Anxiety advice

[Note: I posted a slightly different version in the Postsecret chat forum.]

When wrongness, pointlessness, hopelessness, despair, and helplessness saturate your mind, how can you rely upon your infected mind to fix itself?

My best advice is that there is no magic solution. You need to develop techniques, tactics, procedures, and a strategy to fight and win against your anxiety every time it attacks you. It will continue to do so, because your anxiety is a hardwired part of you.

Accept that it's possible you'll never conquer your anxiety in a movie-like final showdown. Like any disorder that's hardwired into your mind, eg, addictions or schizophrenia (I just re-watched Beautiful Mind on TV), you can win battles, but you'll never win the war. The best you can do is to assess the battle correctly every time you fight it. You'll have to fight the battle against your anxiety over and over and over again. The alternative is to relax, surrender to it, and accept your life being driven into a cave by your anxiety.

Keys:

1. Breed confidence in your abilities and potential. Anxiety is linked to fear of failure, harm, and humiliation. Therefore, it's important to attempt challenges to prove to yourself that your abilities and potential are good enough - not necessarily the best, but good enough. Once you conquer some challenges, you will own tested bulwarks to use as rational weapons against your anxiety when it wells up irrationally from inside your mind to swamp you. For example, I enlisted in the Army specifically because I believed the military was the last thing in the world I could do. By serving well and honorably, I proved to myself I could succeed at something I fully believed I would fail. After I served, I earned my degree at an Ivy League university in order to gain more tangible proof of my worth.

Unfortunately, a good track record isn't a magic solution. It's merely a good weapon to use in the never-ending war against your anxiety. Talented, intelligent anxiety sufferers often live with an odd mix of disembodied confidence in their own abilities, while simultaneously, their confidence in self is sabotaged by their anxiety. People on the outside, who only see the quality but not the anxiety, don't understand why anxiety sufferers seemingly irrationally undermine themselves for no apparent reason.

2. Learn that regret is worse than failure. Is it worse to try your best and spectacularly fail, or to quietly give up and forever wonder "what if"? For me, I learned the hard way that "what if" is worse than real-life failure, and it's a lot harder to make up for those regrets later in life. It's best to avoid regrets, if possible. Convince yourself that regret is worse than failure. If your anxiety is successful using the fear of failure against you, then co-opt the proven power of fear - make your fear of regret stronger than your fear of failure. Use your fear of regret to push you forward into the hot light of the arena, even while your fear of failure tries to pull you back into the tempting cool shadows of the cave.

Failure is a part of the struggle of life. It sucks for everyone, and even talented people who aren't anxiety sufferers fail. In fact, most iconic role models will tell you that their eventual breakthrough success grew out of a mixed history of failure and success. The key is they used failure to their tactical advantage and did not give in to their fears.

3. Demystify failure and use it to your tactical advantage. Overcoming your anxiety to challenge yourself is a victory in and of itself, but it doesn't mean you will automatically win at the challenge. That was another hard lesson for me to learn. In real life, the scrappy underdog doesn't always get the girl. You may even do your best and work as hard as you can, and still lose. Failure hurts, but you will find that real failure can be constructive, whereas anxiety is empty and only destructive. Real failure teaches you valuable lessons about yourself, other people, and the world around you. Failure allows you to make informed evaluations about your true limits, rather than your anxiety-perceived limits, and helps you decide whether you can improve and do better or you're better off investing your life into something else.

Real failure reveals and teaches, real failure helps you grow and mature. Failure empowers. Fight against your anxiety's attempt to use fear of failure to cheat you from the benefits of real failure.

4. Difficult: identify the healthy fears and separate them from the anxiety fears. It seems to me that living fearlessly isn't altogether healthy, either. Healthy fear is a protective tool of the mind. The problem is that for anxiety sufferers, fear has become malignant, like when someone's immunity system goes haywire and attacks healthy cells. Challenging yourself and embracing failure is one thing. However, recklessly thrusting yourself into bad situations and hurting yourself, and maybe even others, is something else altogether. Unfortunately, it's very hard for anxiety sufferers to trust their distorted judgement to tell the difference between healthy fears and anxiety fears. Sorry I can't give better advice here, because I haven't figured it out yet.

