Trouble Organizing, Managing, and Proritizing

If you have executive function problems, due to PTSD, anxiety disorder, depression or ADHD or autism, I can feel your frustration.

Executive function is an impotant function of the brain that can be interfered with by many things including ptsd from abuse and gaslighting, and even ADHD and autism.

People with diminished  execucutive function can have extreme difficulty doing any or all of the following..

1. Organizing materials for a task or project

2. Planning and organizing things

3. Scheduling and keeping up with the schedule

4. Getting things done on time

5. Arriving places on time

6. Figuring out how to allow enough time for all the different parts of a task or project

7. Staying calm while trying to organize and manage things

8. Delegating tasks and responsibilities to others

9. Self motivating to stay on task and keep up with tbe schedule

10. Prioritizing things that cannot all be done the same day

11. Remembering appointments and things you need to do

If you have problems with your executive function part of your brain, you may feel frustrated or blame yourself. Negative self talk will create more anxiety, frustration or depression.

The first thing is to be understanding with yourself. Be patient and plan ahead.

Have calendars, date books, appt books, note pads, memo pad on your cell phone and time clocks with you wherever you need them. You may need multiples of calendars etc.

Give yourself the exrra time needed for tasks. Leave spaces in between activities and appointments, in order to keep your anxiety down to a minimum. You best work is done when you are feeling relaxed and confident.

Be compassionate with yourself and remember that the executive function problem is a real physiological issue in the brain. It was caused by whatever your particular circumstances were.

It is not your fault. Figbting it, ignoring it, or blaming yourself for it will not help. It will make it worse. Your memory will refuse to work if you add anxiety on top of the executive function issues.

Sleep is also important. Sleep deprivation adds to memory problems.

Blessings and compassion,

Annie

Thoughts on Depression and C-PTSD from emotional Abuse

Depression can make you feel like staying in bed and not interacting with other people. You know that if you go out of the house, you will feel different and out of place.

Other people will not understand your inner world. You feel like you will be forced to put on a mask to fit in. It is difficult to function.

You get more and more internalized. So you self isolate, and limit your social interactions. This is understandable because certain kinds of interactions can be emotionally traumatizing.

You feel like the one person that is out of place in the world.  You sit alone and hear the thoughts that come up from your subconscious. Thoughts that there is something wrong with you.

Some of the feelings you get are from emotional flashbacks. There are things that happened and ways you were rejected during childhood that cause your subconscious to store these kinds of feelings.

If you can identify the false beliefs behind your thoughts, then the feelings can be sat with and calmed. You were not born feeling like you did not belong in the world. These thoughts were taught to you….even brainwashed into you.

When you have a feeling that is painful, like hopelessness…try to discover what core belief that thought is driven by. The belief might be that you are not as good as other people. .. Or that the world is unsafe.

If you are carrying the core belief that you are less adequate than other people…that is a bad programming. These things are programmed into children who do not have emotionally supportive childhoods.

Think back to your childhood and if you were made to feel insignificant, unworthy, unneccesary, or anything else negative. If your thoughts and feelings were dismissed, criticized, or made fun of then you are probably carrying CPTSD…complex post traumatic stress disorder.

People with C-PTSD often get depressed or feel extreme anxiety. You may have trouble keeping up with other people or feeling normal.

Those false core beliefs that were fed to you can be re-programmed. You need to question each one of those negative beliefs about yourself. Be like a scientist attempting to disprove a theory.

If you feel that something is wrong with you compared to other people, then ask what things are Right about you. Write them down. Engage in activities that prove you are as good or better at those activities, than other people are.

Look at the qualities of your parents and whomever fed those negative, false beliefs to you, about yourself. What kind of people are they?

Would you consider those people reliable critics? Did tbey have any agenda in which lowering your power would have helped them?

If those people told you something bad about the character of a person you love right now….would you believe their opinion without question? Or is their opinion not reliable?

You can begin to go out and interact with people in small increments. Go over your present state of mind, before you go out…and before you leave your car. You can just sit in your car for a few minutes and listen to music that calms or peps up your nervous system.

