things are small steps on the road to chipping away at panic disorders. However, with the right counselor, right advice and enough time, a sufferer cannot only lessen their panic, but they may see it go away altogether.