Back in March and April of this year, I attended 6 of 7 weeks of a group counselling workshop related to Generalized Anxiety Disorder (one week I missed owing to a trip out of town). During the past months, I've been slowly processing what I learned at the group, and what I learned about myself while attending a group. I'm ready to write about this experience now. I plan to blog about the substance of each session and then write a follow-up post to cover what I got out of that session and how I've applied what I learned to my life.
Session 1
GAD and CBT stand for Generalized Anxiety Disorder and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. The two workshop facilitators/counselors mentioned several times that the CBT program we would be going through in this 7-week session would then be changed in subsequent workshops. Improved? I inferred. This assertion that the program needed changing didn't boost my confidence in the whole process.
The facilitators introduced themselves and gave us a workbook to use. The group was large: 12 people. I felt shy in such a large group, but also pleased as I imagined that there wouldn't be much time for me to talk, which I was reluctant to do in this, my first group therapy experience.
Rules for the group: primarily, confidentiality. What happens in group, stays in group. Participants agreed to adhere to the values of the group. No interrupting was another important rule, and no advice-giving. The first of that pair was sometimes difficult for people to follow (including me once or twice), and the second was sometimes broken in later weeks as we became more comfortable with each other.
Hard work to build skills for coping with anxiety would be required. We would all strive to provide a safe and supportive space. It was a great relief to realize that many other people suffer from anxiety issues too.
Why did I feel like I needed to attend a group about GAD? When you're a woman who hits 50 and discovers that increased anxiety is a symptom of menopause, you take steps to try to decrease the overall anxiety that has been your companion for your entire life.
In the first session, we learned about the differences between typical human worries and GAD. Worry itself is not a bad thing: all humans worry. Excessive and uncontrollable worry that causes distress and interferes with daily life can be debilitating and can prevent you from experiencing the life you really want.
As one counselor stated, "Don't give power to your thoughts. Your thoughts are not what is real in your life. They are not reality in themselves." When I worry about what might happen and allow those thoughts to make me irritable and thereby take away my ability to enjoy life, I am giving much power to a nothing. This counselor's statement was a revelation to me, and I found a new way to consider what I was imagining and thinking about.
Many people benefit from Cognitive Behavioral Therapy in dealing with GAD. CBT involves learning to examine and challenge your thinking. Thoughts are not always true nor accurate. Instead of immediately worrying when a stressful situation occurs or is about to occur, try to make a realistic assessment of the risk. Don't judge yourself if you do start to worry, but try to take a breath and step back and stop for a minute to look at your thoughts and what you are doing to yourself in the moment with that worry. I began to think that the workshop would mainly concentrate on "How not to worry," which I was unsure would be that helpful to me overall, since, beyond the worrying about specific events, I carried anxiety with me on a daily basis for many years.
Worry and catastrophic thinking are symptoms of an allergy to uncertainty. More about uncertainty and mindfulness in Session 2. We received two handouts about the nature of thoughts.
After session #1, I felt like I could get something out of the experience, and I committed to going every week to the 2-hour sessions with my group.