5. As much as we'd like to, we aren't strong enough to battle our inner demons 24/7/365 forever. The struggle against yourself is exhausting. Giving in does lead to relief. It's why addicts "fall off the wagon" even after years of successful sobriety. Compromise, develop pressure releases. Learn who you are. Recognize that relief is with cost and only temporary, so what ground are you willing to concede to your anxiety in order to gain ground in other areas of your life? Where can you pick your spots to rest and relax, so you can rejuvenate for the more important battles, without weakening yourself? That said, don't sell yourself short. Err on the side of strength rather than weakness. Be careful of the slippery slope that easily turns a temporary tactical concession into a larger destructive surrender to your anxiety.

6. Don't alienate trusted loved ones. Easier said than done when your anxiety pulls you into the lonely comfort of the cave, but it's critical to keep trusted loved ones involved in your life. "Trusted" is critical, because you need your loved ones to be a source of strength for you even when they don't understand what's happening to you. My mom has never understood, but still supported me as best she could. When you're battling something that's part of you, you may not even notice the warning signs that you're slipping. If you're lucky, a trusted love one who wants what's best for you, has a sense of your anxiety problem, and can spot the signs may be able to save you even before you've admitted you need help. Your loves ones can help pick you up again after you've lost a battle to your anxiety, too. Bottom-line: resist the urge to isolate yourself; you need the help and support of your trusted loved ones.

7. Psychotropic drugs. I can't say much about them, except they scare me. Some people swear by them, others say meds hurt them without helping. I believe there are physiological roots to the condition so I don't discount drugs, but don't treat them like a magic solution, either.

8. Counseling. I believe a good counselor can help a lot, but my sense is that there are many bad counselors out there, and even with a good counselor, it's not a magic solution. First of all, it's expensive and time consuming. Therapy can take years and it's not a passive process. A counselor can serve as a guide, informed outside perspective, and honest evaluator only, not a repairman. Therapy still requires that you do the heavy lifting. It doesn't solve the problem, only helps train you to better fight your battles.

Final thought. Anxiety is undoubtedly a handicap and a burden. It slows you down, it's relentless, and it can drive you to your knees when you relax. But you know what? Life's not fair. Realize you're not the only person with a handicap and burden. Folks with bad breaks in life do succeed, and you can, too. Deal with it. Fight. Win. Fail. Get up. Fight again.

PS 31May11: Be aware that an anxious and depressed state of mind will color and alter your entire perspective and how you think. So when you are in a "low mood", it is best to be very cautious about decision-making.

PPS 06Dec11: My Bwog comment about Columbia student Tian (Tina) Bu's suicide. Tina fought her illness in a similar way to my advice. The choices are fight or flight. I wonder whether her apparent inability to fight anymore and her refusal to give in to her illness left her only one choice. My advice should be tempered with a realistic assessment of one's own resilience and brittleness. If one cannot fight anymore, then the better choice is to give up and run away rather than commit suicide.

Eric

Armaggedon (1998) is good

I gotta say, Armaggedon is surprisely good. It's a master of the slickly packaged summer thriller big budget exaggerated B movie disaster film genre that's as a rule critically panned. Emotion tugging and attention to detail, I'd place Armageddon on the same level of the better-regarded Titanic.

Eric

The story of H

This is a slightly edited version of something I wrote in 2000:

The Revolution wrote: I'll say it again: if he's such a great catch, why aren't women beating a path to his door? Ever see how women act when they want something?

