Severe Anxiety

lexapro works for me, but it's not for everyone. i only notice side effects when i up the dosage or when i go without it for more than a day.

it's also not available as a generic yet, and can be expensive if your insurance won't cover all of the expense.

Effexor has worked wonders for my anxiety and I have very little side effects. It has a bed reputation because the withdrawal effects if you stop cold turkey are pretty bad but if you come off it gradually it's fine. Effexor is available as a generic but not in the extended release version.

I too suffered for many years with anxiety and panic. Pills never worked for me, just made me feel unreal (although I can't comment about the medication you mention). Medication works for many, I know, but the long term solution came to me in the form of a change to my diet with supplements, specifically multi vits and fish oil.

A nutritionist/friend prescribed the following:

Excercise daily combined with
Less fatty foods (like Pizza)
BioCare's Adult MultiVitamins
BioCare's Mega EPA 1000
Cut out coffee

I had suffered from around the age of 14, and soon after starting the daily supps at the age of 33, my anxiety levels dropped for the first time, and I am much calmer these days. Excercise helps enormously, as does meditation, but diet is so fundamnetal... Getting older brings a certain calmness too..

This is all notwithstanding psychological factors, which would need confronting in their own right.

As bad as it seems right now, it will get better.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but there's some evidence to suggest that booze helps to aggravate panic attacks. I was suffering really badly last year, and the only thing that's regulated it is getting enough regular sleep and easing off on the drinking. Also breathing exercises and shit.

IF YOU'RE GOING TO START TAKING MEDICATION:
Keep in mind that you're going to become addicted to it and it's going to be very, very difficult to stop if and when you want to. I've been on either Lexapro or Celexa since high school and deeply, deeply regret ever starting this shit.

Exercise, healthy diet, and regular sleep are all much better ideas than medication IMO.

benzodiazepines are really bad news if you are at all disposed toward abusing the fuck out of them and getting crazy addicted and ruining your life. though they do make the panic go away.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but there's some evidence to suggest that booze helps to aggravate panic attacks. I was suffering really badly last year, and the only thing that's regulated it is getting enough regular sleep and easing off on the drinking. Also breathing exercises and shit.

I've heard this too, but it's mostly an after-effect, right? Not while actually drinking? I smoked marijuana heavily for five years during my teenage years and that's what actually triggered my first-ever panic attack - one random time smoking marijuana after literally smoking it thousands of times in my life. I continue to have them whenever I smoke marijuana (as soon as I take a couple hits) and as a result I've sworn off that for life - never experienced one from drinking (as far as I know), but I have had a couple not being under the influence of anything.

You said you were a college student; do you want to elaborate on that? i know for periods when i was in college i was having pretty serious bad times, incl panic attacks. a lot of the time they were triggered directly by school related shit, but sometimes not. not saying it's nothing to worry about, cuz it sucks, but that there can be a lot of factors involved. And please, think long and hard before committing to a daily medication, please.

It's really interesting to hear people's different experiences with meds. I have been on Effexor (as mentioned above) since 2001. However, I went off of it for two years between now and then without incident. For me, it really has been a lifesaver when needed and I honestly believe that for some people (obv not as many as are currently prescribed) daily medication is appropriate and extremely helpful. I'm not saying that I don't think exercise, diet, meditation etc. are beneficial because I'm sure that they are. I just to point out that not everyone has such a negative experience with medication.

erm - "I just WANT to point out . . ." oops.

It's not just college - I have anxiety about everything. I worry about going insane or schizophrenic, I worry that when I cross intersections (I live in a busy city) the cars are going to lunge forward and hit me, I worry that my heart is beating too fast or too slow or irregular, etc. etc. etc. (the list goes on and on). I know most of it is absolutely silly - I can tell myself in my mind that none of it is true, and I actually KNOW that none of it is true, but I still get that anxious, tingly, worried physical feeling whenever my mind stops on any of those thoughts - hopefully some of you guys who have anxiety problems know what I'm talking about.

And as far as "natural" medications go - I suppose I could exercise a bit more, but I'm a vegan so I don't think my eating habits are too bad, and I don't drink coffee and limit my caffeinated drinks to a couple a week.

oh man living in the city sucks for anxiety. my commute this morning has me seriously considering moving to a farm and raising goats.

and my advice is...talk to a doctor. lots of different things work for different people. you'll probably have to try a couple different things before finding something that helps.

Keep in mind that you're going to become addicted to it and it's going to be very, very difficult to stop if and when you want to

I've been on all of the meds you mentioned above RU and wasn't addicted to any of them. Your mileage, etc.

Each of them had their merits but the downsides nixed them for me. Klonipin is great short-term but is not a long term solution. Benzos definitely can be addictive so should be used with caution.

Currently I take a couple of psychological medications but none for anxiety. I work on this with cognitive behavioral therapy and basic confidence building and stress relief skills.

Oooh, I forgot to mention cognitive behavioral therapy. I know that it works really well for some people with anxiety. RU, if you haven't tried that you may want to look into it.

Also, I've yet to ever buy it but have had the following book recommended to me several times and it might be worth looking into as it's supposedly very good:

http://www.amazon.com/Anxiety-Phobia-Workbook-Edmund-Bourne/dp/157224223X

By the way, I did not mean for my post to sound condescending or dismissive. I have no qualms with medication but think, especially if they're not currently working for you, that you might need to consider a different long-term solution.

If it is very bad at the moment I would recommend investigating benzos for short-term, as needed, help.

I've heard it said that panic disorder is largely about the fear of the panic attacks themselves, paradoxically, and that if one can overcome that fear one can mitigate the attacks. Does this seem true? And does it also go for anxiety attacks?

ask your dr. about welbutrin and seroquel as well

Any shitty job I take gets me all stressed out and depressed and makes me want to kill myself. Today I was so anxiety-ridden and mentally paralyzed that I drove a forklift into a dock door.

I believe I was born the way I was for a reason and a Special Purpose, but sometimes I wish I was one of the other half who wouldn't let a shitty job stress him/her out. I can't help it.

i understand

sometimes, i feel like i'm going to burn up, from the inside out. and just disappear. isn't that poetic?

I have been feeling really anxious this past week. Thoughts racing, trying to process shit going on in my life, always sort of hit a wall and get frustrated with myself. How do I not worry about other people, or say, control the amount of jealous anxiety I am having? I am upping my dosage of citalopram most likely, and I'll know for sure after I see the doctor next Friday. But for now, I'm having trouble falling asleep, and if I'm left alone and undistracted my thoughts race and I start feeling nauseous and overwhelmed.

different stuff works for different folks but when I have anxiety related sleep problems I watch my favorite movies to keep my mind occupied.

I know that's sort of bullshitty advice but what else can you do. I feel for u tho dogg--u gotta be the river not the rock--easier said than done.

yeah advice for this is hard to give because everyone's got their own deal. my method is just disengaging, mentally and emotionally, from things i cant control in a positive manner. believe it or not, i really believe this is a skill you can learn with practice and persistence.

yeah i wish i had something to say that would help because i used to feel like that a lot when i was 19-20 and i remember it being a really bad time. debilitating. somehow i got it to go away without any drugs or anything, now i go crazy only very rarely. i did learn to disengage from things, stay busy, be realistic, keep a regular sleep schedule. or if i feel like i am being dragged along by life i take day off to get stuff done, even if the stuff is just washing piled-up dishes and cooking and catching up on sleep. i just concentrate on being in control of things and not letting external stuff (like jealous anxiety and missing people, worrying about people thinking i'm weird or hating me, guilt over stuff that happened a long time ago, etc.) tear me apart. recognizing what you can't control and working on what you can.

sounds stupid and self-helpy i guess, probably nothing you don't already know either :(
now i feel bad because i hate it when people act like it's so easy to fix when it's not. but anyway. helpig u.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but there's some evidence to suggest that booze helps to aggravate panic attacks.

I've heard this too, but it's mostly an after-effect, right? Not while actually drinking?

At the very least, some people react badly/anxiously to the physiological effects of alcohol (increased heart rate, vertigo, etc.). And of course it can definitely lead to a rebound afterward.

I suspect a lot of panic attacks are mainly due to physiological issues, not psychological ones; I know that I sometimes get major anxiety symptoms from clearly physical causes -- for example, if I'm coming down with a cold, or if I eat something really heavy and sugary in the morning. In particular, I think undiagnosed hypoglycemia and untreated low-level infections are behind a lot of this stuff.

(So get your teeth taken care of, and eat a grapefruit, or some bacon, when you wake up.)

THE FUTURE IS LOOMING AND THERE ARE NO JOBS AND YOU ARENT AS TALENTED AS YOUR MOM TOLD YOU YOU WERE AND YOU WILL NEVER BE AS SUCCESSFUL AS YOUR PARENTS AND PROBABLY NOT MAKE ANY FRIENDS AFTER COLLEGE SO I HOPE YOU REALLY ENJOYED BEING 18 BECAUSE ITS BASICALLY ALL DOWNHILL FROM THERE

relax, dude, you could always become a video-store clerk

I don't mean to belittle your anxiety, Max, but all the life evidence suggests that the voices in your head are lying to you. Big time.

i'm pretty sure video stores aren't a thing anymore

i'm pretty sure video stores aren't a thing anymore

― meat of beef (Jordan), Thursday, March 26, 2009 5:24 PM (0 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

oh great another thing to be anxious about

sorry uh CD/DVD store

find buddies at the netflix factory

/BluRay (wth)

i don't think there are any more of those either, sorry

xp

max it'll be okay, you are forgetting that being 18 was terrible

find buddies at the netflix factory internet

lorazepam?

"voices in your head"? i feel like this is exactly what i'm hearing on all sides! you know, our generation is spoiled and entitled and doomed to failure and starvation.

at least we have the internet, though. you're right.

how many eyes are in this picture

i don't think there are any more of those either, sorry

xp

― meat of beef (Jordan), Thursday, 26 March 2009 21:27 (1 minute ago) Bookmark

oh shit then what am i working at :-/

i'm living a lie

i am graduating and i don't have a job but i don't feel anxious really and i'm worrying about how maybe i should, and it's making me anxious!

if you can manage to not feel anxious about it, that's GREAT! as long as you are putting out applications and don't need anxiety's kick in the ass to do it, it wouldn't do you any good anyway.

i would start updating that resume, louis. maybe you can get a job at the internet factory.

no i have not done many applications but i haven't moved or taken the bar yet so i have time

the internet factory probably requires experience in factories :(

max no lie one of my friends is becoming a small-time publisher and if u want we will publish u in your hour of need, ink onto paper, that one can feel with the hand, it is there

also his (our) press is gonna be called ⓒ_ⓒ Press (at my instigation, mostly)

L0uis jagg3r's cooking with camembert

max u should make plans to move to france - it helped me my lyfe is basically a total mess but im anxiety free because if all else fails ill be chilling in europe and making paintings

some of us probly need to sharpen up basic food smarts before the french allow settlement :(

i would love to randomly move to europe. i'd live in denmark or norway probably. but there is the whole visa issue.

you could marry a finn

where can i find a finn who aims marriage?

yeah this chick i no just moved to france after undergrad and loves it shes workin for the u.n. now but she turned me on to all the visa loopholes that she knew and ive got a little french so that helps

grad school in europe seems like a cool thing too btw another friend of mine is doing that

are you for real moving to france??

im trying to move 2 italy but id b open 2 france

moving to a new country seems like a great way to alleviate severe anxiety

depends on the country! I moved to China for a while and immediately transformed into a nervous wreck.

going to france next month; maybe i should ask for asylum

as long as we are talking about anxiety how about social anxiety? (i wonder if being around the french would make it worse, seriously)
social anxiety is sort of like a catch-22 because the best you can do is learn to deal with it better. it doesn't go away in my experience

On the plus side, there is now actual press interest in the normally ignored travails of twenty-somethings:

http://www.slate.com/id/2214712/

social anxiety in a foreign country where you don't speak the language well is horrendous. on the one hand, your tolerance of it goes way up because your everyday interactions are SO much worse than anything you regularly deal with at home, and looking like an idiot is not such an issue, so it makes it better when you do move back home. on the other hand, for a while, it's pretty constantly painfully awkward, and it's easy to just isolate yourself.

i need 2 see a doctor again and probably start running

thnk u 4 the kind wrds laurel

also i need a job that i dont mind going to every day and doesnt feel like a total dead-end waste of my time

Also BTW my experience is that it is normal and maybe even good to start one's post-collegiate careers with those particular anxieties, spend a few years feeling bummed and pathetic and incapable of even fully imagining the attainment of a workable adult life, then start feeling comfortable with what you're doing and suddenly wake up at toward the end of your 20s realizing that you have begun to attain those things without even realizing you were working on it, just via the subtle accretion of mundane life-changes you didn't think were particularly important.

its def a plan - the only med school i got into is not what i wanted - its in a place i dont want to live, the school doesnt have a great immuno/microbiology program and im waitlisted everywhere else. all the money ive saved has been credit crunched so id have to go into debt to afford school, my job contract ends in june and my lease is up in july i had a long-term relationship end my current one is pretty shitty so yth not. ive got a few friends there to live with and a couple of ppl i know here would be into moving as well weve talked seriously about for sure.

theres also a bunch of family anxiety thats too boring for ilx but it would be really good to escape that and just the crushing feeling of worthlessness and failure that my lyfe is now

i was jking about it being good to move to a new country--that actually sounds terrifying

nabisco why would i be calm and rational and patient about lyfe when i can look at all the other 23 yr olds doing incredible things & publishing novels & touring the worlds

also i need a job that i dont mind going to every day and doesnt feel like a total dead-end waste of my time

me too but at least youre fifteen years younger

go for it lamp that sounds rad im jealous

look at all the other 23 yr olds writing blogs

I am your guyses age and about to be unemployed again cause my contract is up.

I'm weirdly not anxious at the moment and sorta hopefully about some applications I have out. But if I'm where I am today a month from now...ugh.

I just lived in France and I'm not sure I want to move back, but me and one of my friends (who I met there) have been sorta thinking about maybe going back and teaching English. Moving to France does not tend to de-stress people, in my experience. Meme si tu parles francais.

harbl i dont even update my blog often enuf~~~now ill never get a presitigious blogging job~~~

Haha no, Max, I'm not saying you're supposed to be calm and rational and patient -- I'm saying you're supposed to feel pathetic and anxious and hopeless, but if it makes you feel any better (and it shouldn't) chances are you will gradually become comfortable with whatever it is you wind up doing, and shortly after that you may realize that you've gotten somewhere without even noticing it.

Also here's an amazing tip that has really, really helped me whenever any of my friends sell novels for large sums of money. Ask yourself: have you actually written a novel? And if the answer is "no," one awesome solution is to do that, and then try to sell it for a large amount of money.

slate article is interesting. lately i've just been feeling like, really, what is the point of even trying hard to make plans and save $$$ because i'll be paying student loans another 10 years, DC is expensive, and i actually really like my job but the salary is just not great & don't expect much on that horizon or opportunities to advance that don't require doing a job I don't like, or leaving a great organization. a lot of college friends of mine (don't know how else to describe, known them for ages but we're not that close) saved money and bought places and are all responsible and stuff.. i dunno. also i hate talking about money, house prices, and career opportunities but that's so much of what a lot of people in DC seem to talk about. ugh

problems w/ writing a novel include severe anxiety abt my writing talent, severe anxiety abt the things i wd like to say, severe anxiety abt the state of the publishing industry

maybe i will go home and write a series of interconnected vignettes centered around the closing of a beloved restaurant/record store/bookstore/blog

ENJOYED BEING 18 BECAUSE ITS BASICALLY ALL DOWNHILL FROM THERE

Do exactly what you said, enjoy being eighteen!

I didn’t realise how shit everything was until I was in my 30’s, so shut up, stop being mard and enjoy til you’re old enough for it to matter.

*shakes head at youth of today*

france stressed me, it's not like parisians are open and welcoming, though i learned not to take it personal or consider it rudeness either. though on some levels the language barrier did me a favor, because i started to challenge the assumption i (unconsciously) had that a lot of situations are my problem & up to me to smooth things over and play along and be nice - actually no, it's your problem, you don't really have the right to take up my time or attention just because.

lol im not 18 btw i didnt enjoy being 18

a tale of two twitties

beloved community blog

xp

max if you look on it more as a craft that you have to practice, not a function of talent wherein you'll immediately have to prove whether or not you have it?

it could always be worse. that's pretty annoying advice though actually.

lol im not 18 btw i didnt enjoy being 18

see you're laughing already :)

(xpost to nabisco, daria) I think a lot of the anxiety about the 20s comes from seeing your friends who do seem to be doing really well, with good jobs and savings and just a level of security and accomplishment that you don't have. It's easy to blame the economy until you look at people your age who look like they just...got it right. (Full disclosure: I'm currently working part time jobs because I can't find a single full time job, and in the fall I'm going to graduate school, so I'm going to put off getting a "real job" until I'm around THIRTY.)

also max, about writing - i do think it is rewarding to work on things as hobbies that you might not be good at. i'm not a terribly artistic type myself, but running and cooking are like that for me, although i doubt i'd ever win a race or open a restaurant or anything like that.

yeah, something that's helped me with music lately is realizing that it's about making a decision about how you live your life (ie deciding it's something i'm always going to do) rather than worrying about what i haven't accomplished yet.

which i guess is just a version of "it's not the destination it's the journey"-style platitudes, but still.

maybe i will go home and write a series of interconnected vignettes centered around the closing of a beloved restaurant/record store/bookstore/blog

― rip dom passantino 3/5/09 never forget (max), Thursday, March 26, 2009 6:10 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i am actually considering doing this btw, that thread made me think abt how much i <3 that format

ya guys u r all right. its helpful to put it out on the internet sometimes to make u feel better.

lyfe, u know

Aw, Max, you're going to get me sounding like my mom in here, but:

"anxiety abt my writing talent" = one good way to settle that is to write a novel and see if it's good
"severe anxiety abt the things i wd like to say" = one good way to settle that is to say something and see how it sounds
"severe anxiety abt the state of the publishing industry" = one good way to settle that is to publish a novel and see what happens

Seriously, if there were anything I would do differently about my early/mid 20s, it's ... well, I spent a lot of time on anxieties like those instead of just doing stuff -- stuff that, even if it turned out lame or embarrassing, would at least be stuff I had done and gotten better at and learned about. I don't mean that in any big profound regretful way. I just mean I'd rather have a crappy juvenile novel I wrote when I was 23 than not. I'd rather have played in someone's horrible ska band than not. This like the non-concise version of the Woody Allen "80% of life is just showing up" thing -- might as well do the shit, and if it sucks, by the time you hit 30 that'll actually just be hilarious and a fun story.

(NB I am like 31, if that has any bearing on the above advice.)

xpost - Maria, that is absolutely true -- I remember getting hit with a huge dose of that immediately post-college, when your "equal" peers suddenly turn over strikingly non-equal -- but that never ends, you just get over it; the difference in entrenched life turnouts is only higher when you're 30, and surely higher than that when you're 50

well its not my 1st choice (which is still getting into one of the med schools im waitlisted at) but ive already got friends in france + speak some french so im not really anxious about living there.

Also here's an amazing tip that has really, really helped me whenever any of my friends sell novels for large sums of money. Ask yourself: have you actually written a novel? And if the answer is "no," one awesome solution is to do that, and then try to sell it for a large amount of money.

this is a good point and im happy you made it but... its hard. at least for me even once youve made something selling it can be such a dispiriting process in itself and even the small success ive had w/shit ive made, ive never really stopped thinking (knowing?) that im not smart or creative or interesting or that ive never had a decent idea in my lyfe...

xp - maria - true that. oh well! what does concern me most is, wondering if my brain is just irreversibly wired to be anxious and easily stressed out.

