Many people find that volunteering provides a useful step on the road to recovery.

Healing your inner child The idea that each one of us has an inner child has been the butt of jokes in recent years, and yet its a concept that is useful in understanding ourselves. Do you worry about blushing or trembling when speaking to people? If I take a risk, Ill fail - I can learn to take risks, step by step. This is also why someone with, say, a cleaning ritual might well end up doing no cleaning at all - better not to start in the first place. The deepest layer is the core beliefs, the foundations upon which the middle level is built and which ultimately drive the whole process. You may blame yourself for developing Anxiety. In both cases your attention is selective - either focusing on the negative, or the positive. I thought I must be losing my sanity, what other explanation was there? I had to kneel at one of the graves and rub my hands in the dirt amongst the gravestone, . Your sense of self-worth will ded on your achievements, your status, or simply on being liked, and yet youll never feel that youve got enough of any of these. Sadness - you are leaving your old life behind. Its back to the sink and count up to Ten. I used to avoid everything. At first I just used to avoid school assembly, then it was the pictures, and towards the end I wouldnt even go out in the back garden and put washing out. Examining Anxiety Behaviours Theres no doubt that Anxiety does affect behaviour, although the details will be different for each person. Yes to question 8 refers to OCD. Raise your eyebrows and wrinkle up your forehead. If I fail, others will reject me - I can cope with failure, and I can cope with rejection if it comes. This is repression, where a person has lost touch with some of their emotions. All Anxiety disorders absorb a lot of your time and energy, and tend to make you isolated. Some people are only anxious about one particular type of activity. And yet they might well have simply not seen you, or been sunk into their own thoughts and worries. Other medication: you may be asked to try beta-blockers or anti- depressants. Its important to understand that escaping does not make Anxiety go away.