How you feel when you interact with others is based on the current state of your nervous system, how much sleep you have had, your mental state, and your blood sugar.

You can think of those categories and assess each of them, before you go into a store or any other place. Then you will feel more in touch with yourself and have some ways to help yourself.

If you are interested in learning. NLP State Management techniques, you can send me a message via my web site

Gentlekindnesscoaching.com

For information about C-PTSD and how emotional abuse causes depression and anxiety disorders, join us at the gentlekindness facebook page.

You are special. Your gifts and personality are an important part of the puzzle of humanity. You are connected with all living things in an important way.

You matter. You have a unique voice that other people need to hear. You have special characteristics that someone really needs right now.

You have innate value.

Namaste,

Annie. Gentlekindnesscoaching.com

Gentlekindness facebook page

Annie Mimi Hall youtube channel

Physical Pain Should be Paid Attention To

Headaches, muscle aches, numbness, chest tightness, fatigue and weakness….

Insomnia, nervousness, trouble focusing your mind, trouble resting and relaxing….

Trouble eating, weight gain, extreme weight loss, chronic bowel problems, chronic pain….

People struggle through each day, dragging themselves out of bed. Dreading waking up in the morning, to endure another day of trying to keep other people from complaining.

Our reptilian brain ( triunal brain theory) is designed to protect us. The main function of this part of your brain is to protect you from danger. It is primal and the over-riding primal drive is for survival.

Anything the reptilian brain sees as a threat gets sent to the “fight or flight” system. This is where the amygdala activates the process of chemicals being sent throughout your body.

These chemicals include adrenaline and cortisol. The fight or flight mode was never designed for constant or continuos activation.

Stress filled lifestyle and anxiety disorders cause too much cortisol to be sent into the body , too often. This has detrimental affects on nearly every system in your body.

As you are reading this, you are thinking of your life and how a typical day goes for you. But that is the problem. ….

Society is so brainwashed that the phrase “how a typical day goes for you” makes sense and seems like a normal thing to say.

We should be able to compose our days, like a musical composer creates a symphony. We should have more freedom and more power to make our days the way we want them to be.

You should be spending your time thinking of new ideas, new concepts, new methods and original techniques to do things.

There is too much emphasis on “the way things have always been done.”

There are too many restrictions on our individuality, and our ability to try new ways to do things.

The “original thinkers”  are considered weird, non-compliant and “difficult,” even when their ideas are ingenious.

We are pressured to follow the ways of those who came before us, and the ways dictated by the  “powers that be.”

All of this ….forcing people into routines… and making us run on automatic pilot, has consequences.

….stress, anxiety disorders, depression, pain in both the body and the mind.

The body is what your spirit inhabits. Your soul has been assigned to live within this body .  But your body is not all of who you are, nor is it detached  from who you are.

Have you ever driven someplace, only to come to consciousness while you are driving, and not know where you are for a few seconds? Have you ever passed the turn to your destination because you had gone into a trance-like state while you were driving?

We were not designed to live in “automatic pilot”  mode …existing merely to repeat the same dull, or painful routines every day.

Even animals vary their routines. They adapt with their environment and respond to the needs of their bodies.

Your aches, pains and chronic fatigue are telling you that something is wrong. These are like emotions of the body.

Our emotions and our pains are speaking to us. If we cannot listen, and make changes….alter our patterns of living, then we will eventually develop illness and didease.

Listen to your pain and to your physical discomfort. Your body is trying to integrate with your mind, emotions and your soul. It is letting you know that the parts of your being are fractured.

Psychological problems manifest in the body. Physical illness and disease will cause psychological and mental pain. Our emotions tie everything together.

Be kind and compassionate with yourselves, and to others. There is no meaningless pain. It is all significant.

 

Blessings,

Annie

gentlekindnesscoachimg.com

 

Ulcerative Colitis, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, Juicing / PTSD and Bowel Disorders

For ulcerative colitis or irritable bowel syndrome, juicing with a juicer is a good method for getting nutrition without irritating any flare ups. If you are in the middle of a flare up it is recommended to go down to liquids for a few days and then soft foods, until the flare up is able to heal.

The body wants to heal itself and it can do this better when the problem is not being irritated by wrong foods.

