ROA now on Facebook!

I have always been hesitant to start a facebook page because I didn't think many people would want to publicly join an anxiety page. But I think its time. I think the benefits can outweigh any doubts. By joining the facebook page you can stay up to date with announcements, inspirational quotes and thoughts from your facebook news feed. I don't have time to spam you constantly :) so don't worry about getting a storm of posts overtaking your page. If you would like to join the facebook page you can view it here.

Thanks and I look forward to sharing more conveniently with all of you!

UPDATE: Due to the request to make the page more private, I have had to switch from a page to a group. This means that you have to ask to join and I will approve you. This also means people can see the name of the group and who is a member, but cannot see what is posted without becoming a member too. As always if you have any questions just let me know.

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Support Group October Sign Up

Tonight we had our first support call. I was nervous setting it up and worried about how it would go, but I have to say that I LOVED every minute of it. It was SO nice to talk with people from all walks of life who are going through the exact same thing in their own way. I loved how someone would be explaining something and you could hear people laughing and agreeing because they knew EXACTLY what you were talking about.


I loved it so much that I will be doing it once a month. The next call will be October 20th at 7:00 pm MST. If this is something you want to do again or try out, please sign up. Here is how:

A Returning Member:

• If you have already signed up for a previous call and sent me your username for Skype and profile card, all you have to do is pay the $2.00 fee. To pay simply click on the paypal button on the right sidebar.

A New Member:

• Please download the instructions here that will explain more about the call (system requirements, how to sign up, what to expect, etc.)
• Also download, fill out, and email me back the Profile Card here that will help me keep track of who is who.
• Pay the $2.00 fee by clicking the "Pay Now" button on the sidebar to reserve your spot.
• Sign up for Skype (its free) and email me your username and I will add you to the group list.

The $2.00 fee is simply to pay for the premium membership at Skype to facilitate the calls. I have to make sure that if only 5 people show up for the call, costs will still be covered. Sign up for the October call is officially OPEN! Only 14 people can be on each call and it is first come first serve so sign up today :)

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Warning: MY "Incessant Monologues" are "Hardly Interesting and Certainly not Helpful"

As I was checking my email today, I received a comment notification that someone left on the blog. I was shocked as I read it, and although its not flattering I decided to publish it anyway. I decided to post about it as opposed to replying in the comment section. Here is what the person said,

"My take on this site, incessant monologues and content:

ME, ME, ME, ME, ME, ME, ME, ME, Me, ME, ME, ME, ME, ME.

ME, ME, ME, ME, ME, ME, ME, ME, ME, ME, ME, ME, ME, ME.

Hardly interesting and certainly not helpful.

Yes, management of any condition is crucial and continual. But until you address the underlying events and sources....forget it.

Your daily doodlings and cake talk are a disservice as the fake smiles and cute fonts mask any acknowledgment of underlying issues. It's denial in my opinion.

Yes, affirmations are great. Coping mechanisms are great. Some therapies are great. Anything that helps and is healthy is a positive direction.

What concerns me is your self branded character is simply that, unsubstantiated unvalidated diary entries making lite of a real medical condition.

This site should be renamed: "MY reality of MY anxiety".

Any person in search of real data and hopeful of achieving real results (founded on medical data and empirical research) should avoid this site.

M."

Really? Seriously?

I am all for reviews and comments, good or bad, but this was a bit on the harsh side on my opinion. I guess I was under the impression that people who suffer from social anxiety was more sensitive to the feelings of others, but I guess this is not always the case. Rather than let this ruin what was starting out to be a good day, I have decided to leave my thoughts on this and then forget about it and move on.

Let me explain what I believe this site is so as to not confuse anyone. This site is a BLOG. A blog as stated by dictionary.com is "an online diary; a personal chronological log of thoughts published on a Web page." Of course this is not a site strictly about the medical aspect of anxiety although I do dabble in that at times. There are PLENTY of medical websites out there and I am not a doctor. I post journal like entries, about me, because that's all I can speak for. I am not about to tell you how you feel or what your symptoms are. I try to provide personal experiences that other people can relate with and hopefully learn from my mistakes or my successes. Its a place to draw inspiration, motivation, information, and mainly SUPPORT.

