wpainterw

Next Monday I am scheduled for a so called "procedure" in a hospital, not serious, more or less routine, but I shall still have to receive an anesthetic. I had a similar procedure four years ago without the anesthetic and had a bad experience which, I thought, ran the risk of a heart event or stroke, a source of worry since I had a heart by pass operation years ago and am still being treated for high blood pressure.
So for the past few days I have been obsessing, thinking about all the terrible things which might happen, what someone once called "the parade of the horribles". Although my doctor has advised me that the risk is very small, much less than driving on a superhighway, nonetheless I envisage that I might somehow die or be incapacitated for life. What would happen to my wife? Indeed, what would happen to the dog?
I think that somewhere inside of us is a dark presence, a fearful child like component of the mind. The child is frightened. It wants to have its way. I think that this dark part of my mind had much to do with my drinking. Indeed, at times it may have been trying to "set me up" so that I might take a drink. "Isn't it terrible, what's happening?" it might say. "How about a drink?" Or "You deserve a lot of praise for what you've done today! You deserve a reward. How about a drink!"
My recovery somehow depended on being able, in my mind, to find a way to get a handle on this dark thing which, left alone, would very likely do me in. And I found that the only way I could get this done was to get help, not only from professionals but also from fellow sufferers. For isn't it true that alcoholics are the real experts when it comes to drinking!

W.

Dee74

I too am fearful of such things but I know these kind of procedures are for the best
Best of luck for a speedy recovery W

D

recoverywfaith

W.,

Maybe your fears have lessened since typing that out...discussing it? Everything you wrote is true for an alkie mind and I so understand where you are coming from...the what ifs can be horrible. Maybe support from your family the morning of the procedure can help? Please know you will be in my prayers on Monday.

CarolD

How about giving yourself permission to worry for 15
minutes....write down all the frightening things...then ...

!. I use a God Can...meaning I tuck it away in a can
and pray about it.

or 2. once it's written ..rip it up or burn it.....you did all
you can do.

Prayers coming your way for healing and peace..

Anna

I've tried Carol's method of allowing a specific time for worrying and just focusing on it. Then move on. It helps.

Good luck with your procedure.

Maryjan

Sometimes, I imagine my higher power just telling me it was all going to be okay, and I was loved. You are loved...hang in there.

Sally

When I was a kid, I used to worry myself sick, I'd have severe Migrain headaches.....I obbsessed over anything and everything.
And then one day it occured to me....whether I worry all night or all day or for weeks, It didn't matter how much time I spent worrying, It was not going to change the out-come. Therefore, worrying was really useless and pointless........so I stopped worrying.
My mother used to worry, she'd spend day''s dedicated to worrying, stare out the window for days, spend sleepless nights.
I swore I didn't want that for me......so I followed my above method and thus fare it has worked for me......
crazy, but it worked for me, lol

wpainterw

Thanks everyone. And Carol ID and RecoveryWFaith, I admire anyone who has the strength of character to sit down and resolve to worry for only fifteen minutes as well as anyone who can write down all the worries on a piece of paper and then burn the paper and the worries are no longer troublesome. Indeed, when I was in a rehab back in 1988 they got me to write a whole bunch of letters to my dead sister, so as to put to rest the irrational guilt I felt over her suicide. I did that and it didn't work. I think about her every day, sometimes every hour. And dreams! How do you control your dreams? How can we escape the ghosts of the past, the parent with whom we had a broken relationship in her last years and who died without any reconciliation, died alone with her nurse because all the notification I received was on a message machine. They are all all there, the ghosts. And I worry that my sister is in hell because of what conventional Christians teach about the fate of suicides. Hell for eternity? Is that just? Is that the love of God?
So where does that leave me in my thoughts tonight. Perhaps a final quote. What more can one say?:

The Gate of the Year

“And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year: ‘Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.’

And he replied:‘Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the Hand of God. That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.’

So I went forth, and finding the Hand of God, trod gladly into the night. And He led me towards the hills and the breaking of day in the lone East.”

From a poem, popularly known as "The Gate of the Year" by Minnie Louise Haskins, published in 1908, the original title having been "God Knows", part of a collection titled “The Desert”. The poem was quoted by England’s King George VI in his 1939 Christmas broadcast to the British Empire. Hitler had invaded Poland and England had entered the war with Germany These words. engraved on brass plaques, remain fixed to the gates of the King George VI Memorial Chapel at Windsor Castle, where the King was interred. When Queen Elizabeth (the Queen Mother) was also buried here in 2002, the poem was read at her state funeral.