About how women act when they want something, I have a story about that. This is just one girl, but the experience stands out to me because of how almost farcically stereotypically it ran its course. In AIT (Advanced Individual Training for you non-Army folks), this girl, I'll call her H, asked me to sit with her one day at lunch. For the next 2 months, we ate every meal together and basically spent a lot of our free time together. H and I talked a lot, and we had the discussion about what girls want. I was younger then and it was a fresh topic for me; she said all the basic stuff about girls wanting a 'nice' guy. I thought we were becoming friends, and was encouraged by the fact she sought me out. I worked over-time to be considerate, sensitive, and a gentleman. I didn't have relationship feelings for her at first but by the end of those two months I was ready to ask her out on a date. Nothing big, just a movie, but it was a big step for me. It didn't hurt that H's roommate and best friend in AIT told me I should do so and that I was "good for her". The day that I thought H and I were both ready for this step up - I read all signs as positive - it turned bad. That night, I was sitting next to her in a review for a critical PE (practical exercise), when I noticed her sending these gooey glances to the back of the room. After the PE review, she went to this guy - E - and was all over him, offering to help him for the PE. E wasn't all that enthusiastic about her; he had actually rejected H about a month before she first invited me to sit with her at lunch. As far as I know, E never did a thing to encourage her advances. She made her decision on her own. I hold nothing against him; while E was a full-time jerk, we were civil, and he was open and honest as a jerk. She was persistent the second time around, though, doing the things many infatuated women in AIT did for their men: she studied with him, she shined his boots, washed and ironed his uniforms, a hundred other favors, and dressed up and went out with him on weekends. E eventually accepted her as his girlfriend, and if that sounds snippy, I say it like that because he never changed one bit for her, and talked almost dismissively of her. They argued all the time, which struck me, because H and I never argued. The morning after that PE review night, I waited for her after PT (physical training - our morning work-out) to go to breakfast just like we did every day after PT. She didn't show up, and when I called her room from the CQ (Charge of Quarters, like a reception area) desk, H's roommate answered and told me to go on to breakfast without her. I didn't get the hint and I waited for her after PT the next day, too, but we never ate another meal together again. H and I spoke maybe one more time for the rest of AIT.

Maybe I was blind and stupid, but I had no warning and didn't accept the obvious right away. The weekend after that PE review, 2 days later, I sat next to H in the day (barracks TV) room and asked her out to a movie. She kind of frowned and slid away from me. While we were spending time together, she gave no indication she still had any feelings for E. In fact, she told me in a conversation early on she was over him. A training company is a small intimate community, and after they were together, I couldn't help but watch H with him. She always gave these gooey looks to him that I never once received from her, she spoke to him in a tone of voice that's hard to describe (cloying?), and she always seemed to do her best to be attentive to him. He never changed a bit for her. I remember standing close by once when he shouted at her, "Why do you follow me everywhere?".

I'm only fortunate that I wasn't too far gone on H. I was furious for one night, and it still hurt some afterwards, but I was able to let her go quickly. The experience stands out to me because it played out the stereotype in a time when I was still very optimistic and idealistic in my relationship beliefs. The lesson H taught me is that a girl will act on her desire, or lack of desire, regardless of how the guy treats her. The lesson can be reversed to apply to guys, true, but it's a lesson about girls I still had to learn. I know now that losing a girl's favor doesn't necessarily mean, as I used to think, that I didn't treat her well enough. If a girl likes me, I could do a fraction of my usual effort, and she'd still treat me great. On the other hand, I could give a girl my soul, and it wouldn't matter if she didn't like me.

As far as the first thing you said, about if I'm such a great catch, etc., I've been wondering about that lately myself. There's this disparity in my life, where many people, men and women, tell me, basically, that I'm a good guy. I get more than enough respect, personally and professionally, more than I probably deserve. Except with relationships, I feel I have a pretty good handle on my life. The consensus seems to be that I ought to be in a good relationship. None of that translates into actual relationship success, though.

