How am I feeling triggered? What are the feelings/emotions?
It's hard to sort out exactly.
Of course, the most obvious is that holidays have been extremely sad, lonely affairs since our son died in Iraq. This year we are having some soldiers coming who served w/him. It is wonderful that they are willing to give of themselves this way, but I don't know if I can handle it just now. We have such a precarious balance going on here. I just don't know what to do. If I cancel... am I avoiding? Plus, for some reason I thought there was another two weeks before Christmas.... duh, I've got what? 5 days. 5 days to plan and clean and do my anxiety work and "be aware" of my emotions and feelings and thoughts when I'm not even sure which is which, plus stay away from alcohol and then we are supposed to go on a trip w/daughter and family over New Years (me who has trouble leaving my house!) and, and, and, and.................
Shoot, shoot, shoot.... I had started to calm down... OK, actually I was distracting myself (is that avoiding behavior?) took the dogs for a walk, did some laundry, answered some emails, read some blogs............. but now, talking about it, all the anxiety is back bigger than before. I do recognize that I am "catastrophizing", while wearing "fear goggles" and engaging in all or none thinking...................... but what do I DO about it?
I sure do wish I had already completed the whole program so I could handle this stuff, or better yet had never started ... then I could just avoid everything and use all my old coping mechanisms while being none the wiser.