BASICALLY (hopefully this is the short version) I think it's easy to spend a few years looking for like the perfect opportunity, that one strike that will make everything great -- in actuality most people only appear to have a strike, and in fact the "strike" was preceded by years of just trying to do something, not necessarily succeeding, and just generally being out doing the thing they care about in a way that put them in position to find and jump on the strike opportunity when it came along

for the record I am horrible at taking this advice, but I know it to be true

w/r/t that article:

I almost feel weirdly thankful to be aimless at this age, at this point in time in history because *nobody* expects early-20 year olds to be able to find a good job. I have a sorta aimless personality to begin with and even if the economy was great I'm not sure if my situation would be significantly different. At the very least there's a very acceptable excuse right now.

thanks for the advice nabisco, seriously, it makes sense, and frankly you seem like a dude who has it figured out in a lot of ways, which i mean as a compliment

and i know it to be true because its been true for me w/r/t to a bunch of opportunities in the past

writing for shitty arts mags for free seems stupid and lame but hey u turn around and youve actually become an ok writer and you have a solid body of clips and next thing you know youre the ceo of vanity fair

lol or so we all hope

xpost - hahaha, Lamp, the way that particular advice occurred to me was when a friend got a novel reviewed in the New Yorker, and I was like "geez, I wish I could get a novel reviewed in the New Yorker," and the blindingly obvious solution was: well you'd better pick up the pace finishing one, then, cause writing it is kind of a key step here

^^ sadly, Max, that "you have to do stuff before people can shower you with praise and riches for it" is all I have figured out thus far

the "strike" was preceded by years of just trying to do something, not necessarily succeeding, and just generally being out doing the thing they care about

word

but hey nabisco its a pretty good thing to have figured out!

wolcott @ vanity fair went to the mediocre state university in the region where i grew up, the place i despised the prospect of attending & basically having four more years of high school w/people i never wanted to see again. (i didn't go there.) also he dropped out. then he became kind of an ok writer..

oh xpost makes it pointless but: yah, nabs that is still really good advice

one thing that did really help me and its def a f(n) of my personality but getting a chance to work on creative projects *with* other ppl really helped - ive been 10x more productive w/r/t to my work since i started making games w/other ppl and that feeling of accomplishment really bled into more solitary things

dont know if that really works for writing novels but for scrnwriting it could

I think the thing I find in my 20s is the sense that you've sort of missed chances or wasted opportunities gets very strong, even when there are good things ahead. It's like for the first time in your life there is enough past to weigh on the present and the future, and trying to cope with this is sort of hard. I also find personally that the relative humility that comes with being in my 20s, while possibly making me a more considerate person, also fills me with doubt and a lack of confidence, or makes me more inclined to blame myself if something goes wrong.

Then I think "I shouldn't blame myself though should I? Maybe it's not my fault." Then I think "but sometimes it is my fault". I never know when to blame myself or not, and sometimes I feel I know I let myself off the hook too easily...

20s are so weird, that bulletproof teenage feeling is amazing, I wish I didn't use it to go and get fucked on drugs every week!

x-post it is so true that opportunities come along randomly tho. but also you know, you can never be sure what you want will be as good as you think either. this time last year I thought I had it completely fucking made, I was in a five star hotel for a month, being trained by a world renowned company. I thought "every mistake I made until now doesn't fucking matter cos here I am". Turns out the actual job was shit....so I guess the point I'm making is that it's hard to predict what "making it" is for you...

this year is going well too tho. I'm on the couch and there is a punnet of strawberries in the fridge.

a lot of the musicians i went to college with have been good at that stubborn persistence thing. some are really, really successful and some are less so (or at least less obviously successful), but everyone who stuck with it has come a long, long way since 10 years ago. and obviously the people who gave it up, uh, didn't.

i def regret not taking the opportunity to be involved in creative projects back in college, now i'm just not in an environment where that is easy even though i certainly know a few creative people - but feel like i wasted the time when i ought to have developed skills at something instead of just.. worrying all the damn time & spending ages on critical essays for class. seemed like a good path at the time but years later, wow, maybe i've returned to having some kind of romantic/purist bias against doing criticism & wish i had been writing short stories.

this year is going well too tho. I'm on the couch and there is a punnet of strawberries in the fridge.

― Local Garda, Friday, March 27, 2009 8:32 AM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

<3 that's the secret, i think, try to stay in the moment and have a bit of gratitude. and happy birthday for the other day, i meant to post on your thread but i forgot.

me too! my creative writing at the time would have been terrible (probably still would be, but at least now i have a much more developed sense of the parts of my writing that i hate), but still.

xp

xpthanks a lot! was a nice day. yep I think you're right. I constantly fret over the future but the present is mostly pretty good.

Creative projects, non-creative projects -- I dunno, Daria, so long as you were doing something, right?

xpost

yes, happy belated birthday, ronan! i'm glad it was nice.

i read the other day that if you ask someone right after they've done something, they'll say they regret not being conservative and cautious enough in how they spent money or time, but if you ask years later, they'll regret not having more fun. we may be feeling some of both of those effects now.

This whole line of advice may be particular to my experience, because I'm definitely the kind of person who'd normally be in danger of just coasting along doing whatever's in front of me forever -- but I'd guess that's not super-rare among ILX0rs.

or most people, i think.

weird for this thread to bump today...today of all days i'm feeling more optimistic and happy about my life than i have done in a VERY long time...employed, about to join a band (fingers crossed) and on the cusp of, yes, embarking on BIG SERIOUS writing endeavours

tell you what, max, we'll make an ILX novelists' club...we have to have written a certain number of words by a certain time to remain in the club, it will be a massively groovy challenge

something i said on ronan's b-day thread is that this year has had SUCH a wretched start that we are able to attack the rest of it as ppl with something to prove, something to gain, and i personally believe 2009 will respond positively to this

i.e. it's gonna be a GREAT YEAR

also srsly let's all get on board for this novelists' club thing for real i'm psyched

the worst is coasting along but also giving yourself shit about it! xp

xp - nabisco - sure,i was doing something. i got to be pretty adept at taking apart literature & finding interesting things to say about it, probably i am not too shabby at film criticism either (though would have to refresh my vocab, it's been a few years). and yet philosophically i feel like it's not what i would like to be doing. perhaps should reconsider that. and by 'criticism' at this point i certainly mean finding ways to explain why a particular work is interesting, not passing judgment - either it's interesting or not, and if not, don't bother.

or most people, i think.

yeah but most people are probably less (formally) educated than the average ilxor, which adds another level of obligation to your life. my roommates are in their late 20s and have no education or real future, but they never seem particularly stressed about it. whereas my college friends, even the ones who are objectively in much better situations, are very stressed.

at 29, i am finally coming to terms with career anxiety. seeing a lot of my friends doing really well, doing amazing things, was really bumming me out cuz i felt like i had zero skills/knowledge/talent. stuck in retail/hospitality, i was freaking out that this was the rest of my life and it was just a miserable thought, but recently i've accepted that yes, i probably will spend my working life in retail, but hey i can actually manage a store and earn some not-awful money, and it's something i'm pretty decent at doing. it sucks, indeed, but the fact is that someone has to do it - not everyone gets to be the talented painter or the original and striking novelist. part of what helped me in accepting this as my 'fate' was finding an artsy thing i love doing and am a little bit good at; it's not something i could go into full time in the foreseeable future, but it's satisfying and i can make a little money at it eventually.

also ronan completely otm

ok i am having a status anxiety moment over a guy i am "friends" with on facebook (dc networky type who happened to be watching monday night football at the same bar, thus is now "friends" with everyone there who were all druuuunk). so i am like, jealous of a republican and a cowboys fan! also v debonair, polite, good looking, and knows barack obama, and throwing a party at his v swank and spacious apartment to which i could theoretically RSVP being a "friend" on facebook, but, surely wouldn't know anyone & would feel totally out of place. sure, that stuff isn't really what matters in life and blah blah blah but it's like daaaaaaaaaaaaaaamn.

if you were to go and be observant and then write a full report for us i am pretty sure i would rather read that than most new novels reviewed by the new yorker.

I'm not sure whether it's not healthier having that status anxiety in your 20s than in your 30s, because it might motivate you. I pretty much coasted through my 20s - not that I accomplished nothing, but I was and am nowhere near being on the cover of college alumni magazine status, or even a sidebar article. The wtf have I been doing with my life, look at all these people who were my peers in school being successful thing just hit me a couple years ago when my next door neighbor in the dorms freshman year of college got a MacArthur Genius award. Part of it was doing work and being discliplined creatively, but a significant part of it, which is the case for a lot of the famous novelists, musicians, and so forth is being in the right place at the right time. In other words, luck and careerist strategy play a major role.

Oh hey, Max, here's another calming thought, kinda related to something I was saying above. I don't know what you were like growing up, obviously, but I'd be willing to bet that at some point in the past 10 years, you were a person who'd have thought that living in Brooklyn, writing for arts magazines, having a great girlfriend, etc. were great things that you'd be 100% psyched to be doing. But of course it's totally natural and healthy that we keep revising our goals upward, so you get to that point and you're more anxious about living in a better place, or writing for better things, or relationships being complicated, or whatever else.

Two things. One: part of what I meant about accomplishing things without noticing is that as you get older your life changes less rapidly and strikingly and you feel less completely disconnected from who you used to be -- so you start to notice and take some joy in the things you do accomplish just by going around on your everyday grind. Two: this is maybe an argument for taking a while now and then and thinking about old goals and being satisfied about them, right? A few months ago, I found an album I thought I'd lost years back, something I used to listen to all the time in college, and I was walking around the city listening to it and thinking ... you know, if college-me were observing current-me right now, he'd probably be pretty amazed and really looking forward to this. Even just for the shoes and jacket and owning a decent guitar. Which is kind of a relaxing thought to keep in mind, you know?

there's always the not-very relaxing thought that it'll probably be at least 40 years before you're at risk for alzheimer's and regress to an infantile stage.

I have weird lapses of worrying intensely about a problem so that I am unable to concentrate. It goes away and then comes back again.

hey u know what is just great for alleviating anxiety, besides internet people giving u good life advice, is 60-degree fridays in march

it doesn't make you anxious about global warming?

so i've been thinking quite a bit about this, and i think what nabisco said upthread is otm - about how sometimes you don't realise that you actually *have* accomplished stuff. it got me thinking about what my 21-22yr old self would think of what i'm doing now, and i suddenly realised that i would have actually been pretty impressed, and quite surprised. at that age i was a college dropout, working as a waitress, absolutely no plans for the future and nothing going on outside of working/sleeping/drinking. in the last 12 months i finished my degree, moved countries, started a small press - 3 things that i would NEVER have believed myself capable of just a few years ago.

career/status anxiety is horrible and crippling, and i don't actually think there is much that can ease it; the only thing is to hang onto the cliched-but-true saying about how the only certainty we have in life is that things never stay the same.

I went to law school partly out of this sort of anxiety, and haha, jokes on me, law school is a whole NEW world of anxiety. The school itself is, by nature, a kind of beehive of anxious buzzing, and further, the LEGAL job market sucks right now so sometimes it feels like it's for nothing. I did really well so far but I feel a little like I'm jumping from disintegrating piece of ground to disintegrating piece of ground. Am I any better off than my friends who decided to become librarians, financially and/or spiritually? I guess time will tell.

in no uncertain terms, i'm falling apart at the moment. usually i am a bastion of health despite my not so good eating habits, but i got mono a few months ago, and as usual, i became a hypochondriac. kept fearing rupturing my spleen, thinking i have disorders since then.

i've been overanxious my entire life, which has caused me to ruin so many things and hampered most of my relationships. but its at its all time worst now.

i started having hand tremors one day and it caused me to freak out as i felt circulation in my leg as well. then i got a massive headache, which an MRI revealed was just chronic sinusitis. but at this point i was already convinced i was dying and one night when i was winded, started taking over my breathing, and then had a major panic attack at a restaurant in front of my g/f and friend. the next day i went to the hospital and of course everything was fine.

i'm fine when i keep busy but now my sleep has been disrupted since, i have occasional tremors...and i can't function without xanax now. which ive never had to take before. i'm always miserable now and spend my entire days fearing my g/f is going to leave me again and that i'm going to spend most of my days alone...despite the fact that i have more friends than i can count.

i just fucking hate feeling like a different human being. has anybody done group therapy for this before? what can i do...i'm fucking losing myself slowly

Sounds like panic attacks, but I am not a professional! I have found it is difficult to get treatment and a proper diagnosis for real panic attacks - I had to check myself into a hospital before I could get the right medication.

I had group therapy, I have found it is MUCH better for panic disorder or depression than one on one, and you make friends, the group leaders are usually terrific! Groups are difficult to come by, both times I went to group therapy, again, it was through a psychiatrist instead of just answering an ad.

My medication isn't helping much, it makes me tired and depressed, only exercise seems to help.

ive never done group therapy but i have family members who do, and who find it incredibly helpful

i did a bit of group therapy but got bored of it as ppl would turn up and basically repeat more or less minor variations on the same problem week after week. im sure they felt it all v genuinely but i didnt really see how it was going to be that productive, apart from giving them an outlet to release that anxiety. going every so often i think - for me at least - is prob better than making it a regular part of your schedule. plus, if you happen to be feeling better one week and less positive, other ppl still feeling nervy and anxious will probably get annoyed by your newfound combative approach to anxiety.

I'm not really sure therapy - group or individual - would benefit me. I pretty much know where my fucking anxiety problems (and to some degree migraines) come from. I've been advised to take some meds (friends, partner,...) but I'm pretty fucking lazy about my own (mental/physical) health. :-(

going to therapy and getting medded up was probably the best thing i could've done for myself. was 15/16, rly socially anxious, depression that spun off from that.

i remember doing group for a few months. kind of a general anxiety and depression group, so some nam vets with ptsd, some garden variety depressos, one girl kind of my age with pretty severe ocd. didn't really get buddy buddy with anyone especially since there were such a variety of age groups represented, but it was helpful to a limit to feel not weird.

still get social anxiety at concerts and parties every now and again, though, i don;t think that will ever go away. but the severity of the incidents has diminished immeasurably.

yeah ime just having one or i guess several people to talk about yr anxiety with who are otherwise totally disconnected from your life can make a big difference in the frequency and severity of those kinds of feelings. even if you know what your anxiety is about, even if you know that it is anxiety.

most of my anxiety now is whether or not i'm "accomplishing enough" even tho i am married, have a hella stable job, and a puppy

Funnily enough I never got social anxiety at gigs. I went alone. Of course I wasn't really plastered with a gigantic smile on my face - oh look at me I am so happy to be alone at this gig - but I didn't really care. (It was also to do with this compulsive need to show that I, a woman, could attend gigs alone.) Parties? That's another story. There was this time a guy literally stood me up at this gigantic party... just fucking LEFT ME and I knew NOONE. I was petrified. I could have crawled in a corner, but I think I was also too mad and shocked really.

M Bison, are you my alter ego? I never feel as though I accomplish enough. I too am married, have a great life, two adorable kids, great husband,... Yet I am never at ease. :-(

not sure what it is exactly, of my friends and peers who have gone onto big thangs poppin, there is zero jealousy and 100% pride that i knew em when. i think it's mostly like the things i am passionaite about and have some leve of acumen i'm not ALREADY THERE which is stupid. i try to think "ok, steve reich didn't really start until he was like in his 30's" but then i'm like "FUCK, STEVE REICH!!!"

like upthread nabsico talkin bout just go things and see if things happen, i feel lke i'm only half-assing it making a bunch of demoes that no one will hear (still have never performed live in a band or otherwise).

music is just one instance, thats more of a hobby at this point. but professionally i'm looking at becoming an educator and later going into education policy and i feel like ive let myself stagnate on that front.

Last couple of weeks I had MAJOR anxiety about my driving exam. How fucking pathetic is that? 36 and being afraid of a fucking driving test? I mean, I was literally freaking out (like in the middle of the night). I feel such a loser for being so afraid about a fucking little exam. But I just felt that I was so horribly moronic that I'd never fucking pass that exam.

oh god i forgot all about my driving anxiety, pretty much hate cars on principle and pretty much have to drive 24/7 to even check the mail in texas

anybody else here take Effexor? anybody ever had it stop working so well out of nowhere? :(. minor tremors in hands and feet are back, which had been absent for months.

eurgh. so i've developed severe anxiety now, due to a recent stomach problem that's been playing on my mind. no sleep, racing thoughts, burning arms. It's just fucking awful.

I've booked in for therapy later this week.

just wanted to share.

sorry ste, i hate being anxious more than anything. i hope you can get some rest. sometimes really deep guttural breathing helps a little. try to remember it's temporary, it will pass in the end.

thank you

Ste, hugs, this must be awful. I have been taking drops of valerian which has helped somewhat. but I suspect this might not be enough in your case. You can take it in lager doses for sleeping better.

ja take care dude

thanks guys, this therapy thing can't come soon enough.

what a horrible condition, i feel like my whole mind and body is falling apart.

Are you also having the stomach problem looked into?

I was going to post this under a fake username to avoid embarrassment, but the logout link is refusing to actually log me out, nobody here knows me in real life, and I've probably dumped enough baggage here for people to already think I'm a whiny emo shit, so fuck it:

I am having recurring self-loathing panic attacks that are essentially anxiety about anxiety, and can't stop thinking about how I let my social problems ruin my entire life so far. I failed out of school, I have no friends, I've never met anyone who cares about the things I love or gotten involved with anything and I have absolutely no idea how to. I have no fucking idea what to do with myself. I'm getting professional help and it's not doing any good.

and lo, i have killed another thread with my bullshit

Nah. But it sounds like you are going to have to break it down into smaller steps than just "fixing my whole wrecked life", or you will never come to grips with it. Start by fixing a nice salad and work your way up from there. Later, you can work on something tougher, like remembering what makes you happy.

you should join us on the 1p3 emo blog thread of neverending misery

Where's the fun in that?

I just read these two posts by you and you seem pretty alright and self-aware enough to be able to navigate through whatever nonsense life presents. I hope you feel better soon-- dealing with anxiety suuuucks.

The obvious response to your complaint about the pro help that you are getting is for people here to say "well, look into other options". And they would be right-- it's a waste of your time to deal with psychologists/psychiatrists who are not actually helping you!

As far as social problems go, hey look-- there are so many horrible people in the world who make out just fine. Some of them make it into high political offices, are CEO's of obscenely successful businesses, etc.... I imagine that you're "better" than a huge percentage of those people. You're probably being unduly harsh on yourself. I'm sure that in reality you have friends, etc. At the risk of sounding patronizing, this particular asshole would advise you to chill the fuck out, enjoy your life, enjoy being you, do the things that you need to do for YOU, and don't obsess over the bullshit ways that other people might respond to you. nothing is as concrete as it seems, everything changes on a dime

enjoy your life. if you need to be a horrible person or a drug addict or a criminal in order to do so, then do that! if you need to be a "nice person" or a popular person or a normal person or a successful person, or a mediocre person, then that is fine, too. it will sort itself out in the end. for real. Good luck and for fuck's sake, enjoy your life. No hand-wringing allowed...

ive been suffering from p severe panic attacks & one of the things that starts to happen is that i become anxious abt the possibility (inevitability) of having another attack - they essentially become self-reinforcing and self-amplifying. this is really p common fwiu

its really easy to feel narcissistic and self-obsessed w/ this stuff - you ending up spending a lot of time going in circles in your head ime - but thats really, really unhelpful. its a lot easier to type obv but keeping positive/perspective is really the only way to start minimizing the effect the attacks have on your life/mindset & will allow u to start the addressing the underlying problems.

like ste upthread, i have anxiety-related stomach trouble a lot. i have a general checkup coming soon with my new doctor, but i think she'll just tell me to "stop being anxious."

xpost

OK. Just to be a bit more helpful...