Eric

Then and now, a matter of degree: The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)

I caught the end of The Best Years of our Lives on Channel 13 the other night. It's one of the best coming-home-from-war movies ever made, and I think veterans of the current war would be well-served to watch this movie and compare their experiences with the experience, albeit dramatized, of the "Greatest Generation" veterans.



Before, I'd watched the movie from beginning to end twice. During this viewing, however, two particular scenes caught my attention and got me to thinking. The first scene was the soda shop scene where Fred Derry defends Homer Parrish from an anti-war "Americanist" who argues that the great personal sacrifices of World War 2, including Homer's amputated hands, were a waste, and worse, the result of a vast conspiracy. The second scene is in Fred Derry's apartment where Marie Derry, Fred's unhappy wife, leaves him after telling him off as a loser and proclaiming her own independence.

The two scenes got me thinking about how popular cultural archetypes have changed while the fundamental nature of American society has not. It seems that the anti-war radical was stubbornly vocal even during the patriotic World War 2 era. His successors have barely changed since then, except he was a disreputable fringe radical 60 years ago, but now dominates Ivy League political science departments, politics, and media punditry. The villainous archetype of the anti-war American 60 years ago, barely changed, is now viewed as a wise hero in popular and political culture.

Marie Derry is an ambitious, judgemental, materialistic and vain, proudly independent woman who leaves her husband, an honorable war hero struggling to find his way at home. Apparently, the self-centered feminist isn't a modern creation, either, except back then, she was presented as a selfish creature who betrayed her commitment to her honorable husband. Now, she's become a feminist heroine who owes nothing to anyone else and is right to do whatever is necessary to gain whatever she can get in life, regardless of the effect on her husband.

My conclusion? We wax poetic about halcyon days, but our society's fundamental nature actually hasn't changed that much since the Greatest Generation. We've just allowed our worse nature to get the upper hand. We'll never eliminate our weaknesses, nor should we, but what can we do to reassert our strengths?

Eric

Columbia University May Merge GS with CC

Interesting article in today's Columbia Spectator: University May Merge GS with CC. Passionate discussion in the comments. I'm very curious as to how this proposal will play out.

Eric

Happy Veterans Day 2007

Happy Veterans Day to all current and former American servicemen and women around the world. Read the history of Veterans Day here.

Remember November 11th is Veterans Day--Some Thoughts

by Father Dennis Edward O'Brien

Some veterans bear visible signs of their service: a missing limb, a jagged scar, a certain look in the eye.

Others may carry the evidence inside them: a pin holding a bone together, a piece of shrapnel in the leg - or perhaps another sort of inner steel: the soul's ally forged in the refinery of adversity.

Except in parades, however, the men and women who have kept America safe wear no badge or emblem.

You can't tell a vet just by looking.

What is a vet?

He is the cop on the beat who spent six months in Saudi Arabia sweating two gallons a day making sure the armored personnel carriers didn't run out of fuel.

He is the barroom loudmouth, dumber than five wooden planks, whose overgrown frat-boy behavior is outweighed a hundred times in the cosmic scales by four hours of exquisite bravery near the 38th parallel.

She - or he - is the nurse who fought against futility and went to sleep sobbing every night for two solid years in Da Nang.

He is the POW who went away one person and came back another - or didn't come back AT ALL.

He is the Quantico drill instructor who has never seen combat - but has saved countless lives by turning slouchy, no-account rednecks and gang members into Marines, and teaching them to watch each other's backs.

He is the parade - riding Legionnaire who pins on his ribbons and medals with a prosthetic hand.

He is the career quartermaster who watches the ribbons and medals pass him by.

He is the three anonymous heroes in The Tomb Of The Unknowns, whose presence at the Arlington National Cemetery must forever preserve the memory of all the anonymous heroes whose valor dies unrecognized with them on the battlefield or in the ocean's sunless deep.

He is the old guy bagging groceries at the supermarket - palsied now and aggravatingly slow - who helped liberate a Nazi death camp and who wishes all day long that his wife were still alive to hold him when the nightmares come.

