Extract from "Hope and Help for Your Nerves" by Claire Weeks, MD
Do not run away from fear. Analyze it and see it as no more than a physical feeling. Do not be bluffed by a physical feeling.
Accept all the strange sensations connected with your anxiety. Do not fight them. Float past them. Recognize that they are temporary.
Let there be no self-pity.
Settle your problem as quickly as you can, if not with action, then by glimpsing and accepting a new point of view.
Waste no time on “What might have been” and “If only…”
Face sorrow and know that time will bring relief.
Be occupied. Do not lie in bed brooding. Be occupied calmly, not feverishly trying to forget yourself.
Remember that the strength in a muscle may depend on the confidence with which it is used.
Accept your obsessions and be prepared to live with them temporarily. Do not fight them by trying to push them away. Let time do that.
Remember, your recovery does not necessarily depend “entirely on you,” as so many people are so ready to tell you. You may need help. Accept it willingly, without shame.
Do not measure your progress day by day. Don’t count the months, years you have been ill and despair at the thought of them. Once you are on the right road to recovery, recovery is inevitable, however protracted your illness may have been.
Remember, withdrawal is your jailer. Recovery lies on the other side of panic. Recovery lies in the places you fear.
Do not be discouraged if you cannot make decisions while you are ill. When you are well, decisions will be more easily made.
Never accept total defeat. It is never too late to give yourself another chance.
Practice, don’t test.
Face. Accept. Float. Let time pass.