When your life seems to be falling apart and you seem to have no exit of any sort whatsoever, except to plunge ever deeper into the miasma of failure upon failure, the root of the problem is (I find) a deep horror of taking the exit you can see just as plain as day.

And no, I don't mean suicide. I mean some otherwise perfectly admissable action that will appear unthinkable to you, because you have defined it as such. Something like: disappointing your parents by not living up to some expectation, or disappointing yourself by accepting that you really aren't going to succeed at a cherished ambition, or disappointing your spouse, or your gf, or your bf. Or just facing up to the dismal prospect of earning money the hard way for the foreseeable future.

It is never easy to rid oneself of these bugbears. They appear insurmountable. Just acknowledging their existance makes you want to shriek with grief and pain. So, my advice is, go ahead. DO some shrieking. It will make you feel better, if only when you find out you don't actually explode or melt or die, or whatever horrid fate awaited you on the other side of feeling this shit. You survive it. Then you can start thinking a bit more clearly as the fog of dread clears away.

And if it is a really nasty, very personal, ongoing catastrophe, just realize that it will take a long time to get fixed, and you'd better not waste any more time putting it off.

Good luck.

I'd like to put a stronger pitch in for meditation. Severe anxiety & major depression for the last few years, and treatment included counselling, CBT and Prozac, but there were times when the only thing that enabled me to breathe properly was meditation. Specifically loving-kindess meditation. I'm not a buddhist, but that shit worked. Still works, but I don't need it so much any more. If you're struggling to control your panic with breathing techniques, just think of it as a structured breathing session with added don't-hate-people sprinkles on top.

Drugs made me spacey (though I don't regret taking them), counselling only got me more wound up until I could start taking action - but was good in the longer term.

Aimless' advices look good to me BUT I have to disagree about the last bit. Addressing the issues that are making you feel this way is 2nd stage, IMO. Before you can do anything constructive you need to convince yourself you can survive this, that you will be OK, even that you are capable of feeling OK. Look out for moments that you feel a natural sense of calm, enjoy them, put yourself in situations where you feel calm as often as possible - build up gradually. Instead of focussing on the anxiety all the time and trying to control it, focus on the calm.

Then, yeah, don't try to fix everything at once. Pick one thing and work on that. If you happen to be able to identify the one terrifying thing that's halting your progress, great. Mostly, though, make time to relax - not just by *deciding* to chill out but by doing things that => relaxation whether yr hassled brain likes it or not.

All the best with it.

First night on yet another new medication (Remeron) and it isn't helping. I'm having these obsessive anxiety attacks every night now, and I've gone from sleeping poorly to barely sleeping at all. What's worst is that none of the dustractions and coping mechanisms that kept me relatively stable are working anymore- I just end up hating myself for wasting even more time.

I desperately want to try and fix things, but I have no clue where to start. I haven't made a friend in 15 years, I've never done ANYTHING social really, and I feel like a fucking freak whenever I'm put into any kind of situation where I have to interact with other people, including every single day at my job.

This is all self-indulgent whiny bullshit, and feel free to ignore it; I just needed to say it to someone.

Stop taking the Remeron and try another medication when you get the chance. (Man, I've been in that spot with the bad reactions to new meds - you just don't see that awfulness coming) I feel for ya, TT - I constantly have similar feelings, even down to not making any friends in many years and outright despising everyday interactions with people. Hopefully someone else here can give better advice about it.

(xpost, and i am not about to claim to be that someone...)

hi

I'm not going to say I'm in the exact same situation as you, but it's close, I think. Close enough to feel like I had to delurk, since I recognised a lot of the stuff that goes on in my own...well, I never really thought of them as anxiety attacks, cos I assumed anxiety attacks were very physical, irrational things whereas THE FEAR (that's what I call it) is real! and true! and based on facts! These facts are, admittedly, cherry-picked in order to demostrate to myself what a pathetic waste of space I am. But being v. socially isolated is genuinely terrifying, it'd be daft to pretend otherwise.

The terror gets counterproductive though. You're/we're human and it happens and it's there, and it's a useful sign that things need to change, but once it's made it's point and you've gotten all the insight that you can from it, the terror can go fuck itself. Those distractions and coping mechanisms you had? Don't hate yourself for using them! If it's a straight choice between watching old jpop videos on youtube or spending the night curled up in the foetal position crying becuse no-one ever has or ever will genuinely give a shit about me, (<=substitute your own distractions/demons here, obv.) then bring on the fucking jpop, cos at least that way I might eventually be able to muster up the strength to do something useful about the shitty situation that I'm in. The anxiety and the misery and the self-loathing are exhausting physically as well as mentally, and as such are probably a worse waste of time than whatever it was you were doing to cope.

There's a balance to be found between doing the kinda-pointless-but-not-really stuff and the necessary-life-improving-scary stuff, between eternal procrastination (I'm guessing you're no stranger to this? I'm not) and taking on more than you can handle, and I don't have much that's useful to say about it because I'm at this stage at the moment. I know, from books/advice threads/actual professional help, that it's good to work on small things, and you're meant to feel good about managing those small things, but - I don't know if this is normal or my own egotism - I tend to get all "you want me to make a freakin' salad? you're congratulating me for answering the phone? you think my problems will be solved by going for a walk? are you kidding me?" at people's suggestions. Even though I've found from experience that those things actually do help, and the idea is to set up a positive chain of events, and I probably need to get over myself a bit, so, I dunno. Am echoing all the exercise-and-5-a-day style advice above, even if I have trouble sticking to it myself. And it might be a good idea to research the meds - I think meds for this are a good idea, in principle, but I've had rough, manic-ish episodes on the ones I've tried. I know nothing about Remeron. Strictly IMO: if you're not sure it's doing any good, stick with it, but if you think it's making things worse you should see someone and try and get off it ASAP.

Professionals can help*, a bit, but I've been guilty in the past of expecting way too much from them and being incredibly passive, then getting angry and disillusioned when I didn't just "get better" because I took the pills and turned up to appointments like they asked me to. You have to look after yourself...actually, no. You have to roleplay, and be your own best friend/partner/brother/sister/parent/counsellor/coach/whoever it is that you need, who cares for this being called telephone thing whether he/she** cares about him/herself or not, and is determined to do whatever needs to be done to make your life livable. I'm pretty sure that, viewed from the outside, you're an okay human being. At least. And you've got into the situation you're in through bad luck, and maybe some defective coping mechanisms that were ultimately caused by bad luck, rather than some kind of unique and hideous innate defect. (Hell, you've managed to hold down a job, it's more than some of us fuckups can deal with.)

Please, look after yourself. You're not alone. I'm going to try and come back to this thread, but if I don't it's cos my own social anxiety applies to the internet too, and I think I've just done the ilx equivalent of running naked through the high street. I think this is peak time in the UK as well, so...that's what I get for taking so long to type this. ah well.

*ask me later, tho. am going to see someone about CBT for *almost this exact thing* *this very evening* and I have a gut feeling that it's going to go horribly, horribly badly. she already thinks i'm fucking weird from the preliminary phone call. i can tell.

**i don't know, and it'd feel stalkery to check.

I had a massive (for me anyway) panic attack on the train a week or so ago. It was just bloody awful and exceptionally silly, really. I saw some security guys on the platform and I just had this feeling I had to get off the train cause something was gonna happen. Really awful. But, y'know, I had it and I sort of dealt with it. Or rather it just went on and then subsided. I had been taking these light herbal drops but forgot about'em for a few days. Don't know it's connected. I think it's more the overwhelming feeling I have lately. I tackle things which I feel are not good for me: driving (I always think I'll have an accident), knitting (yeah yeah I know how fucking ridiculous is that?), job, parenting,... I think what contributes is the feeling I can never really "check out": there's always a new day and I have to go through it.

I think the best thing is to accept I'm just fucked up. lol

Knitting is hardcore. You are literally dicing with...RSI.

I'm never quite sure how much of it all even shows, to the outside world - I must have been around some panic attacks, the odds are pretty big, but I'm not sure I've ever noticed. This could just be due to my own solipsism, tho...I get scared of zomgpeople! rather than situations, and I know I come off as nervous and awkward and standoffish and weird, but I'm not sure to what extent, or whether it's as bad as how I actually feel or not. There's usually just enough to start up a feedback loop of self-loathing, tho. :/

LOL, yeah, knitting is baaaad. Also for the shoulders. But yeah I doubt anyone ever notices I am in an anxiety attack (or panic attack). Once I was on a plane and I wanted to run to the door and throw it open so I could jump out. Of course I didn't. I do realize I had very little chance of getting teh door open. But man it was bad. I probably looked normal. I basically made myself fall asleep.

Very few people notice anything like that (or depression). You have to literally tell people. And even then they think you're just fffffine.

Fffffine, and doing it to annoy them.

It's a thing to remember - even those closest to us may struggle to understand. There's a strong preference for blame over sympathy; it's heaps less work and anything mental is often perceived as "I have control over my emotions, ergo you have control over your emotions, ergo you are only crying to get attention / piss me off."

I hid my panic attacks from my bf for a long time, and he would accuse me of dramatics & emotional bullying. It's sad, and kind of wrong, that it took a full blown attack - you know, the kind where it's like someone's repeatedly punching you in the chest whilst holding your head under water - to convince him this wasn't something I could switch on and off.

Oh and talk to your doctor before stopping the meds TT, unless carrying on feels too dangerous. It can take a while for them to settle.

and I think I've just done the ilx equivalent of running naked through the high street.

I don't agree! I found your post really great to read and insightful, nnn, & you have my best wishes.

thanks! srsly. Was/am expecting to get shot down for being presumptuous, self-absorbed and just plain wrong. That's part of the whole thing, I suppose.

>Oh and talk to your doctor before stopping the meds TT, unless carrying on feels too dangerous. It can take a while for them to settle.

Absolutely, if possible. Was writing as someone who's had horrible, hypomanic reactions to a few meds and a not-always-great relationship with the people who prescribed them (which was partly my own fault, tbh). They put me in a dangerous place, and IMO I would have been safer stopping without waiting for permission. But most people are okay on what they're prescribed, because doctors do not generally want their patients to get *worse*...
(also, most people would have enough sense to get themselves to A+E if they were in the state that I was in at the time, really.)

Fist-bump to TT, if you're out there. These things are fixable. I mean, I'm saying that cos I need to believe it, but I also really do believe it. Be nice to yourself.

Thanks, everybody, including and especially NNN.

I maybe should have been a little clearer. I don't think last night's attack had anything to do with the new medication; it just happens constantly with no obvious trigger and the Remeron, like the Trazodone before it, doesn't do anything to stop it. I was freaking out extra-hard not only because of the usual obsessive stuff (I'm almost 27 and have achieved basically nothing with my life) but because I passed out eating breakfast yesterday morning. It happened to me in late December, but I'd assumed that was a one-off thing, maybe from the stress of working a month of 12-hour days, and they didn't find anything wrong with me when I went to the hospital. Now that it's happened twice, I've made an appointment with my GP, who will hopefully be more helpful than he was last time, giving me a prescription for Pristiq that made me suicidal for weeks. Even though it would be a different kind of horrible, I'm kind of hoping there's some biological/chemical thing going on, because that would have a much more concrete treatment than "hey, a few more years of therapy and maybe you'll be able to speak to strangers without wanting to die!"

Are you still working 12 hour datys TT? It seems that would be an obvous immediate thing to stop, if you are. Can you speak to yr manager/HR, give them a medical cert, have some time off?

I'm not, thankfully. That was just for December- the company I work for does something like 35-40% of its business for the year during December. My hours are back to normal.

Thats something at least :) Hope you can find some way to defeat the issue, it must feel so hard.

oh man this has gotten so bad the brief moments where it lulls (or i'm boozed up enough) are verging on euphoric

Wasn't sure where to put this, sorry if not appropriate.

Tense conversations make me incredibly anxious. Arguments, especially. I panic. Sometimes it feels like my entire motivation in life is avoiding confrontation, and preventing it in others. If I end up in an argument, I'll leave the room, guaranteed, whether the argument's over or not....and inevitably later I apologise even if it's not my fault. If others start arguing around me, I try to find a way to smooth things over, so that they stop. Now, given that my parents fought a lot when I was a kid, and that my Mum had kind of a temper and would shout at us, it's not like it's a complete mystery to me why I am that way.

It's started to take over other aspects of my life though. At work, if a meeting gets heated or other people start arguing, I find an excuse to leave the room. Like, I'm literally like a frightened dog or an animal, thinking 'let me out let me out let me out let me out'. Even worse, it's got to the point if I'm *listening* to an awkward/uncomfortable conversation on the radio, or on the television, I have to turn it off and go away... the best I can do without leaving the room if it's on tv is stare at the floor or read something. Even if it's not really an argument. Just a heated discussion. Between people I like, who respect each other, who aren't being mean...it's like the filter's gone and my brain is just turning everything into 'AGH CONFRONTATION RUN' now.

Anyone know a good lobotomist? :)

I'm probably making this sound worse than it is...but goddamn it's starting to annoy me now. I'm trying to listen to the WTF Podcat with Carlos Mencia...it's taken me 2 hours to listen to 20 minutes because I keep panicking and pausing the podcast. Fucking ridiculous. Just because I know they're there to talk about his joke stealing.

Maybe it's not anxiety. Maybe I'm just a weirdo.

Prozac isn't working, and now I'm lying here practically hyperventilating and staring at the ceiling at 2:30 in the morning. I can't stop thinking about how I spent yet another weekend without talking to a single other human being face to face and how I have less than 7 hours before I have to be back at work and will probably almost immediately be yelled at by a surly dim-witted Texan prison guard who I have to be nice to because he's placed a bulk order and we don't want to lose that valuable prison-industrial complex money. Which in this case is about $200 worth of shitty jigsaw puzzles. And I'm rambling again.

First question - how long have you been taking the Prozac? Meds can take a while to work.

@VegemiteGrrrl, you may be a wierdo for all I know, but your problem certainly sounds like a form of social anxiety, and I'd put real cash money on it being something CBT would help with. Are you somewhere you can get help for free or would you be having to pay out?

Prozac isn't working, and now I'm lying here practically hyperventilating and staring at the ceiling at 2:30 in the morning

Not that this will help you now but I found prozad *did* that to me, tbh :/

prozac, even.

Veg G, I have a not-as-bad avoidance of meaningful conflict, so I hear you. I think mine is at more or less manageable levels, I just have to learn my lessons as I go along and try to stand up for whatever my side is. But I've sacrificed pretty much every relationship of my life, I think, to attempting to avoid all conflict or disagreement, cos it makes me fake-seeming to keep smoothing things over and amazingly enough it turns out that men actually want to date a real person, which I am not being when I'm making nice.

I'm sorry you feel this strongly. I understand the panic. I mostly fight it by asking myself what I'm afraid is going to HAPPEN: am I physically threatened? Will someone lash out at me? Will it be someone I care about? etc. Of limited usefulness obv because sometimes the answers to the last two are "Yes" and THEN what do I do???!? Bollocks.

Also I really hate movies/stories/shows where the story or humor is about putting someone in an awkward spot. I hate "The Office", I cringe watching Bringing Up Baby.

I'm glad to hear you say that Laurel, I had to stop watching the original Office somewhere in the second season as I was identifying a little too closely with Gervais' character, it seemed like they were putting him through hell. Humiliation's always been a big part of comedy going back to the dawn of time but something about that just seemed too brutal to me to be funny. (Maybe it's because Keaton or Chaplin would win eventually, or be regarded kindly at some point, and this never happens to Gervais?)

Panic in my case is usually a function of overthinking, the pace of which gets faster and faster as I consider all options/perspectives/angles/possibilities to the point where it results in paralysis and withdrawal. This is why scheduling activity (ideally exercise or something socially engaged) is so important to break that cycle ....

minor 5 minute anxiety attack hit a few moments ago, a little unnerving as I haven't had one in ages (since I've been on Effexor). think I'm just nervous about my new impending relationship.

My husband says that anxiety isn't something you should fear completely. Just try to relax. I know it's easier said than done. Had some anxiety attacks the other day but thanks to my meds it was manageable.

Also, YAY for impending new relationship. :-)

yea this time it passed rather quickly -- I learned some breathing techniques when my anxiety was at its worst last year and now I'm able to stop it before it starts a lot better.

thx about the relationship -- I had one of those 'omg excited yet nervous' moments like I have when I start any new relationship, but the good news is she said she's having the same thing.

My anxiety has been off the charts for a couple of weeks now. During the day, I can usually turn my constant low-level panic attack into seemingly productive behavior, but when I lie down to sleep it can really amp up. My thoughts go straight to the worst-case scenario of everything, I lose all rational perspective, my heart pounds like mad, I sweat, and just as I'm relaxing I often get muscle twitches, varying in size from hand and finger spasms to back spasms that lift me up off the bed. Bad times.

The best night I've had in a while was recently when I took half a valium. I woke up feeling like a thousand bucks, and even though the next day had a surprise crisis in store for me, I handled it with dignity and step-by-step rationality instead of tweaky freak-out. Maybe I should mention this to my psychiatrist.

DAMMIT DAMMIT DAMMIT symptoms are back when they've been dormant for ages, probably due to me overreacting to my bloodwork showing my health has declined in the last year (WELL DUH SAN TE YOU GAINED 25 POUNDS OF FAT!!!! and YOU'RE EXERCISING NOW).

time to break out the 4-7-8 breathing techniques and hoping I settle down soon.

been better the last few days (and in general), but boy was this a.m. fun. Had a date with the lady who was hungry, and I make it a habit not to eat late anymore, but I broke my rule and had pizza with her. of course my body hated me for this...I'll spare any gorey details, but let's just say it did a number on my digestive system that woke me up at like 4 am. The resulting pain due to said digestive system woes wouldn't subside, and on reaching the facilities, I started to feel claustrophobic and lightheaded and had a full blown anxiety attack and began hyperventilating.

5 minutes later, I was fine, but drenched in sweat. Ick. I had forgotten how scary panic attacks are is this is really my first major one in probably a year.

http://www.amazon.com/End-Panic-Breakthrough-Techniques-Overcoming/dp/1572241136/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpi_1

an end to panic: breakthrough techniques for overcoming panic disorder
by elke zuercher-white

i was recommended this book by a friend, and bought it for my husband to help him work on his flying phobia-related panic attacks. it is a REALLY great book - he's still working through it but so far it's been extremely useful.

one of the initial things the book deals with is helping you to figure out if you have a panic disorder, a phobia-related panic disorder, or high anxiety. the book's concentration is CBT and teaches practical breathing techniques to deal with the physical panic symptoms. interestingly, the worse thing you can do when having a PA is try breathing deeply - this actually worsens the symptoms!

also interesting: my husband was convinced that he doesn't hyperventilate during a PA, but there is a 90 sec test where you force yourself to start hyperventilating and it brought on all the other symptoms of a PA that he gets - numb hands, back of the neck starts sweating, racing heart and total mental panic.

heart palpitations back as of last night. haven't had this problem in ages....but the good thing is I know it's all in my head now. i've had numerous EKGs/x-rays in the past. my ticker is fine, it's my nerves that are shot sometimes.

still really annoying though!

just hasn't gone down much in a week. I'm theorizing that possibly the proton pump inhibitor I was taking for a month or so might have meant I was absorbing less of my anti-anxiety meds, as they warn it can mess with the absorption of other meds...but it could just be severe boredom too.

hate this.

i hope things get better/less tense for you.

thanks man.

If it is nerves then you know as well as I do that spinning yourself out of control about it will just make the palpitations worse, tense you and make you more miserable. Not saying don't worry, but just ride it out, do something that relaxes you, keep yourself out of your head, give yourself a break from all that. We need your A game :) Hugs!!

Sorry that sounded more preachy than I meant. Hang in there, dude.

lol i got what you meant. yea for whatever reason watching sports lately seems to do it, even if I dont' care abotu the teams. that's what I'm doing now and it's working a bit.

and thanks!