He is an ordinary and yet an extraordinary human being - a person who offered some of his life's most vital years in the service of his country, and who sacrificed his ambitions so others would not have to sacrifice theirs.

He is a soldier and a savior and a sword against the darkness, and he is nothing more than the finest, greatest testimony on behalf of the finest, greatest nation ever known.

So remember, each time you see someone who has served our country, just lean over and say Thank You. That's all most people need, and in most cases it will mean more than any medals they could have been awarded or were awarded.

Two little words that mean a lot, "THANK YOU".

Remember November 11th is Veterans Day

"It is the soldier, not the reporter, Who has given us freedom of the press.

It is the soldier, not the poet, Who has given us freedom of speech.

It is the soldier, not the campus organizer, Who has given us the freedom to demonstrate.

It is the soldier, Who salutes the flag, Who serves beneath the flag, And whose coffin is draped by the flag, Who allows the protestor to burn the flag."

Father Dennis Edward O'Brien, USMC

11/11/98

Eric

How Asian men are portrayed in movies by Asian-American women

. . . or, What the Fuck, Sister?!

Watch enough movies by Asian-American women movie-makers, and it's easy to begin wondering, do our women hate us?

Case studies:

Joy Luck Club, starring Ming-Na, by Amy Tan, 1993.
Double Happiness, starring Sandra Oh, by Mina Shum, 1994. (Canadian film)
Red Doors, starring Jacqueline Kim, by Georgia Lee, 2005.

I'm not a movie aficionado, so the fact I can name as many as three movies by Asian-American women that alarm me as an Asian-American man is a bad sign. To this day, I can't stomach any work by Sandra Oh because of her role in Double Happiness.

As far as movie messages go, feminism that's generally critical of gender relationships is one thing. We're in modern times, and while we may sometimes be uncomfortable with feminism as men, we support our sisters. As well, when confronted with racism in our popular culture, it's a struggle for our people, but we are willing and able to handle those outside of our demographic group who demean us. We understand that carving our niche in American society is a progressive generational struggle.

However, when our sisters, as exemplified by Mses Tan, Shum, and Lee, whom we rely upon as our life partners, emasculate us, and inject their hateful image of Asian men into popular culture, we have no defense for their back-stabbing betrayal. There is nothing we can do about Asian-American women who denigrate us, and worse, idealize non-Asian men as deliberate counterpoints to their caricatured portrayals of Asian men. Because these women are the forefront of Asian-American representatives, they legitimize anti-Asian male stereotypes like no one else can.

I don't understand: why do Asian-American women hurt their brothers like this?

I spotted this revealing tidbit about Red Doors in an interview with movie lead Jacqueline Kim:

APA: Were you surprised by the intense reactions about how there were no Asian guys?

JK: You know it's something we saw that would probably come, but the three guys who were playing the boyfriends are such lovely and varied actors. I think two of them were originally supposed to be Asian American, and we lost them within 24-36 hours of shooting, both for visa issues. But, I personally think -- Georgia's experience was growing up in Connecticut, where I think they were one of three Chinese American families. I grew up in Detroit, where we were one of three Korean American families, so I mean, white boys were just... who you date.

* Emphasis mine.

"Visa issues"?! Again: What the Fuck, Sister?! Where did Georgia Lee film this movie - Antarctica? * What, she couldn't find Asian-American male actors - with American citizenship and the other necessary credentials - either as her first choices or emergency fill-ins to play the boyfriends? Kim then immediately contradicts her excuse by saying that "white boys" are the accurate characterization of her and Lee's dating background, meaning that white actors properly represent boyfriends in the Asian-American woman's experience, anyway. She strongly implies that the "visa" explanation is just a tossed-out excuse and white actors were meant to play the boyfriends all along. They don't even care. The lack of regret and easy dismissiveness from our sisters in their choice to represent their brothers negatively in American culture is dismaying.

* Red Doors was filmed in New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut.

Eric