Here are some recipes for the juicer that contain green veggies. This is a great way to get your vitamins without eating solid foods.

30 Green Juice Recipes

This is great video that talks about diet and home treatment for flare ups of ulcerative colitis. I liked this guy. He was very down to earth and knowledgeable. 

You can use apples to sweeten your juice because green juice does not always taste the way you might like. You can use any color of apples. The following recipe is from All Recipes.com and it calls for green apples.

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/230642/healthy-green-juice/

Basically this recipe calls for green apples cut in halves, 4 celery stalks , 6 leaves of kale, half a pealed lemon, 1 inch of fresh ginger and a cucumber. Put them through your juicer and then add extra apple if you need more sweetness.

I have been struggling with colitis for several months now. I was hospitalized once and I have taken antibiotics for infections a few times. It is a very frustrating disease that can cause fatigue and weakness in the body and even joint pain. 

If you are having unexplained abdominal pain, changes in bowel habits, and pain in your joints resembling arthritis pain, you might have colitis. Arthritis and colitis often go hand in hand. This is the case with me. I also have moderate to severe arthritis, depending on which joint we are talking about. Some places it is more severe to the point of extreme pain.

Your general health is important and it affects your mental health. There is no way to separate the body and the mind. Any sickness in the mind will cause physical symptoms. Any sickness in the body will cause mental / emotional symptoms. 

If you have PTSD or C-PTSD then you are prone to develop problems with the bowels. Anxiety disorders if any kind also can cause bowel disease and other problems. If you are recovering from narcissistic abuse or domestic abuse you are prone to develop problems with your bowels. 

PTSD can crash your immune system. There are many physical problems, diseases and infections which can occur when your immune system is compromised by PTSD and trauma.

Depression and anxiety also lower your immune system and make you susceptible to disease and illnesses including ulcerative colitis.

Financial problems cause anxiety and depression, so you could say that financial stress can also cause infection and disease. Financial problems often follow someone after they get out of an abusive relationship. So then you are particularly prone to a crash of your immune system because you have the financial stress along with PTSD from the trauma.

I wish you all good health and peace of mind,

Annie

Starting to Feel Better Now

Thank you for your care and support. I am feeling better tonight. As many of you know, I was in the ER the night before last. I was having pain that I thought was a urinary tract infection. The doctor ran cultures and blood work. He said that it was the beginning of a relapse of the intestinal infection that I had been hospitalized for a couple of weeks ago.

I have been taking the antibiotics as instructed and hopefully this will work. The hospital probably released me too soon. They want the bed for the next person and the ones with no health insurance get sent out as soon as possible. It is all about the money, as you know.

The day before I was released, there were still quite a bit of white blood cells, when they did the blood work. The next morning the white blood cells had gone down and they released me. It had not been enough time to make a good assessment as to whether the infection had really cleared up.

Also, they had been running 2 kinds of antibiotics through the IV lines for the 3 days I was in the hospital. It was this combination of antibiotics that was working to clear the infection.

When they sent me home, they only gave me a prescription for one of the two antibiotics. I do not know why. I was wondering at the time, but that is what the dr gave me.

The doctor in the ER the other night said that I needed both of the antibiotics to clear this. he did not come right out and say they the hospital doctor made a mistake in sending me home with only one antibiotic. He did not come out and say that they sent me home too soon, upon the white blood cells going down. But I think it was apparent that he disagreed with the decisions that the hospital doctor made.

The ER doctor was very nice. He was much nicer and more communicative than the hospital doctor. He answered all of my questions fully and even let me see on his computer screen the results of all tests. he explained everything to me in a way I could understand it. This is something the hospital doctor was far from doing.

So, he sent me with Levoflaxin. He made the dosage twice the mg that the other doctor had given me. I was sent home from the hospital with 250 mg but this new doctor gave me 500 mg. Could this have been another mistake by the hospital dr? I think that he probably gave me too low of a dosage when I left the hospital.

So, I have the 500 mg of the levoflaxin and he also gave me flagil which is 3 times a day. He said he thought this cocktail should work. He also gave me anti nausea meds because of all the antibiotics, so that I would not feel to sick and stop eating.

