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.
Is it common to experince intense anxiety & fear when trying to quit Procras?
Hey
Everytime i try to quit Procras i go through intense fear and anxiety (which triggers an almost OCD type response eg 'if i start tomorrow then it might not be the best day etc') . This seems to get worse the more i repeat the cycle(been doing it for nearly 20 years) i'e i'll start on X day, my thought 'oh that's not a good day because i'm feeling intense anxiety'( which i do when i try breaking the habit, to the point that it paralyzes me!), so then i'll go take 'a break for a few days and beat myself up..then try and start again..anxiety starts again and so the cycle repeats. I'll do ANYTHING to escape facing what i have to do, usually very unhealthy pleasure based things eg junk food, doing nothing, staying in bed, phoning mates,sex(just being honest), watching films, internet etc..
Any Illuminations or similar kind off feelings etc?
cheers and merry xmas to you all:)
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for me, yes
I can only speak about my own experience. The miracle of AA is that each person speaks about their own experience and everyone takes what they like, and leave the rest, and somehow, we all recover.
There's no one person in the world that has gone thru the 12 steps for PA (procrastination), so there is no one who can speak to this authoritatively. But i have concluded that my procrastination is an addiction. When i abstain from procrastination i experience what you describe, stress, sweats, anxiety, pit in my stomach, depression. I consider these withdrawal symptoms, which fits with procrastination being a drug. So far, this fits, but again i have not finished the 12 steps, so it's tentative.
Happy recovery!
fall down seven times, get up eight - japanese proverb
Procrastination fears
Your post is so interesting... I wonder what the anxiety is about. It seems like you might be rewarding the anxiety. I mean, if the anxiety is intense, and you allow yourself not to do the dreaded task, you could be encouraging the anxious part of yourself to dominate the situation (and this could be completely wrong for you, so ignore this if it is unhelpful). I wonder if it would help to ignore what the anxiety is telling you and do a very small amount anyway, like, 2 minutes. Perhaps acknowledge the anxiety--OK, that's there, I feel anxious, etc.--and then go ahead and do a small task. At least you won't be rewarding the anxious part of yourself by avoid ing the task... FWIW--And good luck!
thanks
I've tried the 2 minute rule etc..but the anxiety has now become so intense when i think of doing ANY task , that isn't escapist, is that i'll avoid it. I've developed a black and white thinking pattern (perfectionist?) that if i don't do all of these tasks i've written down then there's no point, so i'll leave everything and indulge in pleasure for another few days and then try again when the 'perfect' day and time presents itself, of course the anxiety then comes back again! I feel that there's an underlying fear of success, because i can actually do amazing things when i do manage to shift into gear, albeit temporarily. I also fear procrastinating again, when i start becoming action orientated and fear that i'll go back to square one and be useless! Thanks for teh advice , i'll keep trying to improve. It's very complex and hard though.