What help you?

agreed. I tried to be pretty up front with mine when I had them, only problem was some people don't believe you because as you all know you can look totally normal on the outside but really be freaking out on the inside. I wish people that didn't have anxiety understood better, but by letting them know when we feel like this it does educate them I think.

good things there, I need to do yoga and more meditation myself, that would be great.

yeah i still do some nail biting, have all my life, terrible habit, i tried putting on clear coat polish to stop myself but that became a chore.

an yes i forgot too that this tribe has always helped out, support groups are good sometimes :)

Umm, sorry for the typos. I don't touch type and most of the letters are worn off my keyboard. It's one way to force me to learn to touch type! But, in the meantime, I don't always remember to go back and check for typos.

I was just trying for a bit of humor there Survivor. Sorry. Guess that bounced, haha :] Yes, I am African American. Both of my parents were heavily involved in the civil rights movement, so as a result I was often placed in situations where I was the first black or the only black. I am both the first and the only in my present job of 7 years; and in part because of suspicion of yogic roots in Buddhism and Hinduism I am often the only black in my yoga classes too. [Ironically, both a Buddhist and a Hindu inspired Martin Luther King Jr.] Growing up being the first and the only made it difficult to be part of any particular community. It looked good to the adults, but to a kid, my emotional needs went unmet. I couldn't afford to make mistakes and I had to figure things out the first time. I have no concept sponteneity [speaking of typos, I can't even spell it ;]

By the way, Survivor, you were spot on. Baptist [as well as Pentecostal] roots run very deep and black women do attend church more than black men. And true that if a black woman has problems, she is viewed as having a bad attitude or street savvy or angry. But outside the context of skin color, those are also symptoms closely related to anxiety. A bad attitude = inability to cope, a shutting down. Street savvy = playing a role to protect one's self. Angry = too much adrenaline + depression. I am not the type of person who yells or screams. This has caused some strange moments at work among coworkers who think if they antagonize me enough, I will "act black" and give them a reason to fire me or put me down. So "not" dealing with racism is a strange anxiety all it's own.

In any case, I didn't mean to get on too much a tangent. I really want to hear other ideas for what helps others in the anxious life... But thank you for listening and understanding

And, Survivor, your son is very handsome. If there is anything good about a parent having anxiety, it is that she instantly empathizes and understands her child on a deep level. What others may see as hypervigilance also makes you a very intuitive parent who can raise your son emotionally through real hardships. For what it's worth, hip hop isn't a hardship. It's just an expression. I think he will come through this hip-hop stage just fine :]

Sorry, Chris; the derail was mine. Having a professional to talk to does help. Personally, at least for where I am with it all right now, meds are my lifesavers. That is probably a literal statement. I forgot to take my morning meds a few days ago and didn't realize it till mid-afternoon. Wow, was I one scary wacko! But, yeah, often our brain chemistry is off so much that it really does help to have it artificially balanced for us while we get things sorted out.

Another thing that helps: my dog. She is someone to love who will never stop loving me back with open gratitude. That's something we all need, isn't it?

Yeah, Klonopin and a few others are what keep me sane...Or maybe they only keep me seeming to be sane? But, yeah; and I'd have to add Seroquel, side effects and all.

yeah K - sometimes I just get so wound up (anxiety) that I forget to take it or just dont ...
prevention is key ...

an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure ...

you know that what you've just poted struck a cord with peaple when all the responses start with "i" and then a description of ther vertion of the same predicument.

i come from a prety weird family, eclectic third and fourth generation imigrants (italian and irish-oaky)
with native american , hippy, buhdist , comunist , and anarcist influences, and from around 8 till around 14 i and most of my family wer devout mormons (i'm now a lapsed/inactive member of the church)

so i often feel the same as you described and often find my self using the frase (in my culture we don't realy do things that way) even thow i was born and raised in primarily in white/hispanicblack suberbs in the east bay , and am to all apearences "just some white guy".