Ask them to limit the number of times they give reassurance to you.

Relax. Once you have a record of your sleep over a period of time you can examine it to see if there is a pattern. Symptoms include: severe debilitating fatigue painful muscles and joints problems sleeping digestive problems poor memory poor concentration. Emotional: fear, and ashamed of need to keep cleaning toilet. Self-fulfilling prophesies will lead you to give up trying to recover, because you think the world doesnt hold anything worthwhile for you. Whatever your particular experience, you can be as sure as eggs are eggs, there will be difficulties at some point, so you might as well have an understanding of how to deal with them. Over-generalising usually includes words like never, always and every, so typical examples are: Ill never manage this goal. Im always the one who struggles. Filtering Filtering means selecting one aspect of an experience and focusing on that - and of course for an Anxiety sufferer this is going to mean filtering out the positive and focusing on the negative. You may have a panic attack if you venture out to the shops, you may feel worse rather than better if you cut down your rituals, you may embarrass yourself in public if you go out into the world. You may decide to explore your creativity, learn a new skill or widen your social network. These attacks can occur at any time, and even while the sufferer is asleep. This isnt pleasant, it isnt fun. Breathe in and out through your nose and let your breathing slow down. Hold it and feel the tension in your forehead. The worrier Worrying is part of the human ability to look into the future and make decisions based on the likelihood of something haping - worrying that it looks like rain will cause you to take an umbrella for instance. Youve started to work towards recovery and however tough things get, you can find a way to keep going. I cant work so my income is low. Cognitive work and OCD Ask yourself the question: Do my rituals really make a difference or are they driven by my Anxiety? It often means looking for a compromise solution, where you can have what you need without depriving someone else - known as a win-win solution. This can be healed but self-help may not be sufficient, especially for working on experiences which occurred very early in your life, before you had developed language or thought capacity to understand what was haping. They feel as if they are constantly being judged or watched by others for no apparent reason other than those things they themselves feel self-conscious about.