Go team!

keep yourself out of your head,

otm!

I think the problem was medicinal - they warn on the Prilosec box that it can interfere with other medications, due to their being less acid in the stomach to absorb the pills...

After I quit taking the prilosec, the anxiety dissipated, and the symptoms I had were similar to effexor withdrawal symptoms I've had before -- nagging negative feeling of doom in the pit of stomach.

Feeling much better!

Awesome! :)

it's back...and way worse. don't get this at all. feel like there's tabasco sauce in my veins

meds do you think, or something different?

San Te, you have had your thyroid checked, right?

@Veg - I don't think so, the meds usually help . I'm feeling better now that I'm at my brothers and we're watching comedies.

@Christine - yes, but it was a loooooong time ago, and my mother has thyroid issues so it may be time to get it checked again.

feel like there's tabasco sauce in my veins

A+ metaphor!

Fingers crossed you figure this out quickly. /hugs

^^^^

I just happened to take today off anyway and I think that'll help. may just go for a drive later and enjoy my freedom!

my dreams lately seem to reflect the state -- largely violent, and often times I'm perpetuating the violence! this has been happening on and off for like the last 5 months tho.

dunno what it was, me taking PPIs to kill the heartburn, a day off of work, watching The Godfather, dunno but I got hit with a wave of relaxation late yesterday that I'm happy to ride this morning!

i dont mean to make light of this thread which is quite touching and compelling but lmao:

i dont even update my blog often enuf~~~now ill never get a presitigious blogging job~~~

― rip dom passantino 3/5/09 never forget (max), Thursday, March 26, 2009 6:04 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

jumpiness and minor tremor is back, but the good news is that below the surface, my 'base' is calm, ie, that I don't feel doom or despair, but just calmly acknowledge my jumpiness and know it'll pass. Makes it a lot easier to deal with! when you have a very negative 'base' below the surface, like I did a few weeks ago, taht's what sucks!

oh man this has gotten so bad the brief moments where it lulls (or i'm boozed up enough) are verging on euphoric

oh goody it's back as of this morning, so hyped up and freaked out i'm a bit worried for my physical safety

no more caffeine

hey, i hope you'll be okay. appropos of nothing, i guess, but this seems like the right place to note that i look forward to reading your posts.

thankyou :)

oh i just mean though when i get hyper i get somewhat more accident prone

i don't think it's hyper-anxiety with me, but being one of the partners at my (small) firm puts a lot of pressure on me all the time. when there's a peak in the volume of the work, i feel overwhelmed. when there's a valley in the volume of the work, i worry that i won't get any more business. in some ways, it was easier just being an associate at a big firm.

This was mentioned before, but have any of you tried Buddhism? I went from 100% social anxiety down to almost nothing when practicing Buddhist meditation regularly. It's the only thing that's worked ... it teaches you how to control your mind and just feel appreciative of being alive, and makes you get in touch with the causes and roots to your anxiety. It's honestly the only thing that's ever worked for me. The only trouble is when anxiety starts again, it's hard for me to understand that I'm anxious ... like I know it's there, but it's a racing mindset that you just. have. to. stop. and the hardest part is realizing that that's what's going on.

Perhaps it's worth considering!

Meditation is pretty good and part of a balanced diet, but for a lot of people it's not a magic bullet.

True, anxiety has a lot of causes. Mine came from traumatic experiences, and I've found that it's especially receptive to meditation..... there could be a lot of differentiations involved in what helps and what doesn't depending on the cause.

Yeah. My anxiety has been present since childhood and I pretty firmly believe that it's a chemical thing. The only thing I've really found that has helped has been meds.

Yup. Even when removed from stressful situations, I'll be buzzing. It took me way too long to realize that I am actually anxious because I have nothing to be anxious about at times. I'd try to sit around calmly and start remembering some car accident I was in five years ago. At first, I thought I was just generally stressed and deflecting my anxiety on to something from the past in order to avoid my present situation, but nope, my brain just likes to race.

I'd try to sit around calmly and start remembering some car accident I was in five years ago

!

Ativan is working wonders for me, but I can't be on it all the time, there are health risks with long-term usage, and it won't magically un-fail me from school or give me the last 15 years of my life back.

Actually, I'd usually do it in the shower first thing in the morning. Have trouble getting out of bed, and then I'd start stressing in the shower about any random thing my brain settled on. It's amazing how much you start avoiding life in general when you're afraid you're just going to accidentally create more mediocre memories to rehash.

Yup. Even when removed from stressful situations, I'll be buzzing. It took me way too long to realize that I am actually anxious because I have nothing to be anxious about at times. I'd try to sit around calmly and start remembering some car accident I was in five years ago. At first, I thought I was just generally stressed and deflecting my anxiety on to something from the past in order to avoid my present situation, but nope, my brain just likes to race.

― mh, Tuesday, February 22, 2011 3:47 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark

Exactly.

I have an RX for Ativan but a take it maybe once a week if that. I mentioned it upthread but it's long now so I'll do so again - I take Effexor which is an anti-d but indicated for use in Generalized Anxiety Disorder which is what I have. It's seriously worked wonders for me.

In my twenties I suffered from severe anxiety and panic attacks but seemed to grow out of it with age. Right around my 30's it just sort of stopped, without meds. Although right around 34 my dormant OCD manifested itself, talk about out of control thoughts zooming in my head...it felt like a constant word jumble. I've been on Celexa 60mgs a day and trazodone since. It helps, but ocassionally still have the races in my head.

Man, that's a lot of celexa.

Here's my abuse of drugs admission: I've always had what I perceived to be a really good memory. Not for facts and figures, etc, but for events. Not as bad as the people who manifest OCD as perfect memory, but an overactive memory, for sure. I'd also get pretty nasty anxiety attacks whenever I got a hangover.

SSRIs completely kill that for me. If I have a few drinks while on them, my memory fuzzes out. I definitely do not black out, but the overactive recall effect just isn't there and it's the most amazing thing.

SSRIs completely kill that for me. If I have a few drinks while on them, my memory fuzzes out. I definitely do not black out, but the overactive recall effect just isn't there and it's the most amazing thing.

This is why I would be very reluctant to take them again. My memory and thought processes became way too fuzzy when I was on them (approximately 10 years ago).

my memory is perfect....OCD. Even when drinking its sharp as a tack...but i get terribly depressed when hungover.

huh. I've never had memory probs with Effexor but it's an SNRI so maybe that's why? I have a ridiculously detailed memory and would seriosuly freak out if something started fucking with it so I get why that must have been freaky. I don't have OCD at all but part of my anxiety would sometimes (ok often) manifest itself in obsessive thought so maybe that does have to do with the memory after all.

oh wait, i looked at my script its 40mg's i forgot (great memory ha!) that i went down last time i saw the dr.

my ocd manifested one day and i asked my wife questions for 16 hours straight...16 hours.

effexor made me a lot less panicky — haven't really noticed bad side-effects apart from the awful awful withdrawal when I ran out one time

yeah the withdrawal fucking sucks the longer I'm on it the faster I get withdrawal symptoms too which is sort of concerning. I take it am and pm because my insurance doesn't cover extended release and if I'm late by a couple hours I'll start feeling it. When I first started it I could skip a day or two before that would happen.

I misstated -- I still have memory of it, but I don't feel the compulsion to replay the whole thing.

I mean, other than the time I accidentally drank too much this past year when I was still recovering from broken bones. I went from tipsy to falling down drunk in no time.

i had some serious tunnel vision this past weekend because i didn't take my meds thursday - sunday as i was taking care of a kid with the flu and myself who couldn't keep water down. My head was spinning and a rush of thoughts popped in, is this withdrawal from my celexa.

My depression and anxiety (but not, thank God, the hypomania) comes back after a few days of skipped and irregular doses of my meds.

i just wrote this big long four-paragraph freak-out trying to stave off an anxiety attack by trying to explain it while in it, and then somehow had the wherewithal to call my mom and broke down on the phone with her. but she knows what to do, i mean, this happens to me about once a year, though i think actually less often really, but since i was very young. but i've never called it anxiety or anything until sometime last year when a book abt anxiety (kind of an autobiography and a history of anxiety at the same time) came across my desk and basically read like my life, which was surprising and weird and revelatory to me. because my anxiety isn't a constant thing - or it is but i don't acknowledge it as such and go about my life non-neurotically etc etc though with this underlying level of what? vaguely anxious buzz with no pin-pointable cause? but there's been a lot of change lately in my life and a lot of feelings/thoughts stirred up and so anxieties have been building to a point of me being overwhelmed and not being able to deal at the moment.

i guess i'm just saying i feel pretty alone in this feeling and hardly even have words to express it tbh (check these awesomely constructed sentences here lol...), or do have words but they're causing a kind of eerie distancing, so i came to this thread to say hi and try to be clear about the fact that other people get this too and it's not a horrible thing that will halt my life as i know it and cause irreparable damage and etc etc. and i can wake up tmrw and do all the work i need to do if i focus on that and nothing else perhaps.

breathing.

but then i'm like, ohgod there's so much more important stuff going on in the world and wtf is my problem and how can i be so self-involved when i am so lucky really
it hurts my palpitating heart

when i was having panic attacks a lot i found reading the ilx threads on anxiety really helped get me outside my own head enough that i cld calm down, remember to breathe, forget i felt like dying &c &c

i guess its not this thread but i posted a little about it - maybe going through some similar things - had made a fairly drastic life/career change & was beset w/ anxiety had i done the right thing, fear of failure, terrible uncertainty, lack of confidence, i felt like a foreigner in my own life, like everything was slightly unreal. i still feel this way a little.

it was/is hard to describe & the anxiety meant i spent so much time in own head just thinking about it that it all becomes garbled & tangled & barbed idk i guess this is not helping. you arent alone, is my point. but for me it helped to stop 2nd/3rd/4th guessing myself, layering all these uncertainties on one another...

i have that meta-anxiety about my "regular" anxiety too

Thanks so much. yes, the layering is so the wrong direction but that's what happens. I'm trying really hard to stay aware of that, use the skills/tools I have to get through - it just gets so tunnel-vision on these rare occasions of breakdown. Like even writing this, it's as if a dif part of my mind is writing while other parts keep reeling. At least I'm a decent sleeper. going to try that. tomorrow is a different day.

xp - yep, geez...

It's not a horrible thing, it won't ruin your life or, I would venture, even make the slightest dent, and I'm pretty sure it's way more normal than you think, lovey. Your whole built-up life has been shaken like a snowglobe lately and some former pillars of security are gone now and the unknown is p fucking scary, let me tell you, and you don't have to have life-long concerns about your anxiety level to feel like that. No meta. Just feel the feelings, open all the doors, you don't have to contain everything, you can let it flow in and right back out. Look at me, I'm not even making any sense!

hey rrrobyn, you may already know this and i think i've already posted it in this thread or the panic attacks thread, but make sure the deep breathing you're doing is through your diaphragm - you should feel/see your stomach inflating, not your chest, otherwise it can worsen the physical symptoms.

also: write write write; this is shown to be super helpful, and is pretty much the #1 thing that has helped jordan with panic/anxiety attacks (flying). he showed me some of the stuff he wrote and i tried really hard not to lol (but then i lol'd anyway) bc it's some corny-ass stuff, but apparently it is much more effective then just thinking the posi thoughts. so really analyze what you're feeling and thinking and write it all out. no guarantees, obv, but worth trying.

yes writing talking saying stuff out loud is so key (for me) (and i would think for a lot of other people). getting words and concepts out of your brain (where they fold over on themselves millions of times and make everything worse) and into the air can do so much to deflate the worst of it

xp laurel is totally otm - i've experienced a handful of severe anxiety attacks, and the worst part for me was feeling like it would ~literally~ never end. like, that is how i would feel forever. but it never does. just like things in your life changed so tumultuously, they will change again, for the better. it is the ~circle of life, man~. you know all this already, but never hurts to be reminded of it by an outside perspective.

it just gets so tunnel-vision on these rare occasions of breakdown

yah my thoughts become really obsessive when im panicked, both narrow & hyperaware, & theres something almost seductive about this kind of keen analysis just getting as detailed as possible in feeling terrible & helpless

theres nothing ive found that really help breaks this but stubbornness just continually trying to force yourself out of it this is exhausting obv & it sucks & im sorry your here, feeling this...

xps: justine i ordered that book your recommeneded! have high hopes for it

lol i was just about to repost the details! here they are again:

http://www.amazon.com/End-Panic-Breakthrough-Techniques-Overcoming/dp/1572241136/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpi_1

an end to panic: breakthrough techniques for overcoming panic disorder
by elke zuercher-white

i am a total stan for this book, make sure you post about how it goes, lamp!

thanks so much, all. breathing and writing and reading your responses really helped. and sleeping! still not subsided this morning but i'm just focusing on the work i need to do right now, which is helping. i'll take a look at that book, j. i also just need to get off fb and not read/listen to the news right now, as much as that might sound like sacrilege for someone who's supposed to be 'informed' re my work and all. but there's just so much filler/bs clogging up my works - again, adding extra layers of anxiety i don't need. what a world. just going to focus on what i need to at the moment. <3

That's interesting, because I become more nervous when I detach myself from the outside world; I need, need, need that contact with the collective mass of humanity in order to stay sane. I'm not talking about having a bunch of friends, I'm talking about being surrounded by people doing their own thing and following their own lives. If I'm isolated--living out in the country with no Internet access and only two or three people for company, forex--I fold up after a few weeks. I wish things were different.

Why the hell can't science invent an anxiolytic that works for the long term? Fucking science. Always with the radar and microprocessors and shit, never the magic pills that will let me have a fucking life.

this is fucking with my shit again

been a stressful couple of weeks though, i suppose that doesn't help

came up for me again today and i was like noooooo. exacerbated by not enough sleep, physically exhausted body, a coffee i didn't need, and too much to get done over the next few days (or so my stressy brain thinks). consequently got hardly any work done today! and i was going along so well! it will be okay again

I'm just coming out of a few weeks long depressive episode, which always makes my underlying anxiety even worse. Ugh, now I'm two weeks behind in classwork... adding even more stress and anxiety. Keep getting too nervous to leave the house lately... been waking up with panic attacks in the morning...

Ugh I'm already up to ~3mg of klonopin a day now, and I've been on it for like 4 years now. Its the only thing that keeps my life from spinning out of control and my doctors continually want to take me off of it. Don't know what to do but cling to them with dear life and risk the eventual liver failure.

What else are you on?

I had a mixed bipolar episode a few weeks ago--all of the jitteriness of hypomania and the constant unearned guilt feelings of depression, ick. I extend my sympathy to all of you who have posted in this thread lately.

*&%*&%(*%&*

want to stab out brain with fork

Having been a passenger recently in cars on mountain roads and in heavy traffic (I always forget how west coast driving is fundamentally more crazy in an idiosyncratic way vs eastern crazy's very fast predictable way), I've been getting in a fair amount of practice re consciously decreasing anxiety levels so as to feel ok and even good. Also I am going to get my drivers license asap. (mostly bc I really want a cute little truck. but also to further help me chill.)

Driving always calms me.

i am/used to be a good driver and enjoyed it -- i could get in this zone where i kind of knew where everything was and time was passing and music was playing and it was like zen or something

lately, though, it is no good. maybe due to driving mostly in nyc, or not driving much in general, or getting old, but i don't have the awareness of everything that i used to have. it is disturbing and unpleasant.

sorry electricsound. maybe go listen to the live version of galaxie's 'summertime'?

i feel like my head is going to fall off this week. very bad. should cut out the coffee probably and sleep more.

tbh everyone should listen to the live version of galaxie's 'summertime'

^

bahhhhhhhh. anytime i try to enter a relationship i always psyche myself out and give myself mini-panic attacks over it.

why can't I be normal :(

seriously this like ruins entire days for me. i have a show opening tonight and all i can think about is how i am convinced i screwed everything up last night and every neuron in me is firing and it stopped me from sleeping and this happens everytime and it's like no wonder i stay a bachelor for so long cuz it's EASY.

happy pills need to start working overtime.

bahhhhhhhh. anytime i try to enter a relationship i always psyche myself out and give myself mini-panic attacks over it.

why can't I be normal :(

lol i was going to say "this sounds perfectly normal to me!", but then again, i've got the "Severe Anxiety" thread bookmarked, so...

^^

thing that worries me is this is really the first time since I've started taking Effexor that it's been unable to contain most of these jitters. part of me wonders if the main reason I've been chill the last two years is not the pills but just circumstance.

but then I realize without these pills I'd probably be having daily freakouts again so it's probably doingi ts job

Yeah they don't get rid of all anxious feelings! TBH I'd be worried if a pill took away twitterpation.

oh yea I know they don't get rid of em all, but like....they've taken the edge off to where I can take a step back and analyze things better. which isn't happening atm. but I suppose romance or even potential romance tends to scramble all circuitry.

Yeah just like if you were taking it as an antidepressant and your best friend died, you would still be sad.

fucking really upset tonight, with myself, and other people...i just seriously want to cry things out tonight and can't....these pills just make it like a festering wound inside me that eats at me and makes me feel shitty, anxious, and disoriented, but I can't do anything to flush it out. it's just there still fucking gnawing at me.

This is why I retreat from everything in my life, cuz it's the only way it goes away :(

oh dude...I dunno what to say to make it better...but it bums me out to see you like this <3

thx. just think when this project is over, maybe it's time to go back to in-person therapy....fortunately it's covered under my insurance.

That sounds like a good move. Get the festering out in the light of day, so it cant eat away at you like it is now

thanks for your support VegGirl. i managed to cry it out a bit after I posted and I felt a little better. feeling a little better this morning, though the fact remains that I still need to address this.

(hugs) it'll get better, with a little help.

Yall take Magnesium supplements? That'll help

My social anxiety sucks but I've gotten used to it. However, it was kind of sad how I went to a club-like place the other night and I just couldn't approach anyone. I can dance around strangers but the next move always escapes me. Plus I always have absolutely nothing to say when I meet new people. My dating life is nonexistent and that alone can be depressing when I think about it.

One girl gave me a friendly glance over and another girl purposely brushed up against me and I still couldn't connect. Oh yeah, and me and another girl started to dance but my balls retracted and I had to move on

cliche i know, but "clubs are shitty for meeting people for more than a fuck" etc etc and i think a lot of people, anxiety or no, have trouble meeting people at them
i don't go to clubs but if i did, unless i had a lot of drink in me, i would be the same.

also cliche possible solution, but finding and joining groups/clubs of people with similar interests can be quite helpful. i spent my first two years in college absolutely lonely and friendless until i joined a group (helped that they made us all live together). and i never had a girlfriend until then. it was the same with high school, too. i arbitrarily joined drama because they seemed like nice people.

my social anxiety's been getting a lot worse lately. i do the thing where i get trapped in my room for hours. i don't medicate, but i'm going back into therapy for the first time in years, and that's a bit comforting.

i can tell I'm about to hit a 'retreat' period in my life pretty soon......

alright, trying to nip this in the bud today. going to slice this shit off at the source. feeling so much anger, sadness, and pointlessness....fuck

(btw I don't mean literally slice this shit, I mean I'm going to try and do something positive about it today).

Good. I'm having similar problems and I hope we both get better soon.

Yesterday on the tube on the way into work, I came over nauseous, dizzy, breathless, faint and with sharp pains running down my neck and back. By the time I got to work I had cramps and needed to spend half an hour in the toilet .

I felt pukey, headachy, bloated and wierdly furious all day. It was much worse indoors & near people than outdoors / by myself. Today I stayed in bed (working on the laptop) and now I'm fine. Maybe even a little high. It definitely wasn't food poisoning (I hadn't had breakfast). Could this have been a kind of all-day panic attack? I've been super-strung out lately, working crazy hours and not sleeping, but I don't feel worried as such.

