I’m talking to Mike who has a very compelling story to share. Mike, when you first came in to see me, would you describe for the listeners what you were experiencing? Well, basically I was experiencing in my daily life just a… I actually was kind of hard for me to explain when I was experiencing, because honestly I didn’t really understand quite what was going on. I was in my daily routines, and in certain areas of life I would get very anxious and very upset. I really didn’t quite understand what was causing me to feel that way. I started listening to some self-help programs and stuff like that and see if I could rid the problem myself, but I learned that it went much deeper than I initially intended to the point that one day I was actually…
I was in Starbucks and I was talking to the person that was helping me behind the counter, and she was just asking me basic questions, and I was just getting very nervous to the point that I was having trouble answering her. And three weeks later I actually gave you a call. Okay, so just to frame for the audience, you’re how old? I’m 25. And currently what are you doing in your career? I work at Federal Express. And you used to be in aeronautics school, is that correct? Yes. And you have some other things going on, you’re a little bit of an entrepreneur? Yeah, I’m working with a solar company, I’m working with their sales guys during the week, and I’m trying to switch my jobs in the morning, so I can work with them at night as well. Okay, so if we go back in time, you had the situation at Starbucks, which facilitated you making the phone call, but generally speaking, describe how now you know the word was anxiety, how this was impacting your life in general.
Well, there were a lot of things in my life that I wanted to do, and I felt I couldn’t do, because I felt this particular… this anxiety was holding me back, and my general mindset was that I was like that. I just assumed that I was like that, that I was born like that, that I would be like that for the rest of my life, and that I’d have to work really hard to compensate for that. That’s very important. You assumed that you were born like what? Born anxious, born in certain situations that like authority figures was a big thing for me, so when I would be in front of an authority figure, I’d choke off and get clammy, and I’d have trouble talking to them, and I assumed that that was just the way that I was. What would happen to you in a little more detail with authority figures or threatening situations?
I would get into the situation, I would be pumped, and I would be okay, and then they would come at me and start questioning. Like I say, it was a situation where I got in trouble that it would question certain things within that situation, and I would know the answers, and I would be able, and I knew that I could keep up if I thought I was able to, but whatever anxiety, whatever feelings I was feeling, basically stopped me from, or I thought was stopping me from actually defending myself or objectively saying what actually happened versus their spin on what they thought might have happened. What situations were you avoiding because of the anxiety? I was avoiding actually, well I was with a girl, actually I was in a pretty solid relationship for four years when I really kind of didn’t want to be in a relationship, because I was kind of afraid of dating and just putting myself out there as far as, I was more comfortable being with somebody, because I was just afraid that I wouldn’t be able to actually meet somebody that I actually wanted, and I felt I kind of had to settle for whatever kind of came my way.
Were you avoiding any scenarios related to career development? Yes, I was avoiding basically, when I got my job, I mean I was very forthcoming, I’ll take on extra initiative and stuff like that, but as far as actually going for the job that I actually wanted or something that would be extremely competitive, I was avoiding even attempting to even apply for something like that, because I didn’t think I was worthy of it. Now, when you started working with me and for a substantial course of treatment, you were on medicine, why was that? I was on medicine because actually after about three years before I started seeing you, I was experiencing the anxiety on a regular basis, and I thought I was like that, and I had known other people who had gone on medication and seemed to feel somewhat better, so I thought that it would work for me, and it did, it took away a portion of the feelings that I was feeling, not completely, but to a certain extent it did work, but it wasn’t solid, and some weeks I felt like I felt good, and other weeks I felt not so good, and I just thought there would be a better way to solve the problem.
I mean to lead you too much, but with your anxiety problem, would you say that you were depressed or no? No, I was definitely depressed, there’s no question about that, there were certain days where I would wake up and I would not want to pretty much do anything. Alright, now for the sake of relativity, when you came into the program, if we’re saying, again, baseline relativity, your problem on a scale of one to ten was a one at that point, where would you, and ten is perfect, you know, my one to ten scale here, where would you say you’re at right now? I would say I’m between that, probably seven and an eight. What’s your reasoning? My reasoning, basically there’s still a few little things, like I feel like I have a good grasp on it most days, every once in a while I feel like I either am not focused as much, or I have a lot going on at the same time, so I revert back and I kind of have to catch myself and kind of just change the way that I kind of like think slightly differently, and I kind of stop myself and I kind of change myself back to the way that I’ve conditioned myself and work through things.
And like on a regular basis, I feel like I think the best way to put it is six out of seven days a week, I feel like I’m basically on it and every once in a while, there’s little things that are not nearly as bad as they were at one time, but they still show up here and there and I feel that if I continue to work and I continue the direction that I’m going in that they’ll just be completely resolved. Okay, where are you at currently with the medicine? I am completely off the medicine. That’s terrific, okay, now I have two more important questions for you. I would like you to explain the role that special education played for you and the fact that you had a learning disability, do you know what kind of learning disability you have experienced? Well, I was always told that I was dyslexic and there was a lot of things, because I had trouble in school, and I always felt that I was different than everybody and some of it I feel now was anxiety-related just way back then when I was that young.
But it was always kind of like I told to me that I had dyslexia and all these other problems, all the testing, I tested positive for dyslexia. I just accepted it as that’s what I had and when I was actually in second grade, when I was put into the special classes, and it was not in, I guess at that time I really didn’t grasp what an effect it actually had on me or maybe I was in denial about it. But it basically changed my mindset to basically, which was actually a key problem with me, is I actually thought that I was inferior to having anybody who was in the mainstream, because I basically felt that I, since I was put below everybody else, I kind of developed this kind of almost inferiority, like complex, that I felt that everybody in the mainstream was kind of above me to some extent.
And I feel that that kind of manifested itself later in life, which kind of perpetuated everything and actually ultimately led to your office. So just a few more moments, because this is so important, the relationship that the special education experience and the learning disability had on your self-esteem was worth. It was pretty terrible, my self-esteem was pretty much down to the minimal, I mean, just not, like there’s a lot of things that I avoided, like sports was another thing, was another example. Because I felt like everybody in the mainstream was somewhat superior to me, I avoided sports, and that had a terrible effect on my self-esteem, because there was a lot of sports I wanted to play, like hockey and other things like that. And I just always felt that I would never, I would just kind of screw up in front of everybody and just kind of, I would just avoid playing, because I was constantly obsessed with the fact that if I screwed up in front of everybody, then nobody would want to be my friend.
I think you’re also saying indirectly that you’ve had to do some work on your anger, what was it? Well, I had to, first I had to realize how angry I actually was, that was quite a process, just because I had been when I was young, there was a lot of times where there was a very angry, angry, angry person. And then one day, I don’t want to be angry anymore, and one day I just kind of shut off to it, which I guess would be suppressing it even more than I actually was. And I kind of had to go back to the anger and kind of realize what the anger was. And I felt something within me that kind of perpetuated the anxiety was I felt a lot of times I was always constantly blaming my anger on current situations, and not really understanding how in depth or how deep my anger actually went. And I realized there was a lot of issues within me that I had to resolve in order for me to kind of get over the anxiety and feel better, better in the now. And as soon as I went to work on the anger, as soon as I started to feel better.
