RLR...since visiting this site some time ago I have made huge strides in understanding and accepting that my benign PVCs are just that...benign.  In fact since then I have had a dramatic reduction in them and the ones I do have dont frighten me.

With that said I am having trouble overcoming the anxiety that I developed because of my almost 7 year fear of the benign palpitations.  I still find myself struggling on a daily basis with panic, dizziness etc etc but mainly from what I believe to be habit.  I truly do not fear my palpitations but dont understand why my anxiety still persist?  I know it has only been a recent transition from fear to no fear...and I have been struggling for 7 years with palpitations and anxiety!

I guess what I am asking is....will the anxiety and panic always be here or will i be able to rid myself of these habits and thought patterns?  DO you believe anxiety to be incurable?

Thanks for your time

Jamie

It's important for you to reflect upon why this particular type of anxiety persists. While I can make generalizations about the reasons, it is of little insight by comparison for you to engage in introspection about the cause.

Many people experience significant anxiety, with some who know the cause but avoid it and others who simply become guided by its effects and its original cause not salient enough at the time to be recognized. In other words, some individuals know the cause but suppress engaging thoughts about it because of the anxiety it invokes to the extent that they have highly irrational beliefs about the consequences of the outcome. Others experience a singular event which at the time of occurrence was not all that remarkable at all and yet over time, these individuals engaged in a constant series of life changes in order to assimilate and accept the event in some manner. For them, it is a late effect of sorts that causes them to wonder where such anxiety ever manifested and the only rationale they have is that they've always been anxious.

So there are basically two distinct pathways that can arise from anxiety-invoking events, one that is induced by a known cause from which avoidance behaviors arise, and the other which produces pan-anxiety or generalized anxiety because the contemporary patterns are extremely complex, no longer a representation of the original onset.

There is not enough room here for me to explain this in its full context, but it is very critical for persons with the type of anxiety you are experiencing to either define and confront the elements which invoke the anxiety, or work to discover the changes to your life that have compounded over time and seek to discover the original onset.

Anxiety is more of a state of mind than a disorder or disease and highly influenced by perception. It is therefore important to determine the nature of your perceptions about the origin of your anxiety and whether they are based in subjective interpretations and cause-and-effect thinking strategies, or alternatively based upon logic and facts as the basis for forming daily life strategy.

Many people fail to realize that their life is split between a rational portion of their life which is drawn from logic and known fact and does not produce anxiety and apprehension, and another part of their life which is based upon subjective interpretation, instinct and intuition and mere causal assumption that is absent the normal barriers or parameters of logic and fact. This alternative method induces the belief that anything is possible and that regardless of any facts or information to the contrary, there is an imminent fear due to the lack of control over such circumstances and an unpredictability which incites apprehension and fear of being at risk of some type.

In other words, it is sort of a dual role in life where one lives in the world of both fact and fiction, each with a very plausible outcome in their estimation, one rational and the other highly irrational.

It is the measure of characteristics such as these which you must analyze in a very open and honest context in order to better understand the question for which you seek an answer, for it lies not external at all but rather within you. It's either avoidance in a known context, or failure to recognize the contemporary form's complexity as a measure of time from the original onset.

Best regards,

Rutheford Rane, MD (ret.)

RLR I am working on getting rid of my anxiety almost the same way as I did to use the knowledge you provided me to convince myself there was nothing wrong with my heart and that is to face the symptoms...dizziness is the worst one...and understand that they are just a symptom and nothing is wrong with me.

By doing this I am hoping to lose my fear of all of my anxiety symptoms and bring my nervous system, thats been out of whack for sever years, back down to a homeostasis if you will.

Is this the right direction to tackle such long term anxiety?

Jamie