Kind of tiring of my inability to react to any unexpected situation with anything other than blind panic, no matter how small said situation is. Every time the landlord wants to talk to me, I assume our house is being sold, every even half-"difficult" email I have to send becomes a potential source of fear or shame, things never feel stable. Really tired of this shit, but I know the answer - sleep, exercise. eat the right food, read. It's just that all that becomes so difficult to achieve. It's hard to not reach the conclusion that I need to have the most boring life possible in order to avoid getting this way.

How do other people on this anxiety thread deal?

I'm fucking terrified of how/whether anyone is going to respond now. I need a vacation.

in general, is your life going well or badly? From other stuff you've posted it sounds like you've had some really cool things happen lately.

My life is going really quite well (thanks for noticing!), but I have a terrible habit of taking on far too much. I am being very busy and reasonably creative, but for some reason everything still feels unstable and isn't helped by the fact that part of the reason I am so busy is I have gigantor student loans to take care of. But it does seem that I can take care of them, for now.

I also have developed a bad habit of burning out and flaking on people, but then (maybe it's true what they say about LA) I find that a lot of people also flake on me, which is deeply frustrating. Hypocrite me.

sleep, exercise. eat the right food, read

You say it as if it's nothing, but those are all hugely underrated, and some very difficult standards to live by. Yet it's not all. Not to get all psychological or Freudian, but I'd say, reading what you wrote, it's not for nothing that you experience blind panic no matter how small the situation. There is a cause for that. I'm not necessarily talking major trauma here (I don't know you well enough to rule it out), if that's what you think, but rather you seem conditioned to react this way when anything "unexpected" comes up. That conditioning - and I have been there, and still am sometimes - is more important than the actual cause that set it off, if you have been suffering from this for a long time already. It's a reflex in your brain, a response to situations you maybe only once, one day in your life, gave in to and acted upon, whether it was out of self defense or not. And now that reflex, that Pavlovian reaction plays up every god damn time and you can't seem to shake it off or act otherwise. Time to re-program, re-wire your brain. Which is not easy, and no shame in asking for help to do so. It will make you feel so, soooo much better (also from experience). Good luck.

adam have you tried talking to them about income-based repayment plans or the like? getting on one has pretty much saved me.

one other strategy i have lately is to not *plan* as much. like, "i will do x then y then z while i'm doing p." there are always too many variables involved for most of my plans to happen. and i'm TERRIBLE at following any plan whatsoever. and when i do follow through on a plan i usually end up feeling like i just wasted a bunch of energy following a plan and not engaging with the task at hand.

there was that recent article in the NYT about decision fatigue, and it helped me partly understand a lot of the anxiety i felt several years ago when i was in that position (taking on far too much, and doing well, things on a serious upswing). I was constantly tired, trying to keep all the different balls in the air, and thus, felt like i was too tired to make the best decisions, that i was forgetting something, or doing things in a half-assed manner that would eventually catch up to me. And because things were going well, I had this fear that it was "too good to be true" and i kept feeling/seeing signs that it was all gonna fall to shit.

I don't know if that's what you're going through.

But, in terms of what helped:

- having a "just get it over with" mentality -- if someone is gonna say "no," if there's gonna be bad news, i'd rather know sooner rather than be super anxious anticipating it

- trying to focus on what i could do, what was within my power - rather than fretting about stuff i had no control over

- corny "positive thinking" exercises - like with your landlord example (i totally had that "oh shit, he's gonna evict us!" sinking feeling every time we got a call or note from the landlord), imagine that it's something normal and innocuous.

sleep, exercise. eat the right food, read

these are pretty much the very simple things that I fail to do and then get out of sorts. for staples, they're really hard to adhere to.

Thanks guys,

Yeah I'm sure it comes from somewhere, but it's a relatively recent phenom. for me, probably coinciding with grad school and working three jobs while studying full time and trying to find time to make my own work. I'd inevitably end up working for pretty demanding people who would call me at all hours asking sometimes (to them, at least) relatively simple things, but it was the sccumulation of these demands that has meant that now I screen most of my calls and leave emails sitting unread for weeks, because I am kind of afraid that their contents will throw a spanner in what should otherwise be a manageable schedule. The reality is never usually that bad, and in procrastinating I of course make it worse and make my own actions harder to explain.

As for the loans, yeah, they are a big deal. I went to a VERY expensive school in order to learn how to do a VERY expensive thing, and hence my loans are like those NYT horror stories you see every week. I did my best to offset them by working other jobs (AND I got a half scholarship) but they are still brutal. I am figuring out IBR and planning on maybe trying for Public Service Forgiveness, but who knows.

I am probably less anxious then many of the people on this thread and certainly coping better than I did 2/3 years ago, I just always feel on the brink. Hopefully that is deeply subjective and not true. But sometimes I totally feel like yeah let's buy a house somewhere cheap and quiet and get easy jobs and stay home and cook a lot and just fucking avoid the outside world. Probably not going to happen because I think I tend to thrive on being busy, just only to an extent.

The best thing I have found is going for a run early in the morning while it is overcast. Endorphins and fresh air. It's just hard to wake up early enough to do it and so often it is just wake up, fill myself full of coffee and jump back on the carousel. This last weekend felt like it lasted about 5 minutes and even then a lot of what I was doing was "work", just other projects I am involved in outside of my day job(s).

Other things that help me - watching football (about the only thing that makes my brain totally switch off), cooking, taling to friends, reading, listening to records (I am picking up my stereo today from repair place after it was sitting busted for months yay)

I really want a pet but I am too allergic

wow I make a lot of typos now

Also I tend to really like looking at these, especially the green one. I need to think more about colour.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-7Hy5cZ1bogQ/TWLU_zXa-VI/AAAAAAAAAIo/RLb9_-rIzco/s1600/Wolfgang+Tillmans+-+Kaskade%252C+2001.jpg
http://www.britishartshow.co.uk/images/homepage/tillmans.jpg

i've decided to accept i'm an anxious person and embrace it as a lifelong condition and not berate myself for it which only makes it worse. the here i go again, wtf is wrong with me thinking makes everything so much worse. i know what's wrong with me, i'm anxious, i know what past events etc. have contributed to this but they won't go away, they already happened, so i'm trying to be kind and compassionate about my own anxiety like i am towards the anxiety of others and stop fighting it. i haven't had a panic attack for years but i remember how the fear of them started to become a trigger for them, and it was only by relaxing and giving them permission to happen if they were going to that i was able to stop having them, and i hope this might work in a similar fashion.

that green is lovely.

isn't it just

I've started to accept this as well, and realized that my default world view is to see a crisis going on. I constantly feel I'm a dysfunctional person because I am behind at work, or due to my lack of organization at home, or due to some social obligation I'm not fulfilling. Acceptance that I'm a procrastinator and that I'm kind of messy and that I don't have to always keep in touch with people has left me more sane and actually more productive. Not doing things the way you feel is optimal doesn't mean you're constantly failing, it means you can probably make a dent if you just adjust your perspective.

otm - i had a habit of comparing myself (unfavorably) to other people who were super productive and self-disciplined and driven, and feeling anxious about not being able to measure up. Once I decided that in that comparison, i would never win, and thus the comparison was unhealthy, i felt better.

those people generally suck and have horrible personalities or even worse anxiety, in my experience

”let's buy a house somewhere cheap and quiet and get easy jobs and stay home and cook a lot and just fucking avoid the outside world.”

I have basically tried to do this in my own life in order to cope with day to day anxiety. But I think I've taken it to the extreme - I avoid any situation that I know creates anxiety. I wonder if this isn't so much self preservation as it is defeat. It's a terribly fine line between being ok just being average and feeling I am somehow less of a person because I haven't really done anything with my life.

Ambien was the only thing that helped me. I paid off all my debts a few years ago, it really makes a difference. Nothing can send you over the edge quicker than being totally out of money.

two separate months, two waves of major panic attacks (some over work, some over money). Mount Cleaners otm, though my panicking is premature as I'm nto even close to out of money, I just have higher standards for managing cash flow than a lot of people.

still tho...I forgot how debilitating a severe panic attack is. only starting to pull out of this week's wave of attacks just now, and even then cautiously so...

I understand your position. :-( I fear the effect of my meds is wearing off. Bah.

Two hour panic attack. Well that was fun!

Funny thing is, it woulda been over in ten minutes if I hadn't taken over my breathing and sped it up unnecessarily which made things worse. no idea why it's so bad this week, I mean there's stress/pressure in my life but not above normal or anything. In fact life is slower now than it's been in six months!.

You are taking some steps to deal w/ this, I hope? You shouldn't have to put up with 2 hour panic attacks!

I'd forgotten I'd posted that about my shaking and puking day. And nobody answered, meh. It hasn't happened again; I have drastically cut down on the stressful aspects of my job.

it went away once I hung out with my roommates. it's harder to make this go away cuz unlike late last year, when the stimulus for my panic attacks was heightened levels of stress beyond what I could handle, right now it seems to be overwhelming disinterest and boredom.

no idea why it's so bad this week

i had a really severe panic attack yesterday as well w/o any of the usual triggers. maybe it just the time of year or something?

I always wonder how severe mine are. How would you define your severe panic attacks?
I once literally wanted to jump off a cliff we were climbing. Noone realized (as I was just walking) but I was very close to just jumping. usually mine are just *there*, a prolonged feeling.
The other weekend I was able to just shut it out. Consciously decide to ignore it. Very strange (for me anyway).

I dunno. I'd say mild is where I just feel like I can't breathe, maybe am trembling and sweating a bit, but I can take control of it and make myself breathe and get back to normal in a few minutes. It feels severe when I can't control my breathing and get stuck in hyperventilation, start crying and can't stop, throw up, have to flee the scene, or curl up in a ball, anything like that. But this is totally subjective.

i am scared that my troubles are going to drive away that people that i love

pssh, just focus on people you love, make sure you continue to express interest in what is troubling them, and accept help graciously. Great relationships aren't defined by how people react when everything's going great.

there is a clinical definition of a panic attack, in that it involves 3 or more of a list of symptoms/feelings. when i was working through my panic disorder (still am, but it used to be worse), understanding the difference between rapidly mounting anxiety and a panic attack helped me understand my own ability to stop rapidly mounting anxiety from becoming a panic attack. before, it was just "i had a mild panic attack" or "i had a severe panic attack," but afterward, i felt like i had some agency in the process, since i could actively intervene and STOP anxiety from spilling over into panic. made me feel less helpless, i'm saying.

How would you define your severe panic attacks?

length, number of symptoms, severity of symptoms e.g. stuff like De-realization (feelings of unreality) or depersonalization (being detached from oneself) and Sense of impending death

. no idea why it's so bad this week, I mean there's stress/pressure in my life but not above normal or anything. In fact life is slower now than it's been in six months!.

i found a couple of weeks ago, when i was at one my most happiest and contentest parts of my life, that for no apparent reason my anxiety started to rise. it was like my mind was all 'okay things are great, the only way from here now is DOwn..'

I have not suffered anxiety hardly at all since I last posted to this thread. I also stopped taking Ativan in that time. Strange, that.

in regards to severity, I oddly haven't really had a hyperventilation episode since my first ever panic attack, but the impending doom, dissociative feelings are all there. Inability to focus, overwhelming dark feelings and despair, and a feeling that nothing will ever be normal again. hand/leg twitching.

I also think I know where this latest episode is coming from. It's not random at all. I'm stressed about money I foolishly lost gambling (even though I have more than enough to pay bills for several months), and stressed about a project I'm doing at work. I thought that wasn't it because I was pretty relaxed when I left work yesterday but upon arriving at work this morning, within minutes of entering the building, I went from relaxed to stiff as a board, and within minutes of dialing into a meeting, I felt a burning sensation in my stomach and I realized work is the trigger right now.

so kind of a relief to know I can control it since i know what it is.

having some idea of what's contributing can make such a difference. even when i can't control a stressor, it helps to have an understanding of it.

surm, i could have written your post upthread. :( but i just started therapy, feeling hopeful about that.

Alas, my understanding of it hasn't helped one bit. :-(

awww :(. sorry to hear that.

me going out and driving and doing stuff today helped significantly. plus listening to Simply red's "Holding Back the years".

pssh, just focus on people you love, make sure you continue to express interest in what is troubling them, and accept help graciously. Great relationships aren't defined by how people react when everything's going great.

this is true, but I understand surm's comments. I think one of the big reasons for panic episodes really snowballing is the fear of having it play out in public in front of friends/loved ones. Not only is it embarrassing, but there is usually a fear that some of the people close to you won't understand, or that the issues will change you and cause you to lose those you care about. When they first surfaced, my episodes led to the dissolution of the greatest romantic relationship I've ever had-- partially my fault for not opening up to my partner enough, but also, it prevented me from being me, and drove a wedge between us.

As for the friends that react negatively to your problem as if it is a burden, yes, that does mean that person was a shitty friend to begin with, but that's often little consolation to someone who suffers from anxiety and likely has self-esteem issues too (not to put everyone under that umbrella, only going off my own experience).

anxiety died way down this weekend as I had a lot of fun w/ friends...but persistent feeling of non-motivation and flatness has been taking over me for a week. just no desire to do things. usually w/ me this only lasts a short while so it'll probably be gone soon, but I get positively Dexter Morgan*-ish when i'm like this

*in that I have no feelings, nto that I kill anybody

:( hate this.

<3

i'm trying to be kind and compassionate about my own anxiety like i am towards the anxiety of others and stop fighting it

estela, i think these were wise words you said upthread and i hope they are still helpful to you now. <3

<3 thank you both. i am not berating myself but i would like this to pass. it usually does. but this has been quite a severe attack for a couple of weeks. it's partly physical, i got food poisoning and then i lost my appetite and it still hasn't returned and now i've lost weight which i can't afford to do at all and which i find very stressful because it takes forever to put it back on again, and i feel weak and run down and nervous.

i know people don't like people moaning about their low weight but it's really horrible when you're shrinking away without wanting to. and people make rude accusatory remarks which make it worse. yesterday i went and bought some hospital grade sustagen and the pharmacist told me sternly six times that i was not to use it as a meal replacement, even though i had said i was looking for a supplement, and she was being very patronising and rude but i knew if i objected i would just sound like a defensive anorexic. she said over and over, you can't afford to lose any more weight, as her narrowed eyes moved from my clavicle down to my feet and back up again.

does anxiety ever make anybody incredibly and inexplicably angry? like is this a thing?

yes. sometimes at work I get mad that I get asked to do something even though A. the person asking me has every right to ask it and B. there's no reason for me to be mad about it. and it's usually tied to anxiety

oh estela that sounds really awful.

I know advice from afar is not much use but don't put pressure on yourself over the weight...just work at it, bit by bit and it will happen. The stress of all that & being sick, no wonder you're feeling all jangly.

(hugs)

does anxiety ever make anybody incredibly and inexplicably angry? like is this a thing?

during periods when im frequently suffering from panic attacks i tend to lose hold over my emotions really easily and my mood tends to being v changeable. so i will get really angry about really small things and then often quite sad

right now I wish I wasn't incredibly bored by everything. anxiety is passing but being replaced by feelings of 'blah'

^^^ www.ilxor.com/ILX/ThreadSelectedControllerServlet?boardid=40&threadid=2409

oops

much love to you, anxious ilxors

The comorbid depression - the exhaustion, the blah-ness - the therapist I last saw said that these are due to your brain being worn out by the anxiety and totally to be expected. After a period of calm, your brain chemistry will generally sort itself out again, and this is why doing the breathing exercises etc. to catch and control your anxiety, and as much proactive relaxation as you can, are important moves.

I get the overemotional thing too. Something my ex utterly failed to understand. He always reacted with judgements and hostility, like I was doing it to get attention or punish him, and would accuse me of being childish and a drama queen, like I wouldn't control it if I could? Getting away from that has helped my anxiety a lot, nearly as much as stepping back from the career stuff. So um, apropos of nothing but if anyone is in a situation where people are judgy, tell those people to gtfo.

Surfing that actually helps...thanks. I mean I had a hunch, but it's reassuring to hear it from professionals/people who are experienced. two years in, still new to this.

and your second paragraph completely and utterly otm

i'm sorry, i'm not trying to self diagnose on ilx. there have been some rough things over the last couple of months where i have been more down than up and maybe never really up. but lately its like i've turned this corner. sometimes, for no particular reason i can fathom, i get so angry i can't speak. seething with rage and wondering why. i realise this is a different problem to what you are all having. i'm sorry. this isn't about panic attacks. but i'm so confused by myself. i don't know what you call any of this. i'm kindof sorely lacking any vocabulary for describing these things. its not really something i know about.

much love to you, anxious ilxors

― i love pinfold cricket (gbx),

Depression and anxiety actually wear down your resistance to being anxious and depressed! It's horrible.

yeah, cyclical. i had probably been like....11 months without a bout until November, when I got hit with temporary financial issues while I was helping my bro move in w/ me. I think Januarys/Februarys are just gonna be 'those kinda months' for the near future.

<3 to you estela and everyone dealing with anxiety
i'm okay these days - meditation, breathing, 'personal work'/perspective all keeping things cool, level, good even

Judith, anger is another way of reacting to stress, so maybe you just have - or have had - more stress lately than you've been able to deal with? Idk so much about it but i'd imagine a lot of the same tricks would work as for anxiety. Iirc (going back 20 years to psych degree) anger is more defensive so you might benefit from thinking about your stress factors, whereas an anxious person might need to stop thinking about them, but breathing and meditation are always good IMO.

Not trying to diagnose you either, mind. All the best with it anyhow.

for me, anger & anxiety/panic are all part of the same ball of wax: not having a properly developed method of dealing with strain. some inputs make me violently angry almost instantly, while others trigger anxiety or panic.

HI DERE

It's probably not the best idea to have some critical breakthroughs (some recent reading and bizarrely: a WTF episode gave me some significant insights) about myself while you're simultaneously trying to rollout a major software release at work. My last 24 hours have been:

1pm yesterday: (meeting with production manager) "OK so that project that we only told you about last week, well it'll need to run through your production management software. Oh, it went live on the public site yesterday.

2pm yesterday: (meeting with new CTO who started four weeks ago. He started when I was on vacation so I had no idea I was getting a new boss until I found out that he was placed in my office and I was kicked out into the cubical farm). How's the integration going? I know it's a surprise, but don't blame me as this project was going before I was hired on.

6pm yesterday: went home and passed out in bed. Too exhausted to even bother with dinner or changing clothes.

2am: work calls and wakes me up... "your site is down. come in and fix it immediately - the remote plants are calling" Investigate for a hour and discover that Covad was running a test on their network. No one informed me ahead of time so I could warn the night crew. Fall back asleep

10am this morning: woke up and discovered my hands were uncontrollably shaking. Balance off. I feel drunk and am still tired. GF is worried. I'm worried too. Took a nap during lunch today and the shaking subsided, but fucking hell...

Meanwhile, I'm trying to help get a brand-new CSR package going (dev. time on this has been months)

Somewhat better now, but this week can seriously to eat a bag of dicks.

estela, you aren't shrinking away to us. You are a giant of this place, and so immensely present for us with your pithiness and wisdom. Thank you.

Surfing turned out to be very otm. the 'blah' feelings largely subsided as of this morning following two straight days of relaxation :). still a little comedown left to go, but happy to see it come back.

oh geez, Elvis, I totally feel you on that...ridiculous work project is what triggered my recent bout. and the hand shaking, man...that's rough. really hoping you can cope and deal with it as best as possible in light of a tough situation. it's always hard when it's work and you have no real way of escaping it for more than a few days a week.

Estela, that must be awful. Some people are just arrogant and ignorant assholes. Sorry, rude to say, but very very true. I hope you can manage to gain weight.

for me, anger & anxiety/panic are all part of the same ball of wax: not having a properly developed method of dealing with strain.

