Procrastinators Anonymous is a fellowship of men and women who share their experience, strength and hope with each other that they may solve their common problem and help others to recover from chronic procrastination.

Anxiey and procrastination

Does anyone have major anxiety issues creating procrastination problems rather than the other way around?

Over the last decade I experienced multiple losses and felt inundated with all there was to do. I was working 24/7 and always doing something in one area at the expense of something else in another one. I was anxious most of the time and I started avoiding things to deal with feeling so overwhelmed. Of course, that only made matters worse and the anxiety/procrastination cycle started.

I’m continually attempting to combat the problem by doing things like setting aside days/hours/mins (!) for certain tasks or giving myself rewards for getting things done. I’ve tried a hundred organizational strategies but each idea only works once or twice before anxiety kicks in! I start to feel short of breath, hot and sweaty, and panicky. I often end up doing some calming activity like watching TV.

I KNOW that the keys to (my) success are exercise, good diet, proper rest, socializing with friends, getting support, laughing, helping others, chunking work, and just jumping in and getting started. I can picture these things working for me but I can only manage to focus on a few before I feel paralyzed and weighed down.

I’m so frustrated with myself. I feel considerably better when I finally get something done or when I go out and interact with others but it’s like trying to walk out of quicksand to get myself started!!! Then, once I do get started and have a few good days, I can’t seem to keep up the momentum.

If I did, things would be so much better! It’s crazy-making! In some areas, things have actually eased up the past couple of years. I still feel sad, but I also laugh with my sons & dad a lot, enjoy good movies and so forth. If anything, though, the anxiety has gotten worse! Lately, it even feels like an ordeal just to go out to the store or make a phone call. This makes no sense to me!

Anxiety/depression --> Procrastination --> Try new strategy --> Only temporary fix --> Anxiety/depression --> Procrastination --> Work pile-up --> Ignore overall health to catch up --> Anxiety/depression

Repeat

It’s a vicious cycle and I’m afraid I’ll never break it. Any thoughts?

I feel ya. I have that

I feel ya.

I have that anxiety/avoidance problem too.  I find myself sleeping all day to avoid feeling stressed out, yet feeling worse knowing I wasted yet another day.  When I think of the things I have to do, I feel worried, not so much about the difficulty of the tasks, but about whether I'll be able to count on myself to do them.  I think worrying about procrastinating creates the anxiety that leads to actually procrastinating (a self-fulfilling problem).

Rev

Painful feelings anxiety, and paralysis

 

I get anxiious and panicked feelings.. So I get paralyzed.

I think that I have to use Microbursts. Then once I do something I feel better about myself. The pain and sadness go away and I become positive

But often when I finish a task, I get the panic back.

 

 

 

get ya, Gmarie

What you describe reminds me of Step 1: "Admitted we were powerless over procrastination and that our lives have become unmanageable."  Being otherwise intelligent, creative people, the fact that we cannot "figure out" this problem and cannot stop suffering from it, renders it equivalent to alcoholism for the alcoholic.  Thus the usefulness of the 12 Step approach.

If I have a mind that cannot stop trying to procrastinate as a coping mechanism, and a body that cannot handle the adrenal consequences of procrastination (anxiety cycle you describe), then I am truly powerless over procrastination.

But, powerless does not equal hopeless.  We get our hope in Step 2: "Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity."  For many of us, this power is revealed through the fellowship we find here on PA. As we participate with daily check-ins and chats, read each other's shares and relate, we come to believe that what has happened for others, can happen for us too.

Then we grow in courage and move through the other Steps, try the tools, and develop our own rhythms of recovery.  We strive for progress, not perfection.  Personally, I know that anything is better than the rhythms I came here with! Hope to see you around the "rooms," Gmarie. Thanks for sharing.

gmarie ur like me

what you describe is totally me. i get overwhelmed and anxious and then i find a way to escape the feeling doing something not on my to-do list. and that makes it worse.

one thing that has helped me is hearing that there are other people (here) that feel the same way. That's amazing, because i feel like nobody would be this way, and yet, here y'all are!

i believe i have come to accept that i get anxious. I start to do a task, and the anxiety comes, and i just try to ride that wave. It's not comfortable, but i know, in my mind, that it's better to let that anxiety be rather than seek some way to get rid of it.

there may be people who have been able to calm their anxiety. I can do that indirectly, thru my quiet time & bible reading & prayer. When that's all going well, i feel centered and within god's will and loved and it's easier to do things. But sometimes all that's not going well and i feel the anxiety.

the other thing i feel has helped me is to keep trying. It wasnt for me an issue with finding the right organizational strategy or spiritual outlook, it was rather picking those and sticking with it--or better said, coming back again and again after failure. that's been huge for me.

good luck with your journey!

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the touch of the master's hand: http://procrastinators-anonymous.org/node/1898#comment-27748

"fall down seven times, get up eight" - japanese proverb

(Gmarie)

 Welcome Gmarie, I relate 100%

My thoughts, for what they are worth:

1. I tried for years to make sense of something and someone (me) that I could not reason with. This thing defied all laws of nature nature as we know them.                        2. Good slogans that "did" make sense: A sick mind cannot heal a sick mind. 3. When I am in my own head, I am in enemy territory. 3. We can do together what we cannot do alone. 4. many more, Keep coming back, bring the body and the mind will follow. 

Never give up- there is hope here, I am proof. Vic 

 

Anxiety

GMarie

I would say I have just some (not much) of what you said...only 99.9999% :-)

I have recently found anxiety and procrastination so intertwined (and another ailment/tendency of mine, not relevant for this chat) that I almost have to stop analyzing even the intertwined nature except to just say, "I am procras because I am anxious, and then I am anxious because I am procra," and I give myself a headache.

Just accepting the existence of both -- whatever be the formula at that time -- and then moving on with "both in me" -- is as best as I can manage....AM I EVEN making any sense here --not sure I am ?? ;-)

Thanks

for your thoughts. Yes, you're making sense. I guess I was just thinking that in the Associative Property of my personal issues, A --> P may not equal P --> A. ;) Maybe I'm just grasping at straws.

((GMarie))

well, here's to grasping at straws in the deep end of the pool...hope straws float!