This site is a place that I spend a lot of time and therefore I like to make it a place that is comfortable and uplifting. I want it to be different from all the formal looking medical websites that are out there because again, its a BLOG.

I have learned in life that no matter how hard you try, you cannot please everyone and someone out there isn't going to like you.

Anyway, I could go on but I don't think it would do any good. In other news, I quit blogging for HealthyPlace.com because I didn't like how neglected this site had become. Hopefully I'll be able to post more interesting and helpful blog posts in the future.

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Adding Twitter, Facebook, and Followers

I have always been a fan of RSS feeds and have offered ways to subscribe to The Reality of Anxiety through feed readers and email. I've also attached links at the bottom of each post for StumbleUpon, Technorati, Digg, del.icio.us, and my yahoo! However, there are many people that use other popular methods of tracking their favorite blogs such as Twitter, Facebook, and Blogger's Followers widget. All are methods of sharing information. And I want you to be able to access The Reality of Anxiety however is best for you, so I have added functionality that will allow you to do just that. You will notice share buttons at the beginning of each post for Facebook and Twitter, and a Followers widget along the sidebar. If it starts to get too crowded I will remove the less used ones, but I think I've spaced them out okay. Let me know if you like the updates, or if its all just too confusing!

Share and Read On!

P.S. There may be some issues since I am new to these- for instance the tweet button on each post defaults to one- not sure why, still trying to figure it out. If you have any problems using the new features just let me know.

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Upgraded the Forum

I couldn't take the ads, they were driving me crazy. So I upgraded the forum. I organized it so it is much better, more user friendly I hope. 

I added categories to separate areas for general discussion, news, medication, and the blog. More to come.

All you have to do is go to the forum, click on the forum title you would like to post under, and either start a new post, or click on a reply button from a current post. If you have any questions on how to use the forum, let me know.

Take a second look, (or maybe your first) I think you'll agree its pretty sweet! I have really enjoyed hearing from those who have already posted. I think its so important to come together and help each other.

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Check Out the New Discussion Forum

I've been wanting a way to have some sort of discussion section of the blog so that we can come together as a community and talk with each other about what works for us, or just to sympathize with each other, or talk about whatever we want. For awhile I was thinking of doing a Facebook Fan Page but I was hesitant because a lot of people would rather be anonymous as opposed to having their friends and family able to view their anxiety posts. So I found a forum that we can use. I've started a couple posts for people to introduce themselves and talk about what your triggers are, but feel free to start your own post topic. Right now its a free program so its ad supported and the categories are limited. But if this is something that takes off and you are interested in it, I will upgrade to a better non ad version. 

So what do you think? You can click here to go to the forum, or there is also a button at the top of the home page that will direct you there.

And if you haven't already, don't forget to enter the giveaway!!!

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Spammers Ruin Everything

Unfortunately because of an increase in spammers leaving bogus comments on the blog, I have had to take the dreaded step of adding word verification to the comments. I hate having to do that on other people's blogs, so I apologize that I am asking you to do it as well. I only want your amazing feedback, ideas, suggestions and questions and I don't want to dilute the content with unwanted spam. If it turns out that the comments really start to suffer from this then I will reverse it and just keep manually deleting the spam as it appears.

For those that don’t know what the heck I am talking about, what this means is that when you leave a comment from now on, it will ask you to type in some letters/ numbers in a box first to make sure you are a human and not some spam. It only takes a few seconds to do, but it is an annoyance that I wish we didn’t have to do.

** Update- 5/7/08: Also another annoyance is when people leave comments that are simply to sell something they are promoting. They don't leave anything valuable except a few words and a link. If someone wants to promote their product on my site, they can email me with permission and I can look into it for them. But if comments are left that are just advertisements in disguise then they will be deleted.

If you are a blogger that has a relevant post to the topic and would like to leave a link to your post with some valuable feedback that is different and I don't mind you sharing your thoughts on the subject, in fact I would encourage it. Its just the sales tactics of products that bother me. **

I really do appreciate all of the thoughtful comments you leave so please don't let this distract you from sharing in the future.