I hate putting the blame on someone, but I do realize I did not learn the necessary coping methods. My mother was a very strong presence. She definitely gave me the feeling she was always better at dealing with things and I leaned on her as a result. She still "hides" things from me. But that isn't a good way to deal with things imo. Anyway, yeah, whatevs. Pills help. lol

I'm glad you're picking up a bit, Neanderthal.

Elvis, that is is horrible. I hope your job isn't going to stay that stressful for long.

is anxiety just another word for fear

i am scared

they're pretty close neighbors. my disorder started amidst excessive irrational fear of health complications that were loosely lated to what the problem eventually turned out to be (mono)

Anxiety is only for fears that aren't immediate. If a monster has grabbed your leg, you feel fear. If you are worried about monsters under your bed, that could be called fear or anxiety. If you're pretty sure there aren't any monsters under your bed but you feel a bit fearful much of the time anyhow and sometimes get into a right flap when you're not even thinking about monsters, that's clinical anxiety.

What are you afraid of, surm?

I love the monsters-under-bed diagnosis.

I mean diagnostic tool. Doctors should have a cartoon of it on their office walls.

i didn't mean for that to sound so dramatic. but it's true - i just often feel dread. i mean i've learned to deal but ...

i think i'm most afraid of loss, i end up feeling like things that are worthwhile are going to escape me somehow. and i guess i am afraid of myself, because i am so hard on myself.

i've been thinking that i need to engage in things that do good for others as a way of dealing with this, but who knows if that's really the answer.

i also have a lot of fun, too, though! i promise!

thank you people for the kind words, i am feeling quite a lot better already.

<3

<3 yourself

no panic attacks per se, but I've been living in a really tense and overanxious state for weeks, on and off. I've kind of grown resigned to the fact that until the first leg of the project I'm working on is over (April - May, ugh), I'm going to be dealing with this. It's just more stress than I'm used to, combined with traveling and my body is yelling at me for not having taken a break because this is following a seriously difficult series of projects that ran for 5-6 months. I'm def taking a vacay in May.

Drinking more than usual, not alarmingly so (not even to drunk state), but I don't like the idea that I'm telling myself subconsciously that I have to drink to relax.

There was also a girl I was interested in, who i've been hanging out with a lot, and early positive signs that I thought indicated there would be potential have kind of fizzled...decided to give up last night, because I can't take the added stress of rejection and I don't know what kind of boyfriend I'd even be right now when I'm fighting anxiety/stress all day. I think "friend" is about the only role I can play to anyone right now, and even that's in a reduced state.

(don't take this to be all negative...I just like putting things out in the open because acknowledging them helps me defeat them in a way).

Yeah. The drinking under stress is a classic self-medication deal. Good that you're aware of it.

A vacation sounds like a most excellent idea. You're young enough that you probably won't need to crash/sleep for a week, and the best re-creation might be something that is active and takes your mind somewhere totally engrossing and different. Good luck with your porject.

thanks. the good thing is that the project does have the capability of catapulting my career, and thus far, I'm doing very well on it. It's just that there's risks involved that me nor my colleagues have little control over, such as client giving us things way too late or forgetting to give us things.

I usually take a mini-vacay in May each year for the local Fr!nge Festiv@l, need to just bump it up to a full week and chill with my friends.

ugh, should have said "neither I or my colleagues have any control over"

hmm. went to the movies this afternoon, afterwards a wave of peace kind of fell over me (maybe I should go more often). all these little things (I think they call them 'emotions') kind of came back, as if returning from an outage.

I enjoy this return to normalcy...hopefully it is considering a permanent stay instead of just temporary.

now if the eye twitch will go away....we'll be golden!

Does anyone here have any experience with Pregabalin?

Rough two days at work interrupted a week of anxiety free relaxation and sent me back to jittery land.

Decided to go to karaoke bar with friends as per usual Friday. Get here and girl i am interested in for no apparent reason starts bagging on me. Probably just meant in good nature but my humor-button is broken atm. So drinking and feeling lower than low and wishing normalcy would get here on a jet plane.

Oh hi emotional breakdown.. long time no c....

Ugh I haven't had to live with someone I wasn't in a relationship with for awhile, and here I am, almost 4pm and I don't want to leave my room because I'm terrified of having to explain why I'm leaving my room for the first time at 4pm.

DEAR MENTAL ILLNESS: How did you get so very fucking good at perpetuating yourself?

Is your roommate chill enough that maybe you won't have to explain?

here I am, almost 4pm and I don't want to leave my room because I'm terrified of having to explain why I'm leaving my room for the first time at 4pm.

I think you would get away with saying you have a migraine/hangover/severe cold/deadline/other assorted illness? So I reckon you should hold that excuse in mind, leave your room, and maybe go out for a walk or something while you're at it.

en eye see kay I know exactly what you're talking about. Skipped dinner last night as a result.

here I am, almost 4pm and I don't want to leave my room because I'm terrified of having to explain why I'm leaving my room for the first time at 4pm.

this describes too much of my life

so funny because i think my anxiety issues are minor because i'm usually a-ok and know simple ways to deal. but like, then i accidentally break all these rules for living with low anxiety levels:

don't get tired
don't get hungry
don't get stressed
don't get hungover
don't have dreams that wake you up in a panic
don't pack your schedule too tight
don't look at your computer/phone within 10 minutes of waking up

anxiety is bizarre. everything i was worrying about an hour ago is all relatively minor and can be dealt with. so says the beer i'm drinking. and that beer is correct.

man i TOTALLY feel u -- yesterday and today have been wrecky.

ready for it?

tell me when you're ready

ok hit me

yeah, i knew yesterday was building up to something, just bc i could feel the tiredness + nervous buzz mounting even though yesterday was a good day. yet today was a more productive day, but i chalk that up to ability to focus on work with deadlines while compartmentalizing the suddenly mounting worries.
i should even be doing work right now but i'm just, no, it's going to have to wait until tmrw morning. mental health is more important!
xps

i'm sure that reading about shooting sprees and global warming death forecasts didn't help today

otm

http://i.imgur.com/6fr5c.gif

fuck you pabst

yeah it's weird to talk about anxiety issues when there's so much big bad shit going on in the world but if we can't take care of ourselves for a minute and get our ability to reason and problem solve on the bigger issues back on track, then we're even more fucked

deal w/that beer, then deal w/the world

do you see the pabst's infectious smile yet?

was thinking of making clear beer cozies w/ cartoon shades on them, "pabst glasses"

you could do a whole line of characters

Well this sucks.

Seeing a doctor this afternoon, but in the meantime tips/tricks/encouraging words are welcome. First time I've ever experienced this--it's AWFUL!

anything in particular trigger it?

although, seeing as it has been 10 hours since you posted and when i so helpfully replied, you're probably past the tips/tricks phase. hopefully the doc was helpful!

tell us yr woes quincie

Well, I had a particulary stressful work situation a few weeks back (angry client going apeshit to anyone who would listen--never fun) and that caused totally understandable anxiety for a while. But instead of it disappating like it usual does (I've been in plenty of stressful work situations before), it just kept. . . going. And going. And getting worse to the point that I felt physically ill much of the time. And at this point it isn't even that particular client issue that is making me anxious--it has kind of taken on a life of its own, including being anxious about being anxious!

Doc was very matter of fact. He said "when would you like to start feeling better?" and I replied "uh, NOW would be good." He wrote me a script and said if I stopped at the pharmacy on the way home and took the first dose, I'd be feeling better by dinner.

Turns out 1 mg xanax is too much xanax for this gal, so I'm trying half that today. He thinks a brief round of chill pills plus a change of venue (I was to be on vacation next week, anyway, and called my boss today to see if I could just go ahead and start it early) will do the trick. I asked about CBT but he didn't think it was needed? Kinda skeptical about the medication-and-vacation strategy, but hey I'll give it a go. I feel better just having done something about it, I guess.

But man, do I ever feel for my anxious peeps on this thread. I am so so so hoping that this is a one-time thing and that I can put it behind me and not have to worry about it again, because it is truly a terrible, terrible feeling with many bad sequelae re: work, lyfe, physical & metal health, etc.

Like basically my brain was working at about 50% max for the past several weeks; I couldn't remember shit that was just told to me, had trouble reading and writing and doing basic math--it's like I lost a bunch of IQ points somehow. And the physical stuff felt so so bad--the tightness in the chest and queasiness/wanting to throw up all the time, hot flashes like the kind you have when you have to slam on the brakes to narrowly avoid a bad car accident. . . I swear I could actually *smell* the adrenaline and cortisol seeping out of me 94/7.

vacation is a therapy in itself, sometimes

^^^I do believe this, and wish I didn't work in an environment where taking a week off--much less multiple weeks--is like OMG HOW WILL YOU DO IT???

this worked for me, so i'll put it out there - it may work for you too... i started a CBT course (self-learning, not group therapy) for my airplane phobia, and one of the things i found was that the CBT method of teaching you why you're anxious, what is going on in your body to make you feel that way, and some of the strategies to regulate those physical feelings rather than giving into them or getting more stressed about them, really helped with a lot of my general anxiety. so, while a proper CBT treatment course may not be warranted, it might not hurt to buy a book or two and at least go through the first few chapters to better prepare you if rising anxiety comes back after your vacation.

Any book recommendations?

i repped this up thread (it is the one ytth worked with): http://www.amazon.com/End-Panic-Breakthrough-Techniques-Overcoming/dp/1572241136/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpi_1

i think it deals more specifically with panic attacks, but the same techniques work to alleviate anxiety attacks.

thanks, ytth and just1n3--I'm basically a biochemistry dork anyway, so learning more of the physiological stuff will be interesting and no doubt helpful. As of a few minutes ago I am also officially on vacation for ten days, and a change in schedule/change in venue/time to read stuff other than work crap and hang out with people other than batshit clients is likely to give me a good dose of DEAL WITH IT

Like basically my brain was working at about 50% max for the past several weeks; I couldn't remember shit that was just told to me, had trouble reading and writing and doing basic math--it's like I lost a bunch of IQ points somehow. And the physical stuff felt so so bad--the tightness in the chest and queasiness/wanting to throw up all the time, hot flashes like the kind you have when you have to slam on the brakes to narrowly avoid a bad car accident. . . I swear I could actually *smell* the adrenaline and cortisol seeping out of me 94/7.
this is my normal state of being in the months of august-october basically
does this indicate that i have a problem?

well do you like it or no

not really
sometimes i can make it work for me but usually it just makes me feel like i'm choking
i have trouble asking for help :-/

Xp to quincie - imo situational needs are great for dealing with the actual anxiety attack, but cbt is better for dealing with the anxiety-about-getting-anxiety

Isn't that when your job is winding up for the season? I think that it could be a good idea to figure it out.

fwiw, I grew up thinking that a lot of anxiety was normal and this wasn't really disproven by my "I'm so worried about work that I'm throwing up due to nervous stomach in the morning" father and my socially-anxious mom.

Severe anxiety had me all fucked up earlier this year. Too much school on top of my full-time job and new experiences in professional life (all-expenses-paid trip to a national conference) were stressing me out which started to really mess with my multiple sclerosis symptoms.
It created a horrifying feedback loop of stress, symptomatic flare-ups, and terrible anxiety over all of it (surely not helped by my overindulgence of w33d). Being in a long-distance relationship has had some effect on all of this, too.

I had to drop six of the seven hours I'd registered for (not such a huge loss as I am University staff and most of the expense is covered). I took advantage of the free counseling service for university staff, which has really helped a lot.

I'm swimming daily now and I've cut back on smoking considerably. I've never gotten any prescriptions for anxiety meds, afraid I'd just abuse them, tbh. Feeling better than I have in years. About to start another semester. I've decided to just take it one class at a time. I'm not finishing it this year, so be it. There's always next year.

beginning the semester/new AY is rough, isn't it? that's part of what's making me flip out. exercise definitely helps though. i've been walking to and from work when i don't ride my bike.

that feedback loop is v familiar to me.

i know what all this feels like, not sure i have much to add, lot of good advise here tho

if you have anxiety be sure to exercise in the morning, not the afternoon

Why do you say that? Is it sleep-related?
The pool I swim at will start opening earlier this weekend. I'd like to give morning swimming a try.
It will be less convenient than afternoon swimming, though.

For me exercising in the morning gets all of the nerves to calm down so I can face the day. Otherwise I start to stress out about getting my regular work done and WILL I HAVE TIME (or energy?) for the necessary exercise later and worry worry worry. Exercising in the morning prevents that from happening a little. For me!

my round trip walk to/from work is about 2.5 hours, which is a perfect time to listen to music, space out, and also be outside. i don't always have that kind of time, but i know that my mental health benefits when i do.

Yeah, please elaborate on the morning exercise thing if you don't mind. Ive been considering it, mOstly to free up some time in the evening after 10-hour workdays and make it possible to weight train and do cardio on the same day, but if there's a beneficial effect for anxiety as well then that would be wonderful.

like i said, i am speaking only for myself, but exercising in the AM means that i tend not to get to the point of fritzing out because i am *starting* the day at an anxiety deficit. using exercise to defritz at night means that i have to spend more time feeling fritzed out, which is generally not desirable.

My anxiety has been on the upward spiral for the last few months, having already been consistently high for, ooh, a few years, bar the 6 months I was on Prozac.

I've got to the end of what I can cope with, work-wise, and I told my boss on Monday I would leave with 15 days notice. I'm a contractor. Strictly speaking I can't give notice, and leaving early is a breach of contract, but this is an arrangement that is not usually enforced and several people have told me is legally unenforceable.

Boss has refused to accept my notice and insists I can't leave until my outstanding tasks are complete, which takes me through another 6 weeks, which is when my contract ends anyhow.

I am now at the stage where I can't breathe properly, can't sleep, can't answer my work phone without overcoming a wave of nausea, am making stupid mistakes and snapping at people all the time because I am exhausted, angry and strung out, etc. etc.

Going to the doctor asap but I know where this leads; self referral for CBT and a 3 month wait, possibly another prescription, with the 3-week stabilisation period that takes, during which time I turn into a full-scale crazy lady.

I'm so scared. :/ I cannot -can not- deal with a fight. If the doc does sign me off sick, that's not going to do great things for my reputation as a contractor, but I can't go on. Aaagh, breathe.

Keep in touch with us, OK? You have our sympathy.

if you have anxiety be sure to exercise in the morning, not the afternoon

― the late great, Wednesday, August 15, 2012 3:56 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

plz explain this

the basic is that exercise oxygenates the blood and dilates the vessels and speeds the metabolism and therefore *activates* the energetic parts of the brain (the ones that through a mental illness might be responsible for things like anxious energy and manic energy, though not "depression" per se)

if you have anxiety and you exercise in the afternoon, you are going to wake up your brain and stimulate the anxiety centers. instead of going to sleep w/ less energy, you're going to have more energy, which is going to make it more likely that you are going to have a bunch of anxious dreams or insomnia (or in my case an all-night manic episode)

if you exercise in the morning, same thing happens but your *daytime brain* (ie the one that's on at work) can process the anxiety and then when you get home from work you're more tired out and will be able to sleep better

this is all assuming you want to work a 9-5 day and get up at 6, go to bed at 10 pm etc. if you're not on that schedule (you work nights?) then my advice does not apply.

this was a big conversation i had w/ my psych yesterday so i'm just passing her advice on

i'm not really on that schedj.

tbh i find i am way less anxious after exercise, mostly cuz i'm like too fatigued for my brain/body to 'bother'

I'm going to taper off my meds (Effexor which I've been on for the better part of, oh, a decade and which I take because I have GAD and my life was basically like what Quincie described 24/7 before going on it) and I'm a little, well, anxious about it! I just really really hope that things are diff now and my anxiety doesn't return full force.

is everyone anxious? I know I am

conrad's got the anksh.

whole fucking planet is anxious, it's 2012

otm

That said, I've pretty much been anxious since 1977. My parents' bookshelves are littered with titles such as "Coping with the Fearful Child". I can't remember a time when I was never not anxious so I'm sorta hoping that either age or years of medication has altered my brain chem so that is no longer that the case.

¯\(°_o)/¯

i'm not generally anxious but situationally (esp w/ work) i can get really worked up
mostly though i'm just a high energy person who sometimes doesn't know what to do with the energy so it gets sent to the wrong place and turns into anxiety

like when food turns into smelly trash

anxiety is a thing that i've always lived with but never realized was a problem or sought treatment until last year when i realized it was and i did. and that's been helpful. got a very mild ativan prescription which i rarely use but makes me feel less anxious in general just knowing it's there as a break glass in case of emergency thing.

Yes. I have an RX for that I rarely use but feel similarly about.

for Ativan, I mean

it's difficult to gauge what is an abnormal level of anxiety

That is true Conrad, it can be.

similarly what is an abnormal level of fatigue

are you my age e? 35?

77!!

For me it has not been difficult to recognize that I have had an *abnormal* amount of anxiety. The physical symptoms, the cognitive impact, and the fact that all of this has lasted for more than the usual day/week or two of "normal anxiety" (for me) made it clear that this was outside the norm. My issue was figuring out what was the best thing to do about it, which is hard to do when the ole brain ain't working in the usual calm, rational, analytical way. In an attempt to find relief, I was thinking OMG MUST QUIT JOB NOW or OMG MUST RENOUNCE MODERN LIFE AND JOIN MONGOLIAN NOMADIC TRIBE or, just as bad, having what I think of as "hamster on wheel brain" and just having nonsensical thoughts spin and spin and spin and spin while meanwhile my stomach was a wreck and I was about to break a bunch of teeth for the jaw clenching and I felt on the verge of tears 94/7 even though I could not actually manage to cry.

Today was better, btw. Delaying the drastic (quit job, join mongolian nomads) and first giving a doc who knows me well a chance to lay out a more rational path forward was a good step, yay me. And it was very encouraging for him to take an almost blase, "oh no probs, we can totally fix this" attitude was rather helpful, actually.

always have been a pretty calm guy, probably through blissful ignorance? but lately as I've come to appreciate ~life~ my anxiety has been skyrocketing - lot of dry coughing. haven't actually thrown up food yet but maybe come close. the worst part is just, like, being conscious, knowing that consciously you're not thinking of stressful things, but the anxiety's like this background machine hum that just stays there and won't go away no matter what switches you turn on or off in your brain.

my mom, I think, was diagnosed with some kind of anxiety disorder and given a script - as I grow older, I am turning more and more into my mom

I'm sorry you are feeling that, dayo. How long has it been going on?

for the past two weeks or so - those on the board who know a little bit about me irl may know the cause. idk I'll be laying in bed and I'll just think of all the shit I haven't done and then the heartrate goes up, nervous chemicals go out, etc.

V, I am indeed. My birthday isn't until the end of Dec so I'm still 34 but yes, 77! It's the best year to be born imo. :)

Quincie I'm glad to hear you're feeling better today and Dayo I'm sad to hear you're not. Anxiety can go screw imo.

IANAD but my own personal yardstick for "within normal range of life ups and downs" and "something I should think about getting a professional opinion about" is 2+ weeks. Like, I've marked it down on my calendar before.

Works for upper respiratory infections as well as mental health issues ime.

Sounds pretty, well, sound to me.

The best way to vanquish anxiety is to crush the culture that creates it.

i have kind of bad work anxiety right now. like dreading every single day of work and not wanting to return phone calls or anything. but my commute is long (yeah this helps a lot ugh) and i can never get out of bed to exercise in the morning, and then i feel worse/more guilty about it. if i exercise at night i am overcoming a great deal of tiredness to do so and that part also makes me feel bad. i get insane dreams from exercising at night but they have never bothered me, i kind of like them. this sux.