Thank you for all of your kind words and thoughts. I cannot afford to go into the hospital again. I already missed a few days. The next paycheck is going to be low. I do not even know how I will make it through the next few weeks.

I appreciate all of your prayers and thoughts,

Annie

Showing Kindness to Yourself About Your Mental Illness

Your mental illness has caused some level of disorganization in your brain. What the cause of your mental illness is, could be a variety of possibilities, but the feeling of disconnection is there.

Disconnection exists at various levels within our brains and in our lives. It feels like having broken pieces, jagged edged that no longer seem to fit together the way they used to. Bits of pieces are over there…and bits of pieces are over there…

We are not entirely sure if all of the original pieces actually still exist, because we cannot fit enough of them together to check for missing puzzle pieces. Sometimes ot seems like we are being forced by therapists to shove all of the pieces back together again.

The problem is…these are not the original pieces of your brain, in the original form. You cannot just put things back together and miraculously be the same as you were once before.

The mind is like a stream. It is constantly in movement. You cannot step into the same exact  stream twice, because as soon as you life out your foot the water has changed again, before you place your into the water again.

The neurons in our brains are constantly adapting to our behaviors, including our emotional behaviors.  Every new experience creates new neuronal connections. The more times you repeat a behavior, the more solid the connections relating to that behavior become. But they can always be changed.

The original combination of connections from any given point in our past, cannot be recreated by therapy or anything else. The reason for this is that we have had new experiences since then.

We are at the place where we are. The connections that exist right now, in your brain are what you have at this moment. The reasons for the exact combination of connections are many.

The experiences that we have had, up until this very moment are part of our organic brains. They cannot be removed. You cannot suddenly become a person that was never abused, never hospitalized or never had a mental breakdown.

The things that happened are part of your past, and we have to somehow find  way to survive and thrive, in spite of the trauma we have experiences in our lives.

The feeling that things are disorganized and broken into pieces, is a very real feeling. If you have mental illness, or are recovering from mental trauma, you may have trouble connecting the parts of your brain together, needed to function.

The brain is made up of different parts that have different functions. There can be a failure of the parts to work together properly.

The mentally ill brain does not connect the halves of the brain, the frontal cortex , the nervous system and the other functions, in the way that they connect with other people. This is a reason for memory problems, feelings of severe depression when nothing is seemingly wrong, and feelings of a severe threat when no threat is imminent.

In a well oiled machine, the parts all move together as a unit and help each other. They each do their job to the highest level of function and each part is functioning properly.

Trauma can cause damage to certain parts of the brain, They become overloaded and do not know how to protect us from further trauma. In any mental illness, your brain will try to protect you from further mental trauma, in a ditch effort to survive.

When you are in danger of retraumatization, your brain will change the way it connects the parts together and the way the parts function. It is no longer working the way a “normal” brain works, during safe circumstances.

So, your brain is disorganized, and your perceptions can be altered. It is really that you just cannot tolerate any more pain and trauma to your mind. Stigma about mental illness is one of the things that can cause retraumatization. The need to hide the mental suffering from others, is very traumatizing.

We can rewire our brains to become healthier and more functional, over time, with kindness to ourselves. We have to be mindful about our limitations and not judgemental of ourselves.

Understanding that our brains are  really are not currently wired the same way as other people, will take a great amount of guilt, shame and anxiety off of us.

People with mental illness deal with stigma and judgement from others, but we tend to be hardest on ourselves.

 Feelings of shame, inadequacy and guilt actually serve to retraumatize the brain. Having the emotional behavior of self judgement, is something that will prevent healing. There is no positive result from shaming ourselves.

You are who you are today. You are functioning at the level of function that you are able to. You cannot do anything to change the moments that have lead up to this present time.

Forgiveness is something you offer to others. Why not offer forgiveness and tolerance to yourself?

You are no less worthy of patience, kindness and love from yourself, than anyone else. You matter. It is not your fault. Your brain is a little crazy but…..so what.

Often times what makes us crazier than most, also gives us gifts of understanding and empathy, that others do not have. We can keep these gifts and see the value in ourselves for having them.