What is RSS? How to Stay Up to Date with The Reality of Anxiety

Explanation taken from Problogger

What is RSS?

Do you want to keep up to date with the latest posts on The Reality of Anxiety?

I have a number of ways that you can subscribe to this site and receive updates. The main one that my readers use is my RSS feed.

RSS is a technology that is being used by millions of web users around the world to keep track of their favorite websites.

In the ‘old days’ of the web to keep track of updates on a website you had to ‘bookmark’ websites in your browser and manually return to them on a regular basis to see what had been added.

The problems with bookmarking

• You as the web surfer had to do all the work
• It can get complicated when you are trying to track many websites at once
• You miss information when you forget to check your bookmarks
• You end up seeing the same information over and over again on sites that don’t update very often

RSS Changes Everything

What if you could tell a website to let you know every time that they update? In a sense, this is what RSS does for you.

RSS flips things around a little and is a technology that provides you with a method of getting relevant and up to date information sent to you for you to read in your own time. It saves you time and helps you to get the information you want quickly after it was published.

RSS stands for ‘Really Simple Syndication’. Many people describe it as a ‘news feed’ that you subscribe to.

It’s like subscribing to a magazine that is delivered to you periodically but instead of it coming in your physical mail box each month when the magazine is published it is delivered to your ‘RSS Reader’ every time your favorite website updates.

How RSS actually technically works is probably a lesson for another day but the key today is for you to understand why it’s good and how to use it.

Let me say right up front that I’m not the most technically savvy person - but even I can use RSS. At first I found it a little strange to make the change from bookmarking to RSS but I found that when I started that I just couldn’t stop.

How to Use RSS

Get an RSS Reader - The first thing you’ll want to do if you’re getting into reading sites via RSS is to hook yourself up with an RSS Feed Reader.

There are many feed readers going around with a variety of approaches and features - however a good place to start is with a couple of free and easy to use web based ones like Google Reader and Bloglines. Either one will do if you’re starting out (I use Google’s Homepage Reader) - as I say there are many others to choose from but to get started either of these are fairly easy to use and will help you work out the basics of RSS.

Both of these feed readers work a little like email. As you subscribe to feeds you’ll see that unread entries from the sites you’re tracking will be marked as bold. As you click on them you’ll see the latest update and can read it right there in the feed reader. You are given the option to click through to the actual site or move onto the next unread item - marking the last one as ‘read’.

The best way to learn how to use either Google Reader or Bloglines is to simply subscribe to some feeds and give it a go. Both have helpful help sections to get you up and running.

Note: other options to tracking websites that you might already be familiar with include using pages like MyYahoo, MyGoogle and MyMSN.

Find Some Feeds to Subscribe to - there are two places to look for a site’s feed:

1. On the Site
2. In Your Browser

On Site Subscription
Over the last few years you may have noticed a lot of little buttons and widgets appearing on your favorite sites and blogs. Little orange buttons, ‘counters’ with how many ‘readers a blog has, links called RSS, XML, ATOM and many more.

They come in all shapes and sizes. Here are a few you might have seen:

There are plenty more - but any time you see any of these buttons or anything like them it means that the site you are viewing almost certainly has a feed that you can subscribe to. In most cases it’s as simple as either copying and pasting the link associated with the button into your RSS Reader or clicking the button and following the instructions to subscribe using the feed reader of your choice.

Browser Subscription

Many internet browsers now have the ability to find and subscribe to RSS feeds built right into them.

When you surf to a site you can usually tell if it has an RSS feed by looking in the right hand side of address bar where you type in the site’s URL. You will see a little orange box like the picture at the top of this post, or little RSS letters, or a similar icon.

Click that and you’ll be locating The Reality of Anxiety’s RSS feed.

Other modern browsers will have similar icons.

To quickly and easily subscribe by clicking these icons you’ll want to set up your browser to do it with your feed reader of choice as by default they will probably subscribe you using the in-browser reader. You can do this by going to the ‘preferences’ to your browser and choosing ‘Google Reader’ or ‘Bloglines’ etc as your feed reader.

Once you’ve done this and have subscribed to a few feeds you’ll begin to see unread items in your Feed Reader and you can start reading.