OMG MUST RENOUNCE MODERN LIFE AND JOIN MONGOLIAN NOMADIC TRIBE

anxiety ... or reasonable response to modern society

harbl do we share brains?

phones and email kill me!!

yeah I think I am psychologically unable to respond to an email unless I put myself in the right frame of mind

OMG MUST RENOUNCE MODERN LIFE AND JOIN MONGOLIAN NOMADIC TRIBE

We argue the opposite! Embrace "modern life" to its fullest and reject all vestiges of tribalism, biocentrism, and pre-modernity.

late to the party here, but yes, that CBT book justine recommended is really good. you can do many of the exercises for panic attacks just for general anxiety - the only difference (for me) was where it says to put down the worst case scenario you can imagine, it's less "that i will have a heart attack and die" and more "that i will become paralyzed with anxiety and be unable to move/think/work/etc." the whole process of conditioning your mind to spring from the worst case scenario to the much more likely alternatives has been the one thing that has really helped me cope over the past couple years. i still take lorazepam when i fly (although i'm hopefully going to do a test flight in a few weeks without it, if i feel like i can handle it), but i don't take anything for the general anxiety (though an SSRI has been recommended).

Got so pissed/stressed/anxious when I found out my car that I've spent about two months covering the repair costs for will need even more work before it passes the regular air quality check that I drove straight back home, grabbed my gym bag, and headed to yoga class at the gym tonight. I haven't done this in months.

also, the section on core beliefs is pretty good too. for instance, even though i've been anxious my whole life, it had never occurred to me that there's this one core belief that runs underneath all my other anxiety that simply says "i don't have the strength to manage this." pinpointing it like that then gave me a ground zero to work from to try to retrain my thought process to recognize and refute it whenever it popped up in my cycle of anxious thoughts was a major breakthrough. i have spent hours on flights just writing different variations of "that's bullshit, you ARE strong enough to manage this" in a notebook, and while that wasn't the most pleasant thing, it also was time i didn't spend feeling unbearably anxious about flying.

i have the anxiety & phobia workbook. i did exercises from it in a depression/anxiety workshop last year and they definitely helped while i was doing them. i never really kept up with the exercises though. i still get anxiety attacks, usually when i'm catastrophizing a situation. i wish i could reposition my thinking as "this will go well" instead of "i will screw this up."

still get anxious in large crowds, manage my anxiety by reassuring myself that no one is paying attention to me and I don't have to keep touching my face because that's a terrible way to hide, they can see around your hand

ytth and get bent I thank you for putting out the lack of confidence thing and how it fuels the anxiety. Oddly, I feel pretty confident and capable and logical and all that other "I can totally DEAL WITH IT" on a regular basis; it is only with this newish bout of anxiety stuff that I am feeling doubtful and less-than-competent and all like "oh fuck what do I do I don't even trust myself to decide" stuff. If I can get back to regular old me, I'd feel fine with stressful stuff thrown my way--I've rolled with it kinda badass style before. But why am I unable to access that inner badass now?

IDK, but thanks for all on this thread for providing a really great place to learn/unload/empathize/etc.

I think I will buy that anxiety book. I developed claustrophobia in the last few years and now I freak out in tunnels. I can reasonably avoid elevators and airplanes give me generalized anxiety but it hasn't gotten panicky yet (getting worse though) but I cannot control the anxiety when I'm in a tunnel. Ugh. My sympathies with everyone's anxiety issues.

I also do that thing that someone mentioned up thread (harbl maybe? On phone so can't see) where I prefer to work out in am but haven't been able to get up early enough and it initiates this cycle of guilt and self recriminations.

quincie, at the risk of being one of those horrible armchair diagnosis people, i would venture that maybe there's a deeper core belief in response to which you've developed your badass style. which is great, since that's a super healthy way to manage anxiety. but if it gets so bad that that response stops being able to manage 100% of the strain, anxiety results. it might just be a matter of shoring up your inner badass strain response, which is certainly a better place to start than from scratch.

xp claustrophobia is the worst. i developed it after a traumatic event, and when i was at my lowest point, i could barely handle driving, since tunnels were unbearably scary, moreso if there was traffic. ditto bridges (fear of heights) and raised freeways (fear of heights, but also feeling them move up and down if a truck passed me triggered my phobia of planes). and fear of being caught in a collapsing building in an earthquake got so bad that sometimes it felt like i spent most of my workday in the safety of my parked car talking to justine on the phone rather than in my office building, which i was certain would collapse at any moment. ugh. 2010 was a difficult year in that regard.

the worst part of the panic book is that it tells you you can't avoid stuff that scares you anymore. like, if you're scared of elevators, you're supposed to find the MOST crowded elevator to ride.

mh, I had not thought along those lines, but now I will! I feel that I have somehow lost touch with my formerly reliable coping mechanisms, which took the form of "wtf, this isn't rocket science, and I'm not going to waste time on shit that is beyond my sphere of influence, and the rest I can DEAL WITH so wtf, why worry?"

I would like to summon that thing I use to have; I know it exists!

Oh god. I'm at the emergency rm (sliced finger) for stitches and this girl was just brought in with a roach in her ear and it's kind of horrifying I would not be as cool as she is being and just hearing all this through the curtain is giving me a crapload of anxiety and paranoia

Agh they got it out and she looked in the ear and was like oh the wings are still in there

I need to sleep with earplugs forever

I got anxious in a mass crowd a few years back, but it had more to do with whether I identified with the people or not. I noticed that at the event I was surrounded by a lot of yuppie/upper-middle-class-types which could have set off my class issues and financial/life-expentancy anxieties, but when I went to a drunken awards ceremony later that night at a packed local comic shop filled with people I either knew or identified with I greatly enjoyed myself and had no anxiety.

Also, why just be morbid when you can be comorbid?

This a reassuring thread to read btw y'all.

I get anxious over the dumbest things: walking under operating cranes. Driving over high, long bridges (I dont drive, so being a passenger makes it worse cos lack of control). Heck being passenger in a car in general.

And lack of control over sitsus like work where I can get worked up into one of those defensive "no no no its NOT MY FAULT I DIDNT DO THIS" stupid and make myself look bad with defensive, barbed responses. Had a work situ blow up recently that was a slap in the face in that regard but was helpful, too - to have it shoved in my face made me go "ok shit. I need to be more aware of my actions at work" and Ive done a lot better since then.

Now, I just need to get past my "I am gonna be ALOEN FOREVERERRR" fears... oh and stop having dreams about nuclear blasts and planes crashing :/

I had to ring in sick this morning, after going into a crying jag on my first call. Just fucking a+.

aw Zora :(

Every day brings a new anxiety. Ive never been particularly scared of heights but am in nosebleed seats and really felt some panic rising. Some dudes sat in front of me and it went away but when I went to the bathroom I felt compelled to virtually hug the seats while walking out.

I am feeling SO MUCH BETTER.

Thanking u (minimal, temporary) meds, CBT, spousal and boss support, ilx.

Hope other anxious ilxors get some relief.

Anyone else working through the Anxiety & Phobia workbook by Bourne? I have trouble keeping up with exercises with no one to be accountable for but myself. I can't afford the intensive blast of CBT/exposure therapy that I so desperately need. I do see a therapist for dirt cheap thanks to a non-profit that helps musicians and artist-types get mental health help, but our appointments are infrequent and honestly not structured/activity- based enough to do any good. Like, I intellectually understand the basis of these things and why they're illogical. I need structure and homework. Of course it IS nice to at least be able to vent to someone who does get it and doesn't think I'm crazy.

Just out of curiosity, are you in Athens, GA? Or nearby?

...yes?

I'm slightly familiar with that non-profit, is all, from meeting a member of the founding family.

Oh, sorry, this is me, I just changed my log-in. Obviously. Anyway, I am voyeuristically curious about the organization and how it plays out.

oh ok, I was just wondering how you knew my location, but I've probably mentioned it elsewhere. Noose-ys is fantastic. The patient services coordinator is wonderfully nice. You basically call and go in for a short interview with him, and he contacts the counseling center and/or the psychiatrist who work with them (these are both separate from the organization itself). Counseling sessions are dirt cheap. $10/hour, though they are very busy, and it's hard to get the number of appointments I would like. The psych is only $20/visit, and is totally awesome and adorable, and quite willing to talk about life/existential issues and stuff beyond just symptoms and medication. Also seems to be cautious about over-medicating, and took my concerns about taking a daily thing seriously. Seeing him has been quite reassuring, though I haven't as yet begun the SSRI/5HT1A receptor agonist he thinks I should try.

The place also has excellent and affordable practice spaces for bands. A+ all around.

You do sign release forms for info to be shared between the counselors and and the service coordinator, but for me personally I no longer give a shit who knows I'm nuts.

I didn't know yr loc, I just thought, how many organizations like that can there be? And it seemed to fit. I'm glad yr experience is so positive!

Let the paranoid fly, emily!

It's the least of my mental problems!

word, word

i tried that book, but i couldn't keep up with the full body relaxation exercises. it's still valuable, but i've had better luck with more focused CBT workbooks.

Yes, I've never been able to bring myself to do those! I know some other people were talking about phobias upthread, and the handbook really doesn't go that in-depth with phobias, either. I think I need one that JUST deals with agoraphobia.

Can you remember what books were helpful for you?

Also, some of my panic attacks stemmed from undiagnosed asthma (just found out last month). While I was definitely having a panic response to my asthma symptoms, and I still have issues, it is a little better now that I'm taking an inhaler. Soooo, it might be worth it to rule out other correctable physiological causes (low blood sugar, anemia, asthma, thyroid problems)---without, of course, going the whole health anxiety/denial of mental illness route.

I need books on health anxiety, too. Right now I'm really hung-up on anaphylaxis.

justine found and bought this for me, and it has helped me immensely. there's even a section on understanding physical symptoms and NOT letting those compound the panic feedback loop, so there's a good chance it could help with the panic response to asthma symptoms.
http://www.amazon.com/End-Panic-Breakthrough-Techniques-Overcoming/dp/1572241136/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1346943299&sr=8-1&keywords=an+end+to+panic

I had a major anxiety attack (and migraine, vomiting,.....) due to my daughter going to the first year of elementary school. I know it's completely ridiculous (she can already read books for 3rd year elementary school, she can more or less write and do maths). SO WHY THE FUCK DO I HAVE TO THROW UP? Because I fear I will fail. lol. Of course I do not tell my kids why I was so bad. I don't want to inflict my worries on them.

sorry to hear that natalie. but, you are probably right about keeping your kids in the dark for now

taking a short (>90 minute) flight tomorrow, and i'm going to attempt it without medication. (not because there's anything wrong with medication, but because this is a step i'm supposed to take in my recovery from flight phobia.) i'm feeling anxious as fuck about it, though. it's great to have an entire weekend spent under a dark cloud of anxiety just because of 90 minutes on monday evening.

If I'm posting a lot to ilx today, it's because I feel a panic attack coming on and am attempting to stave it off.

I had to go to the hospital last month because of heart palpitations from anxiety and having near constant anxiety for the past six weeks has not been fun.

some posters may know I am a fan of cognitive therapy techniques - do you ever use any?

I probably should, but I think part of the problem is I've been pressed for time so I keep putting it off.

what are you anxious about right now

I don't even have a specific concern, it's just been constant low level anxiety that occasionally gets worse to the point of panic attacks. My doctor has prescribed me celexa to treat it, but it hasn't seemed to be particularly helpful so far. It's been a month, and I can't say I feel any better than I did before.

so it sounds like you have anxiety about having anxiety?

"You do sign release forms for info to be shared between the counselors and and the service coordinator, but for me personally I no longer give a shit who knows I'm nuts."

a sure sign of health in my opinion

so it sounds like you have anxiety about having anxiety?

Yes, that's how neurotic I have become. It would be funny if not for how bad the anxiety can get.

I don't think its funny. But its interesting how humans are such complex systems in that way. Like for example, you may feel bad about yourself for feeling bad about yourself, and then its like a self-feeding cycle. I can see why it would be worrying to think "I have become neurotic." I have come to accept that I am neurotic and that's ok, though it makes me feel better to do certain exercises to deal with it.

xp i think it's pretty typical to feel that way? like, the dread of a panic attack is its own kind of panic attack.

i know i sound like a broken record in this thread, but for realz: get the panic/anxiety workbook upthread. ytth has been lax in using it the past few months, i pushed him yesterday to get back on it since we're flying tonight and he was having a rough day, and it totally made a difference. it does take time, but you just have to carve out 30mins in your day for it, or however long.

I don't even have a specific concern, it's just been constant low level anxiety that occasionally gets worse to the point of panic attacks. My doctor has prescribed me celexa to treat it, but it hasn't seemed to be particularly helpful so far. It's been a month, and I can't say I feel any better than I did before.

― NR’s resident heavy-metal expert (Nicole), Monday, September 10, 2012 4:23 PM (18 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Do you have a follow-up soon?

I was kind of hoping ILE could be the panic workbook

ytth has his with him today, otherwise i would totally post some stuff out of it for nicole

Anxiety about anxiety is pretty common, I think. I have had conversations with a friend about how having a filled prescription for Xanax results in fewer anxiety attacks since it's calming to know that there's something there if we need it.

http://www.amazon.com/When-Panic-Attacks-Drug-Free-Anxiety/dp/076792083X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1347309949&sr=8-1&keywords=when+panic+attacks

never read this particular book but I dig Dr. Burns in general - you could get the kindle version and have access right away!

I studied Psychology in college and worked in social work. At first I thought I wanted to be a therapist but then I wasn't sure if I was too neurotic myself to really manage that. Still though I have the desire to try to help people sort out their psychological dilemmas. Maybe I should become a "internet" therapist

http://www.online-therapy.com/

I do have a follow up later this month. I will try and check out the panic workbook, I appreciate the advice.

panic feedback loop is pretty common. i get it all the time, end up going from 0-to-euthanasia real quick

I think I generally operate under constant low to medium level anxiety.

At the moment life in general reminds me of how I think about driving: how come other people seem to be able to relax and enjoy it. Are they delusional? At any moment I could be wiped out by an erratic driver or I could cause an accident myself. There's just so much to worry about!

But of course most worrying/anxiety is completely useless.

But it does seem to be getting worse this year. Oonce you start getting into a panic feedback loop, you can feel how bad it is for you - almost shaking yourself apart.

I guess you can think of statistic - its true that someone may wipe you out but how often does taht typically happen if you are sober well rested and not using a cell phone? If it was a frequent occurrence most people would choose not to drive. No one wants to crash. I say this not to put you down or something just to point out allot of anxiety thoughts are not very rational, and if you can see that you will not have the anxiety becuase thoughts create feelings (or so is the idea behind cognitive therapy) I also think worry allot about car accidents - indeed it is one of the main threats to our bodies in our culture but if you cant drive you ant live in our society either very well

We need to start an Anxiety & Phobia workbook group! I think there is a lot of valuable stuff in there, I just can't motivate myself to stick to my weekly practice goals.

Thanks for the props, Brony, and the other book recommendation, ytth

I was discussing countering negative self-talk with my therapist. I said, "I can come up with the rational responses, I just have very little belief in them." She said something that was really helpful: It doesn't matter if you don't believe in them now. Just generate them. Your rational mind is working against a much more primitive, compelling part of your brain, so it takes a lot of practice.

There's also this thing about not tensing up against the panic, letting it come on and riding it out. But I'll be damned if I can figure out how the fuck to do that. (My health worries are insane, and I'm always convinced I need to take immediate action or I will die. No amount of having lived through attacks seems to correct this.) Gwuh.

A good friend recommended the anxiety+phobia workbook to me after it was helpful for him (though my problem is not really clinical anxiety) but I tend to get stuck at the physical relaxation parts. Like, sometimes I can't tell if muscles are properly relaxed or just slightly less tense, or I can feel that they are tense but that I have no idea what signal my brain has to send to make them not-tense, and then I get into a loop of frustration and decide to skip those bits and end up skipping most of a chapter at once and giving up...

Anyone know what I mean or have any suggestions?

Yes! Really hard part for me. I have tried to find guided relaxations that don't squick me out. So far, no luck.

I've tried to start doing some qui gong instead. That, and this: http://www.rainymood.com/

I've gone into a fucking destructive spiral of self-doubt anxiety in the last 2 days convincing myself that my new bf has suddenly lost interest in me - I'm p sure he hasnt, logically, but I cannot shake this irrational gripping fear because this *has* happened before. I've kind of txted him a couple times asking if everythigns ok, and then admitting im the one whos sad, and he's been fine but a little more... terse than usual which is making me worse, and I feel like I am creating a problem where one wasnt there, and I went drinking with my bff last night in the hopes of distracting myself but all I've done instead is give myself such a bad hangover I now feel sick and wired up and PMSsy and HORRIBLE and I cannot shut off my brain HELP.

Like right now, all I want to be doing is be in my garden wrist deep in the soil pulling up weeds and planting lavender in the sunshine, instead I'm stuck in an office with a hangover and almost driven to tears with frustration at myself.

The problem with that mindset is that it's occasionally akin to 'fake it 'til you make it' but in a negative way. If you're approaching the relationship in fear and panic, it's likely to adversely affect the nature of the relationship. Particularly if you aren't communicating about the source of the panic, as he's likely to pick up on the panic but feel bewildered by its presence. I'd argue that the best thing to do would be either a) discuss your anxiety with him if you feel comfortable doing so or b) refrain as much as possible from exposing your anxiety to him until you've worked through it on your own or with the help of others. Throwing unexplained and seemingly-directionless panic into the midst of a relationship does no one any good.

Yeah, as I'm pretty sure its mostly situational anxiety (ie PMS-triggered, I suffer very badly from whats closer to... whats it called, PMDD?), I thknk yr latter points perhaps wiser. But I dont want to look like I'm avoiding him, and on top of all this my parents are visiting on the weekend which is an extra layer of UGH but, I had wanted him to meet them too :( I dont know what to do now. blergh. Try and meditate at my desk I guess.

Awww :(

Alcohol: great for anxiety. Hangover: terrible for anxiety.

Anything you can take for the PMDD? I've heard dong quai can help. I myself am trying to figure out if my anxiety maps to my menstrual cycle at all.

My GP actually recommended temporary doses of SSRIs! Which I was like... wtf, no way, how can that possibly help when it takes a week or 2 to kick in? So I declined that idea. I should go back on th'pill but I'd have to qit smoking.

Which type of pill? I've heard that progesterone has a tranquilizing, though depressing effect, and estrogen can exacerbate panic attacks (although estrogen is very complex and they don't really know what all it does.) So it would seem that someone with panic disorder might have more attacks leading up to ovulation, when the estrogens are climbing. I don't know if this is true at all or true for me. I definitely get some kind of weird body dysmorphia and serious self-hatred the week before my period, not sure about attacks.

xp

you seem to careen between ecstasy and despair (based on my reading from 10 time zones away). i kind of envy you the ecstasy, but it is worrisome.

i dunno. but i wish u the best of course

I do, rather a bit. It is effing frustrating :(

I dunno, I find that slowly inching my way into a relationship helps to temper my anxiety somewhat. That way, my trust and my expectations and my sense of my partner's feelings and my comfort with open communication all keep pace with one another. Anytime I jump into anything serious, all that shit gets out of sync and I wind up, for instance, having expectations that don't match my partner's and that neither of us are comfortable discussing because we don't fully trust one another yet. Casual -> serious needs to be a continuum for me, and a slow one at that.

"Thanks for the props, Brony," this made me lol - proud Brony

Trayce "you're not sick you're just in love"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMHS6D8tFvE

to plug David Burns again - he has some great chapters in The Feeling Good Handbook about successful communication in relationships that has helped me allot

The A&P workbook by Bourne has a good chapter on assertive communication as well. Having to genuinely assess my communication style was...elucidating.

Also, yes, limerence is a state of mild-though thankfully transitory-insanity.