You can be kind and patient with yourself today, just the same as you would be if you were interacting with a person outside of yourself, that was suffering.

New Blog – Guitar With Annie

Guitar with Annie Blog

https://guitarwithannie.wordpress.com/

I have started a new blog. It is Guitar with Annie Blog. This is a blog for people who play guitar or want to learn to play guitar. I will write about topics related to the guitar, learning guitar and guitar styles and music.

The blog is to promote self esteem and confidence in guitar students. I have many years of experience teaching guitar lessons. I have seen the benefits of learning guitar in many of my students.

I have seen teenagers get better self esteem, which carried over into their school work and social interactions.I have worked with adult students who learned guitar because they always wanted to, but never had the chance. The enjoyed being able to play the songs they love and found practicing and learning to be mentally beneficial and an emotional outlet.

Learning guitar can be beneficial for people suffering from mental illness. I always individualize my teaching style, to the individual student

. I go at the pace that is comfortable for the student. How the person feels about what they are doing, is the most important thing. Everyone has their own pace and their own reasons for learning guitar.

I have taught children and adults with special needs. I even one student with Alzhiemer’s disease.

I have taught very gifted musical teenagers that went on to be music major’s in college. I have taught people that were very serious about their music careers and also people that were just learning for enjoyment.

Guitar can be healing for people with mental illness. There are ways to use guitar as a meditative tool, in order to reduce anxiety and help with depression. This is a specialty and most guitar teachers do not know about this aspect of teaching the guitar.

Teaching is about a connection with the student and creating a safe space for them to learn in. I enjoy creating just the right learning, encouraging and healing atmosphere for my students.

Here is the link to the blog. It is new, so there are only a few posts so far.

Free Guitar Lesson Offer

I am looking for a few people to give free guitar lessons to on Skype, so that I can practice teaching over the internet. I have taught hundreds of lessons in people’s homes and in a music store, but I have not taught online before.

If anyone is interested in doing a couple of free trials, while I learn the Skype, please leave me a note in the comments below. I need a few people that already have a guitar and also have Skype access.

I can only accept about 3 people, for 1-3 free lessons a piece, so if you are interested please let me know.

Blessings to all,

Annie

https://guitarwithannie.wordpress.com/

Blogging About Mental Illness

Blog About Mental Illness

Blog to learn and inform

Blog to create awareness

Blog to fight stigma

Blog to create connection

Blog to be heard

Blog to listen to others

Blog to grow and heal

Blog to survive and thrive!

Avoidant Personality Disorder and Social Anxiety Disorder Similarities

Avoidant Personality Disorder

 “afflicting persons when they display a pervasive pattern of social inhibition, feelings of inadequacy, extreme sensitivity to negative evaluation”  Wikipedia

This part of avoidant personality is associated with social anxiety disorder. Many people that have APD also have social anxiety disorder. There are feelings of fear of being embarrassed and “not fitting in” due to inability to understand and respond correctly to social cues.

So, some people with APD will avoid social situations in order not to feel the extreme anxiety associated with certain types of social interaction. Different people are different about what kinds of social situations trigger their anxiety. Some people with social anxiety disorder, like myself, are very good at one on one interactions, even if they are with strangers.

Avoidant Personality Disorder causes avoidance of more things than just social interaction. Also some people with APD are not afraid of social situations at all. It is other things that provoke anxiety attacks.

APD will cause people to have anxiety attacks related to things that are threatening to them. Anything that makes them feel powerless, inadequate and unable to handle the task, will be avoided. The problem that occurs is that avoiding things that need to get done will sometimes cause more problems for the APD sufferer.

These are things that end up happening, when someone with APD avoids doing things that are important to get done.

1. Fear of opening envelopes that may contain bills, notifications from insurance, Notifications from authorities, etc.

Bills become delinquent. Fees are added on and make the bills higher. Credit is adversely affected. Accounts are closed. Business relations are injured.

More anxiety is created because these things are the very things that the person was afraid of coming true in the first place. They do not want to see money they owe that they cannot afford to pay. They do not want to feel scolded by whatever it says inside the envelope.