Don’t want to Use an RSS Reader? Email is an Option

If the above explanation all just seems a little too complicated for you then please don’t worry. Many sites also enable you to subscribe to RSS feeds via a more familiar medium - Email.

Here at The Reality of Anxiety I know that not everyone is into the RSS thing so at the top of my right hand sidebar there is a field where you can enter your email address and get a daily email with a summary of our latest posts. You can unsubscribe at any time and your email will be kept private and not used for any other purposes than to send these daily updates.

Further Reading on RSS

• How to Explain RSS the Oprah Way
• Getting Started with RSS
• Beginners Guide to RSS

White and Nerdy- Exciting Blog Updates

photo by cherbert

So I am a little bit of a nerd I admit. I work in a software company after all. I am also a widget junkie. I love trying out new tools and learning how to implement fun features. I don't want to overload my blogsite with these however, only the ones that have a real function and purpose. So please let me know how you like the new features and if you think they are helpful to you or a waste of space so I can weed out the bad ones. Here are a several changes I have made:

• I added a subscribe button that you can see at the top of the page. When you roll over it buttons will appear that allow you to select where you want the feed to appear. (This works much better in Firefox than in Internet Explorer). By "subscribing" you add a feature to your favorite search engine (google, yahoo, aol, etc) homepage that will update whenever I update my blog. This means you won't have to check back to see whats been changed. Instead it will tell you whenever there are additional posts and you can then visit the page or the feed to see the latest and greatest. I have also added a subscribe by email box on the right hand side that will allow you to receive an email whenever there is a new post if you feel more comfortable doing that. Both of these are for your benefit and then they also allow me to see how many people actually are interested in what I am writing about.

• My favorite webpages are usually interactive, not just pretty to look or nice to read, but something I can contribute to- has a community feel to them which is what I want to add to my site. So I just barely added a rating widget to my posts that I found from Luna Tail's site. Its a rating system that you can rate 1-5 stars for each post.

• I've been meaning to do the next one for awhile. I took the songs from my Chill Out Playlist and added them into a music player. I don't like pages that play music automatically when I go to them, especially if you are at work and it blasts really loud! So you can look through them and choose ones you want to listen to if you want to listen. I hope you like them. I will most likely be changing the music every once in awhile when I find new songs that I like that fit into the anxiety category, and I will get rid of ones I am tired of. I'd love any suggestions of other artists if anyone wants to share.

• Also another interactive feature is a poll on the right hand side. Hopefully they will release it soon. I think it would be interesting to know what types of anxiety my readers struggle with. I plan on doing "A Poll of the Week" varying on different topics such as medication types, satisfaction of treatments and coping strategies, etc. I think it could be a very interesting feature. (This also looks nicer in Firefox)

As for my anxiety today, I woke up anxious. This seems to be pretty common for Saturday mornings. I just took my time to get ready for the day and I am relaxing in front of guess what, Court TV and surfin the web. Probably my favorite way to relax. Tyler is gone on an overnight trip with his brothers which gives me the whole day off. I might help his sister with a craft project sometime, if she ever decides to call. I really should do some yoga today since my overall anxiety level has been so heightened the last couple days.

I hope everyone else is feeling better out there! Linda, how are you doing? I haven't heard from you lately. You are in my thoughts. If nothing else know that someone's thinkin about you and sending well wishes your way. Brinn, has your anxiety risen lately like mine and Molly's? I have a theory that the more time we spend talking to each other, the more our anxiety cycles parallel, just like menstrual cycles do ;)

Let me know if you have any questions on any of this or have technical problems.

Everyone Take Care!

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How to Put a Reality of Anxiety Button on Your Blog or Website

If you want to display a Reality of Anxiety button on your blog or website simply do the following:

1. Choose which button you want to display from the sidebar of the home page on The Reality of Anxiety.
2. Select and copy the html code in the box below the button.
3. If you run a blogger blog, open up an html gadget from your layout page. Paste the code in the box and save. Arrange the widget where you would like it on your page. You're done.
4. Any other site, paste the html code where you would like it to appear on your site.

Having problems? Email me and I can help you :)

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