Help When You're Drowning

Anxiety can be overwhelming. If you feel like you're drowning in waves of fear and terror, consider some positive, practical steps for relief and release.

  • Get medical treatment. When panic is overwhelming, medical treatment including medication can help you cope. According to the American Psychiatric Association, "most anxiety disorders respond well to two types of treatment: medication and psychotherapy. These treatments can be prescribed alone or in combination. Although not cures, both treatments are effective in relieving the symptoms of anxiety disorders, thus enabling individuals to live healthier lives."1
  • Identify critical thoughts and messages. Many times, there are very self-critical thoughts associated with anxiety. Some liken this to having an "inner critic." The critic's words can be so overwhelming as to leave you paralyzed, and can become so automatic that anxiety sufferers may not even realize they are occurring. Journaling these messages can help you learn how to respond to such words of disdain and contempt.
  • Challenge the critic's messages. Fear can also become an automatic emotional response to the oppressive messages of the critic. Many times, it's difficult to know whether the words are true or false. These messages must be overcome with positive, affirming messages of truth. Challenge the critic by asking, "What warm and loving dialogue would a nurturing father use with his child in the midst of fear?" Many passages in the Bible describe this as the kind of relationship God has towards us.2 Neil Anderson's The Bondage Breaker explains how to challenge anxiety and break the fear cycle by using these passages.3
  • Appeal to liberating truth. The attack of critical messages can feel like an overwhelming battle against a vehement enemy. Finding truths to hold on to can be difficult in a relativistic culture where truth is said to be "relative" to individuals and cultures. Relativism: Feet Firmly Planted in Mid-Air explores the self-refuting nature of relativism.4 If you aren't aware of the power of relativistic thinking, it can make your brain spin. To say that the critic is wrong, you must appeal to absolute rules of morality, justice and equality that apply to all people. Armed with the weapons of dignity, meaning and purpose derived from our inalienable rights as creations of an Almighty Designer, we gain momentum and turn the battle around. This kind of truth is the great liberator. Messages like, "I have worth" and "I have value" are essential truths in the fight against inner criticism and relativistic thinking.
  • Connect critical messages and emotions. It's important to identify the emotions that arise when we react to the abusive critic. Dan Allender's The Wounded Heart describes feelings of betrayal, ambivalence, anger, rage, powerlessness, shame (self-contempt) and self-hatred.5 You may struggle with these feelings, regardless of your background. If you find yourself experiencing these emotions, try to figure out what goals you are trying to achieve that are being blocked. Affirmation and validation of your feelings and perceptions can be especially important. Find out what emotions lie under your initial emotions. Then, dig down to the next emotion and continue to do this until you reach the core emotion.
  • Practice forgiveness. One of the most powerful things we can do to relieve our internal anger and rage is to forgive. Forgiveness releases me from being a prisoner to my emotions.6 Forgive people who have offended you even when they don't deserve it or ask for forgiveness.
  • Find reassurance in answers to life's important issues. 7 To grapple with hard questions like, "Who am I"; "Where am I going"; "What happens when I die"; "What is life all about"; "Does my life have meaning"; and "Is there a God" may seem like an anxiety-producing task. But the answers can actually have a profound impact on how we deal with our fears. If the events that follow death are actually pleasurable, this knowledge can be used to lessen the fear of dying. Meaning and purpose in life can give us reasons for getting out of bed each morning.
  • Practice solitude. Find a regular place for solitude and reflection to pour out broken places of your heart to God. Enter into your brokenness and desperation. Ask God to help. Worship can lift our souls above even the bleakest of circumstances.
1 American Psychiatric Association Web site, www.psych.org/public_info/anxiety.html
2 Neil T. Anderson, Who I Am In Christ , (Gospel Light, 2001).
3 Anderson , Bondage Breaker , (Harvest House Publishers, 2000).
4 Beckwith, Francis J. and Gregory Koukl, Relativism: Feet Firmly Planted in Mid-Air , (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1998).
5 Dr. Dan B. Allender, The Wounded Heart: Hope for Adult Victims of Childhood Sexual Abuse, (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 1990).
6 R.T. Kendall, "Finding True Forgiveness", (CD Broadcast) and Total Forgiveness (paperback, Charisma House).
7 Charles Colson & Nancy Pearcey. How Now Shall We Live? (Tyndale House, 1999).

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