2, Avoiding answering and making phone calls.

There can be an extreme phobic fear of making answering the phone. There is a fear of having a panic attack, if you answer the phone. You miss getting certain information that may be about things you need to take care of’

Making phone calls can be impossible. People with social anxiety disorder do not feel that they know how to handle conversations on the phone. Again, different people are different and will avoid different kinds of calls.

Some people become incapacitated to make any phone calls at all. Email can be a good coping skill for this. I often use email and text to interact with family members and certain other people. I am perfectly comfortable talking to my best friend / boyfriend on the phone. I always answer the phone when I see it is him. So for me, it is not a fear of the phone, but a fear of being dominated by people who are aggressive or more assertive than myself.

I wrote a post about being assertive for the kindness blog. I was researching this topic in order to help myself to become better with this. I am currently working on improving assertiveness skills. I have trouble remembering what I want to say and how to say it, once someone become very dominating in the conversation.

I want to get to the point where I can keep my thoughts together in order to stand up for myself. especially if I am being accused of anything, or if the person is doing something that violates my rights. If you are struggling with the same things then this post may be helpful to you.

3. Avoiding dealing with bills and credit companies. Over time the avoidance makes situations worse and the anxiety continues. The longer things go unattended , the longer the anxiety continues and increases. This makes it harder and harder to take any action.

The first thing that happens is that we are alerted to a problem that requires action on our part. The net thing that happens is that our brains go into a mental anxiety loop. Obsessive running thoughts are so severe when we think about taking action, that we become paralyzed to do anything. We put it off, in order to reduce the feeling id anxiety, self criticism. inadequacy, worthlessness and depression.

Anxiety and depression go hand in hand with both Avoidant Personality Disorder and Social Anxiety disorder. We know that other people can do these things much better and easier than we can. We are aware that something is wrong with us, that we cannot take care of ourselves the way other people can take care of themselves

3. Lack of Self Care.

In the end there is a lack of taking care of yourself, when you have these disorders. Other people take care of things that need to be taken care of  They have learned how to “parent themselves” better than we have.

Mostly these kinds of disorders come out of abuse and trauma in our pasts. Most likely our childhood lacked the proper support and guidance to learn how to “parent ourselves” as adults

Somehow we need to learn how to prioritize ourselves and our needs that have to be taken care of. Survivors of abuse can often fall into prioritizing the needs of others to the point of neglecting our own needs.

One of our needs is to learn how to parent ourselves, stand up for ourselves. We need to learn how to feel deserving of things to go in out favor. Being assertive and taking care of things, that invove dealing with other people is a skill. It is a skill we have trouble with but that needs to be tended to.

These mental disorders are associated with real neurological differences between our brains and the brains of other people. These changes occurred over time, from repetitive behaviors. We may have developed behaviors as a child, that were needed to survive.

Once behaviors are repeated over and over, they become wired into our brains, To override the feeling of anxiety at making a phone call, we have to change our behavior slowly over time. Find ways to be able to make that call, even if it means having a friend hold your hand while you make the call yourself.

We can rewire our brains. I am still learning how but I believe it can be done.

But in the mean time, I am writing this, instead of working on the taxes.

Ok. I am getting back to that now

Annie

and avoidance of social interaction.^[2] Individuals afflicted with the disorder tend to describe themselves as ill at ease, anxious, lonely, and generally feel unwanted and isolated from others.^[3]

People with avoidant personality disorder often consider themselves to be socially inept or personally unappealing and avoid social interaction for fear of being ridiculed, humiliated, rejected, or disliked. Avoidant personality disorder is usually first noticed in early adulthood. Childhood emotional neglect and peer group rejection are both associated with an increased risk for the development of AvPD.^[4]

Autistic Boy Touched my Heart / a guest post I wrote for David Snape’s blog – an Ordinary Guy with Autism

I wrote this guest post for David Snape’s blog. His blog is called David Snape’s Blog – An Ordinary Guy with Autism. I enjoy this blog and I wanted to tell this story because I remember these boys and they have a special place in my heart. I used to be a home health aide for them.
I think you will enjoy the story. It is very sentimental to me.
Annie