Labels are best caught early. There is nothing wrong with using the labels when speaking to your doctor if it is the only language he or she understands, likewise your therapist or psychologist. What is important is that you let go of labels inside your own head. You are an individual, and your brain has so many thousands of miles of nerves and millions of cells. Your issues are not the same anyone else’s and what they are suffering or dealing with can not effect you or rub off on you. If one person can overcome anxiety (and many millions have) then you can do the same. If no one had ever overcome anxiety then you could be the first.
It is important to watch the language you use with yourself. Ask yourself this question: Do I have anxiety. If the answer is “Yes” then you are speaking to yourself in a very self-sabotaging way. Ask yourself the question Have I felt anxiety? Or Do I feel anxiety now? Are the answers still yes? That’s fine! Do you see the difference? In the first you are labelling yourself has having a certain almost innate state, like saying you have HIV. In reality your problem is that you feel certain emotions and experience certain physical symptoms which we have labelled anxiety and panic attacks. What’s more is that when you feel this “anxiety” and “panic attacks” in certain situations we provide ourselves with another concrete state, that of being “phobic”.
The truth is that you feel these things sometimes, as does everyone, and that you have felt them perhaps more often during this recent period of your life. That does not mean they are a part of you or never ending. Make a pledge to yourself now: “I used to HAVE anxiety/panic attacks/agoraphobia etc. but now I FEEL some unpleasant symptoms from time to time, which are natural and always pass.”
By cultivating this attitude and letting go of labels, you can definitely move your recovery forward and brighten your outlook.