Dropping in here to ask for advice. My new roommate is extremely upset (crying for hours, shouting) over one of her grad school courses (she dropped it then wished she hadn't and can't get back on it), and told me she's reacting to an anxiety med adjustment. She's under a lot of stress as she's never lived this far from home before, plus the whole starting grad school thing. I hardly know her yet as we both just moved in, so I haven't pressed her for details of what the medication is. The earliest doc appointment she can get is next week - I urged her to try to get an emergency one earlier. If she can't, is there anything that might help her get through the next week? She should probably go see the drop-in counsellors, I think. Realize that this is kind of an impossible question without more details about her, probably...

i got anxiety attacks when i moved to a new city and started grad school. the school counselor wasn't much use as a therapist, but she sorted me out with a referral to a psychiatrist. i wish i hadn't waited until just before finals to seek counseling, but it did help get me through the rest of school.

i would urge your roommate to call back the psychiatrist and get an emergency appointment, and if that's not possible, find another doctor who can see her right away.

Ugh. That sounds like more than an anxiety med adjustment. I guess not really knowing her the best you can do is make it obvious you are available to help her without pressing too hard, unless it seems like she is going to hurt herself. xpost

She said anxiety yesterday but it's not; she's bipolar, she told me this morning. Trying to contact emergency doctors.

e, I don't think she'll hurt herself but of course I hardly know her :-(

Shit, man. I feel bad for your roommate but also for you - that's a lot to have to deal with in a new roommate but esp someone you don't even know. Hope you're OK.

Is this normal behavior for your roomate? a pattern?

benzos are satan's smarties

Latham, she's been hyper ever since arriving, but not upset/fixated as she is now. I've only known her 10 days, so hard to say, but she says this is the worst she's been in a long time.

yeah not having many details or a history of her past behavior its really hard to say. Your best bet would be to contact a professional. People often go to the ER for crisis, or call a crisis hotline.

Yeah, I tried to persuade her to go to the ER to get her meds upped again to the proper dose. I don't fully understand why her dosage came down in the first place - she tried to explain but wasn't very coherent. She wasn't having any of it though, because she was focused completely on getting back onto this course and not falling behind with other work. She did commit to going to the counsellor to ask for an emergency doc appointment. If I come home and find she did that and they didn't get her an emergency appointment, I'll see if she'll consider the ER again or try to find a hotline.

She's considering just titrating herself up to the full dose without the say-so of a doctor here or her doc back home. I don't know whether that's a bad idea or not given she's just had a few weeks well below that dose?

In my experience, little that I have, meds are usually only about 30% of the cure. The rest is talking, working things out

I could not get her off going over and over the issue with this course. I did discover it's related to her bff's expertise/fear of being outdone in some way. I hope the counselling people sat and talked to her this morning.

Its hard to be the therapist in your situation. the most you can probably do is listen and show empathy. and hope this is not the start of a 4 year ordeal for you

Yipes. that's so hard to navigate with someone who's practically a stranger - hope you're holding up okay! Maybe get her to help you prepare a meal or something kinda hands on (housework? gardening?) to try to get her off the course-obsession? I dunno. Other than just letting her offload and just being there, there's probably not a whole lot you can do for right now.

Doing med adjustments herself when she's in crisis does NOT sound like a good idea. It's tricky, because you don't want to go over her head or violate her privacy, but it sounds like an untenable situation. Are there people closer to her who know what's going on? Seems like the boyfriend should be helping out. Let us know how it goes. :(

I 'met' the boyfriend on Skype last night when my roommate was walking the house with her laptop with him connected. He was nice, and patient, in that he talked to her for hours until she went to sleep, but also kind of nonplussed (knew about the meds, but seemed amazed by her reaction). I think he might be a relatively new boyfriend. And he's in a city 5 hours away. Thanks for the meds advice - it seems so simple, just go back to the previous dose, but I know it probably isn't :/

Veg, when she's upset she cannot do anything else at all, but she seems to be able to 'hold it in' temporarily - when I left this morning she was talking normally to the woman who is the 'renter' of the shared house. 5 min earlier she'd been in little bits sobbing on the floor of my room.

I'll update when I see her. Thanks for the advice - I know there's not much I can really do.

:( Hope there's a light at the end of her tunnel soon. (And yours)

Thank you for using "nonplussed" correctly.

I didn't realize there had been an issue with 'nonplussed' - had to Google it to find the problem!

The counsellor saw her and has started bringing her back up to her normal dosage, which is good but will take weeks. But she's still inconsolable over the course. There's a possible resolution of the course issue ('auditing' it - I guess that means 'observing it' - new Candianism to me) but she won't know whether that's possible till tomorrow. Once she does, and she reacts, it'll be easier to tell how things are going to go.

I read "nonplussed" used incorrectly in Newsweek just last night!

At least she has some professional guidance with the meds.

Going through some form of this right now. Had the same thing happen 20+ years ago when I was in teacher's college. It made sense then--I was almost 30 and back in the classroom for the first time in five years, doing something I never expected to be doing. I can't figure out what's going on now. But every day my mind's racing, and I've felt absolutely clueless at work since school let back in. Today I couldn't remember the word for "pylon." Very disconcerting--I will just plow through and wait for it to pass.

might be a good idea to go for a check-up with GP, just to make sure nothing else is going on?

Thanks. I'll give it a little time, but will keep that in mind.

"Meaning perplexed or bewildered, nonplussed is very often thought to mean just the opposite—calm, unruffled, cool-as-a-cucumber."

WTF? I have never heard of this confusion, wow.

I have never heard anyone get that wrong either.

Here in the UK I've never heard it misused to mean "unruffled" but have heard it used to mean "actively annoyed/disgusted", which makes me twitch slightly, though maybe it's less of an abuse

oh and uh best wishes ljub (and roommate!) and clemenza

i've heard it more often used for the "unruffled" meaning than the so-called correct one

me too

non·plussed/nänˈpləst/
Adjective:
(of a person) Surprised and confused so much that they are unsure how to react.
(of a person) Unperturbed.

ok, this is making me anxious, are emily.s and emilys. the same person?

I don't think so! One is America and one in UK unless I am wrong? It's weird/confusing though!

That is exactly what I thought. Whew, I thought I was going nuts.

lol minor anxieties on the anxiety thread surprise surprise ;)

oh wait it's emil.y and emilys.

never mind, I'm bad at this

I was allot anxiety today when I had to go train some people but then they didn't even show up.

My roommate was allowed to audit the course she wanted, and now she seems fine. I hope everything levels off for her a bit more now. Thanks for everyone's thoughts.

maybe since she's feeling better you could have a compassionate but boundary setting discussion about how any future episodes should be managed? this all seems like a potential large burden for you, a virtual stranger to her, when you have just arrived and have your own work and affairs to worry about. the fact that she seems fine now that she's got her own way with the course makes me wary.

the fact that she seems fine now that she's got her own way with the course makes me wary.

Yes, that occurred to me too :/ There are others in the house as well, including the couple who rent it from the landlord; they've been subletting for years and place a lot of stock in a friendly and calm house, so I think if it happened again they would be concerned. I'll see if there's a natural opportunity for a discussion about how to handle anything else that might arise.

Yeah, I was giving her the benefit of the doubt, but freaking because of not being able to do this one course NOW seemed a bit childish. But idk, maybe not doing it was messing with her whole grad school plan.

Yes, emil.y and I are distinct. She once came across a thread a drunkenly posted a long time ago, and said something to the effect of "At first I thought this was me! Thank god, I don't remember ever being this much of an arse," or something, which made me lol.

What a saga ljubljana! How's your roommate now?

I got signed off sick for 2 weeks after the last major bout of anxiety. I went to Barcelona and baked in the sun, and then I went to Wales and wandered in the rain, and I felt good so I went back to work. Two weeks on, and it's just about as bad as before. I'm not weepy this time, but I am hostile & defensive, and my heart feels like it's split into several parts and they're all trying to get out of my chest in different directions. I've emailed my boss to say I'm not going in; I was shaking too badly to phone her. Then I had to turn my blackberry off because the prospect of a reply was unbearable.

I'm cutting and running from this job, which is fine - my contract is up at the end of the month anyway - but I can't help wondering what this means for the long term, if I can no longer do the only type of work I'm qualified for because I can't handle the pressure, or *any* degree of conflict in the workplace?

I'm not on any medication at the moment except ambien which I take 3-4 times a week. I've been on Prozac in the past but I didn't like it. I don't get depressed except through mental exhaustion caused by the anxiety. Should I be asking my GP for anti-anxiety drugs? I'm seeing him later today.

Ambien is very good IME if you have a day job. Many medications don't help you get work done. It's either that or harder stuff like tranquilizers or sedatives which are kind of sleazy these days and you can develop a nasty addiction.

A while back I found myself using my surplus of pain medications to get through the day. Thank god they ran out before I got addicted. The stuff works and you feel great, but...then you have a nasty addiction.

I had to fight with my doctor over several visits to get him to give me anti-anxiety meds, not anti-depressants. Kind of silly to take anti-depressants when you're not really depressed. I wonder why they are so reluctant to prescribe those, seeing how the capitalist system mandates productivity!

xp Roommate now seems totally fine, if a bit hyper, but I suspect she's always hyper. Hard to pull apart personality/anxiety/bipolar in this case.

What a horrible dilemma about work. I don't have any clue about the answer to your question, but wishing you all the very best for getting a sensible conversation out of your GP and decent treatment from this and future bosses.

along with all the healthy advise of sleep, proper diet, and exercise, I would also add practicing gratitude or whatever you want to call it, counting your blessings, looking on the bright side...

sounds simple and corny, but there have been studies done that show improved mental health. So simple to do daily, but so easy to forget.

Thanks everyone. The doctor has signed me off for 2 weeks again, which gets me out of ever having to go back into this job. I do have to dig up the strength to talk to HR, file outstanding time sheets, do expenses, hand back my kit etc., which all feels impossible but I will try to tackle it tomorrow. Oh and I should tell the boss. Erk.

No meds; I've promised to go outside and walk around a lot again.

I agree about the blessings and have repped several times on the depression thread for loving-kindness meditation etc. The Buddhist centre near my digs in London is a scary cult but I'll have another bash at finding some non-scary place to go and breathe and think nice things.

Hiya, Zo! Thinking of you, fyi.

That level of anxiety/life-interference might merit another look at meds. Obviously it is a very personal choice, and there are good reasons to NOT take meds, but a low dose of tranquilizer is not the devil, and it doesn't have to be forever. There are other options like buspar, if the worry is over dependence or addiction.

Anyway, I hope it gets better soon! Maybe there is another solution to livelihood that won't make you feel terrible.

The past few days I've woken up with my heart racing and my mind over-fixating on stuff and it's driving me nuts. The last time I was like this was before a job interview and it was pretty severe although at least temporary. I have a lot of particularly stressful things on my plate right now but I feel like I'm not even *that* actively worried about it all, it's like my body knows otherwise and is going into overdrive. The other day I could hardly eat and I'm not getting much sleep. Work is great because it distracts me and then I'm calmer, although the heart-racing thing fluctuates through the day (and makes me worry more!), but I think I need to see a doctor soon if it doesn't get better. I'd rather not take anything if I don't have to.. any tips for strategies to get past this? I usually just try and figure out what in particulary is worrying me so much, but I know, and it's not going away for a while.

well let's start with the basics. breathe, in and out, a lot. maybe cut down on your caffeine, drink some good herbal teas. pay attention to your body and what you need -- the right clothes, the right food, the right setting. if you're not feeling something, don't be hesitant to do something about it. little things are huge.

apart from that, talk to someone. like in person. voice on voice helps you clarify, and people have tips.

most importantly, smell the flowers. literally, go buy some. and something nice to drink and eat. if you think you're taking things too slow, take them even slower. there's plenty of fast-paced shit in this world as it is, it could stand a slowmo. and don't forget to breathe.

surm so otm with all of that

def see a doctor about the racing heartbeat though, just to be safe.

the only other thing I would say is anxiety creates a muscle memory, so each time you get into a situation where you've had anxiety before, you have it again almost right away. but you can lessen it by concentrating on breathing, on getting your brain out of that pattern and slowing yourself down and concentrating on being calm. even if you have to go outside or take a moment by yourself somewhere, stop what you're doing...it can help a little bit.

this is probably good advice, but sometimes it's helpful to scream your guts out. a guttural scream. AAAAAGGGGGGGGGHHHHH

this was easy for me when i had a car, but now i don't have one, and maybe you don't either. so maybe get a zipcar and scream your guts out.

this is probably NOT good advice, is what i meant. jeezus

your face is good advice xx

hey kinder, it wouldn't hurt to get a checkup, but the heart racing thing from stress just happens sometimes. It's hard not to pay attention, which prolongs it. A while ago, I went through a whole bunch of tests for this because it was happening all the time, and found out there was nothing physically wrong, but spending a couple weeks worrying that I might have a heart condition & not being able to stop the racing was not pleasant. I would say def cut back on caffeine and alcohol and sugar, especially in the evening. Weirdly, sometimes if you cough it will settle down, or focusing on some other movement like tapping your fingers together can take your mind off it and then it goes back to normal.

When I get racy and panicky, which mostly happens at work, I put my headphones on with one of Brian Eno's ambient albums - Music for Airports, Amnient 1-2-3 etc. They really, really help. His ambient music is so calming and focussed.

Walking/cycling change of environment (preferably a Park or some greenery).

Sometimes it doesn't seem to be having any effect whilst I'm out, but I feel better when I get back.

Thanks all, this is good!
Muscle memory thing and coughing both otm!
ZS I have a driving test in a few weeks, maybe I will try your advice then?
Tomorrow I should hopefully be able to address one of the things so I'll see if anything improves then. It doesn't help that I'm the world's most impatient person so I get antsy if I know I have to do something but I can't do it for a while.

ZS I have a driving test in a few weeks, maybe I will try your advice then?

irl lol

well, you didn't perform so well on the parallel parking portion of the exam, but your guttural scream is magnificent!

hey kinder, it wouldn't hurt to get a checkup, but the heart racing thing from stress just happens sometimes. It's hard not to pay attention, which prolongs it. A while ago, I went through a whole bunch of tests for this because it was happening all the time, and found out there was nothing physically wrong, but spending a couple weeks worrying that I might have a heart condition & not being able to stop the racing was not pleasant. I would say def cut back on caffeine and alcohol and sugar, especially in the evening. Weirdly, sometimes if you cough it will settle down, or focusing on some other movement like tapping your fingers together can take your mind off it and then it goes back to normal.

Daria otm. I went through the same thing a couple of months back -- my heart was fine, but fixating on it or worrying about it just made things worse. Cutting back on sugar and caffeine helped me out a lot.

Roommate from upthread has been broken up with by her b/f and I'm not sure how this is going to go. Turns out she was on anti-depressants as well as meds for bipolar, and her doctor let her stop it all at the same time, on the cusp of grad school. Insane.

I've had the heart race thing only through work stress or relationship stress, and only first thing in the morning - it starts about 0.0000001 secs after I wake up and won't stop until I get up. Haven't had it happen in a while, but it's horrible. Good luck with getting rid of it, Kinder, everyone's advice here sounds very sensible.

^^^I have also had the waking-up-with-heart-racing thing. It gets better as the day goes on, a fact that I try to remember in the moment. 99% of the time I'm feeling OK by the time I've showered/commuted/settled in at work. The other 1% is what xanax is for.

Oh but my protip is that having everything laid out and ready to go for the next morning--clean towels, every bit of necessary clothing/accessories laid out, coffee maker set to auto-start, car gassed up--helps ease the discomfort somewhat. But it is still damned uncomfortable!

That's a good bit of advice whether or not you're getting the wake-up anxiety. Morning prep, when I actually do it, always makes me feel pretty good in general, makes it easier to go to sleep, and makes my morning a lot better.

otm

Yes, my anxiety & phobia workbook has a bit about time management. I am always underestimating how long it will take to do things and running around all harried. Nbd for a long time, but I think it caught up with me always being like aaaggghh!

^^ this is my life too.

Unbelievably, heart racing happened to me this morning for the first time in about 18 months. Did I do that to myself just by posting/thinking about it? Very stressful day today, so probably not.

I got so mentally unbalanced and had a middle of the night brain anxiety thing last Thursday and ended up calling in sick to work on Friday. All the advice here is pretty good.

Z S otm about the joys of guttural screams in a car, although I can't speak as to its efficacy. I've been doing this on the rare occasion for years!

i've been doing some reading about OCD lately, since i'm wondering if i have a form of it. not compulsions as much as obsessive/fixating thoughts about really horrible stuff that intrude on my thought process at inopportune times and make me feel really anxious and awful about myself. i just read a comic book about a character who suffers from this, and it hit pretty close to home for me. it doesn't affect my life too horribly (unlike previous bouts of generalized anxiety), but it will often catch me at a moment when i'm happy or content, and then instead of being happy or content, i just wonder why i am so awful.

You're not awful; that does sound like OCD. I've had intrusive thoughts about self-harm. I have NO INTEREST in doing this, but it crosses my mind that it's POSSIBLE and then I get freaked out. Thing you've got to realize is these thoughts occasionally flicker across almost everyone's mind from time to time, just most people brush it off or maybe don't even notice it. Just because you think it doesn't mean it's going to happen, and it doesn't make you a bad person. I think people who suffer OCD tend to overvalue their thoughts.

yup ocd. what a shit show. tends to jump in right when you're most content, attacks "what you value most"

so how do you deal with OCD? are there CBT-like techniques that help? i guess i've had this my whole life - it just seems different than my fear-based anxiety. i feel afflicted by anxiety like i'd feel afflicted by illness, but the OCD stuff seems more like it's just my worthless, disgusting self being worthless and disgusting. in other words, anxiety is a problem i have, and this other stuff is just who i am.

i mean, i can identify with ocd a bit -- my general philosophy is don't worry too much about it unless it gets in the way of other things i want to do. when that happens, i check myself (however necessary) and so far i have wound up ok.

do i think this could last forever? honestly, maybe. i hope so! it is kind of who i am. obsessing about things is fun for me in most ways! the c and the d are the things that need to be checked. everyone's different though so obvs ymmv.

OCD is (can be dealt with as) an illness, too. If you can move compulsions from the "worthless & disgusting self" category to the illness/pathology/maladaption category, that's a start.

(but don't move those compulsions to the "do I have a life-threatening illness?" category, because lemme tell you from personal experience that shit will drive you insane)

how to deal with OCD.

well there are a few things. 1 is you have to realize that some wheels are just going to turn. like, you don't have a choice. certain obsessions will just turn round and round in your brain and you have to let them. help what you can change as opposed to trying to change what you cannot.

OCD is very, very personal, so dealing is v different for everybody. some CBT mechanisms work more universally than others. 1 is embracing imperfection. a lot of people dealing with this are obsessed with perfection and beauty and so training yourself to find the beauty in imperfection, disorder and ugliness can be crucial. those things are beautiful too. say the wrong thing, mess up your hair and act like a total goofball when you need to. it helps.

other than that i'm still tryin to figure it out so i'll keep you posted

appropriately enough i have been going thru a series of extreme OCD attacks for the past couple of days, and i was hoping to wake up on the day of thanksgiving feeling thankful and free of anxiety but that didn't happen. i am at a loss. every time i think i may have a good go at a reasonable day my brain flips out. and at this point i am just tired, all i want is to lie in bed. but it's thanksgiving and there are people coming here and as much as i feel like a broken record, and as sick as i am of all of this, i really just don't know how i'm going to put on a face and be full of mirth. pretty sure my only answer is to get tanked.

you're gonna be ok, surm. take breaks from the people if you need to. hell, take a nap if you need one! <3

thanks sweetie. Ryan just reminded me to breathe and take it one step at a time, dunno why i always forget my own advice. i hope you are enjoying this feast of food!

You too! I am cooking up a storm, already full after breakfast, wondering if I can eat even 1/4 of the food I'm cooking. I have cursed the people from America's Test Kitchen already multiple times.