Everything's fine so why am I so anxious?
One of the most puzzling conundrums facing people when they come for counselling is “Why do I feel so anxious when everything in my life is fine?”
Just when you’re in a good place an underlying feeling of anxiety is quietly playing in the background making you wonder why it seems determined to spoil your fun. Many well-meaning friends and family may listen to how you’re feeling. They might sympathise and reassure but often you’ll hear “think of everything you’ve got going for you”, “what is there to be sad about, you’ve got such a great job”, “think how lucky you are, you have a healthy family and a lovely home”.
Well, of course, you consciously know all this. Their good intentions and reassurance have just made you feel worse as you start to wonder why these undeniable facts can’t seem to lift you out of your low mood. You’re now making yourself feel ungrateful for your favourable circumstances.
If this feeling of discomfort starts to lead to more depressive feelings that don’t seem to shift easily, it might be a good time to seek help to talk things through.
Psychotherapy, more specifically, psychodynamic counselling doesn’t just help you examine your immediate circumstances, but also what’s going on underneath. What might these feelings be trying to tell you?
Often when we have a difficult period in our lives, we dig deep to get through that time and we just keep going. Then when life gets calmer and the obvious difficulties fade, you have the emotional time and space to start to process and actually feel what you had to ignore in the tough times.
The realisations that emerge in therapy will undoubtedly be different for each person - everyone’s way of relating to their surroundings will not be the same. Just as every individual will have experienced different things in their past.- traumas, disappointments and resolutions.
The role of therapy is to sit and think together how all these things may be playing into how you’re feeling today.
In psychodynamic counselling you will be given a unique chance to think out loud; to say what’s on your mind without someone trying to give you a solution or to judge what you say. There might be an initial discomfort at first and of course, some resistance to articulating your feelings. Gradually, once you get used to feeling unhurried and the relationship with your counsellor builds, you will feel more relaxed. In this space, you eventually may find that you can give voice to the feelings you didn’t know were there. This gives us a chance to sit together to think about what might be going on for you at a deeper pre-conscious level. You can keep coming while you’re finding it useful and end whenever you like…………you’re in charge of when you end.
If you are interested in discussing how therapy might help you and want to know more about how I work, get in touch and we can have a chat before you commit to anything.
07485 602353