I have been feeling very panicky for about 5 days now. It all started when I had a Monday off work and I felt a bit unwell (headache, that sort of thing). I then started to come down with a cold/ flu thing, and I had to go home from work Thursday last week (about 7 days ago now). I was literally unable to move with the cold and flu symptoms for a couple days, but then the weekend started to feel a little better, until my wife went to work the Sunday and I tried to put a new contact lens in. I have eye problems which the eye doctor has so far been unable to treat after having a few operations on it and wearing lenses - my left eye isn't working very well at all it's all blurry. The new lens didn’t work, and I spend a large part of that afternoon trying different ones (old ones), still feeling run down and upset about the lens – but the strange thing is, I wasn’t massively upset as I knew it would be a long shot again with this lens. Or at least I don't think this is what got me all worked up! I had aching legs and felt generally quite out of it anyway still.

Monday came and I tried to go to work. I had a lot of work to do and starting a new job, in the same team but with more responsibility, so when I came in I was still feeling unwell, and then trying to look after my apprentice, I started getting flushes and felt generally quite panicky and physically unwell again. I told my manager I had to go home, and went home, and got into bed and slept all day until my doctor’s appointment (which was a checkup for my meds). I was very shaky and made worse that I hadn’t eaten I am sure. He believed that this was all just a lot of anxiety after the cold and flu, so he didn’t change anything. I went home feeling very unwell and very stresses, very panicky and anxious at the physical symptoms. I had a bath and listened to a hypnosis tape but this didn’t help as I felt so physically unwell.
I slept most of the night. Tuesday came and I woke feeling OK at first, went and got a tea and Weetabix, ate them and then instantly felt sick and my skin flushed, and I panicked and called NHS direct – I told them I was having palpitations and they said to go to A&E so I rang my mum. She drove over. IN the meantime I rang my doctor’s surgery and I went there with mum instead and broke down about everything I have been struggling with. He was very understanding, but I couldn’t get out of my mind that I was physically unwell. I was still recovering from the bug in my opinion and needed something to get me through the next few days (I think I was thinking Diazepam or something or maybe some confirmation I was unwell physically).

I went home, still feeling unwell (had barely eaten since Sunday) and tried to eat a sandwich. I couldn’t eat anything and this made it all 10x worse. I was getting rly panicky and couldn’t calm down – whenever I tried to lie down I was up again all manic and scared. I was upset I would make my wife upset so asked my mum to call her – she got very upset my mum called and not me. She was looking after her mum who is terminally ill. I was convinced I needed to go to hospital or go somewhere to make me better and mum tried to calm me down but this didn’t work very well. She made me dinner and I ate a small amount of it but felt so sick after eating. Then I lay down. My wife came in upset, my mum tried to intervene and said many random things as she was a little drunk after having some drink here, and it all spun out of control again. Laura was so unhappy and upset, mum left and I called my dad for the second time that day. He calmed Laura down and then we made up and we went to bed. I slept on the sofa as was feeling very unwell still.

I woke up in the morning after having many vivid dreams and sweating (as I always seem to do on my meds now, though I had decided that night to have it in the morning instead of the evening) and felt rly unwell again. I went and told my wife and she got upset. She gave me an orange and I threw it up. She gave me toast and I threw that up. I started convulsing and we called the paramedics out. They said to me it was just a very bad panic attack. This upset me even more because I was convinced there was something medically wrong with me, even though all the stats seemed to indicate I was fine. I had a very difficult morning panicking still, unable to eat – I tried some fruit and threw that up a little, so I called my dad and he calmed me down again. I felt a bit better so tried to eat soup, and then threw that up. I then spent the afternoon trying to calm myself and have a nice PM with my wife, who was so exhausted by it all and the events of the previous night with my mum. We managed to have a reasonably nice evening together and I started to calm down a bit. I asked my doctor to call earlier and he rang, and he said he didn’t want to change my medication, and that my vomiting was a result of anxiety and feeling unwell. I asked if he felt coming down a dose would help, and he said he was happy for me to try this if I wanted.

I managed to keep down scrambled egg and 2 bananas that night, and managed to eat a tiny bit of a sandwich from the day before. I went to bed downstairs again as I was still worried about being sick but felt happier in myself. I left my meds again and resolved to take them in the morning instead again and try and change the routine as I wondered if the meds at night were making me sweat more and perhaps I wasn’t getting the best out of them. I woke up when my wife went to work at 5:30am, felt a little panicky but OK said goodbye to her. I then started to feel very panicky again when I next woke up. I took my sertraline 100mg and laid in bed for about 20 mins but felt so anxious and achey again so I got up to put a film on. I couldn’t concentrate on it so I went to have a shower, and then I have got a tea, put my lenses in and sat down to write my book, but instead find myself writing this.

I am trying to have a yoghurt and a tea at the moment. I feel OK at the moment. I am more worried about slipping back down – I seem to go up and down like a yoyo every day. I know I am still unwell with this bug as well, and so I am probably emotionally drained and exhausted from the weeks’ events. I am also on my own today again which probably isn’t a great help to me. I felt so sick this morning. I still feel anxious at the moment.

My main worries are:

The meds aren’t working as I am feeling very panicky, and my doctor won’t listen – though he has been very understanding and I know that he thinks I need to mentally get this under control instead of take more meds or different meds. They worked OK for about 3 months since I switched from Citalopram (aside from the sweats) so why now would they suddenly not work unless I was very, very anxious and still recovering from the bug I have had seems to me to be more anxiety driven and struggle to get the anxiety under control.

I was signed off until tomorrow and though my work (who think this is all part of a virus and not anxiety) have been very understanding I am worried if I go back before I am ready I will muck up my new job, which I need the money from desperately to keep our house going. I am also worried as the doctor said he didn’t want to sign me off any longer and so feel like my time has run out on all my options for getting better without work knowing what’s happening. I am worried I will lose my promotion or worse, my job and the support of my manager.

My wife will get so upset and leave, which she has every right to do as her mum is terminally ill and she can’t see what the big fuss is with my anxiety – she has put up with my for 8 years always panicking about one thing or another.

I will not feel better. I still can’t stop shaking and I can’t quite see where the bug ends and the nerves begin – I have had the bug for 10 days now, I am late 20s, fit and well aside from nerves, a little tiny high blood pressure, probably from nerves (!) - I was so happy a week r so ago until I suddenly was taken unwell and I feel that this has completely ruined everything for me. I am still having feelings that I want to go to hospital, I think because I want people to know how upset I am feeling and how desperate I am to get better; I think in my head if I go to hospital, people will realize how bad I have really been feeling and I will feel vindicated, and then I can recover in a safe environment and then come back from this in my own time. I feel on the clock all the time – I’m worried about going back to work tomorrow, worried my wife will come in and I’m still like this, worried that I will run out of time to make myself feel better.

The silly thing is I do still physically feel a little unwell but I really can’t see where my bug ends and the anxiety begins. I think the vomiting is anxiety but I have a bad stomach still, keep coughing (but not much – the paramedics said my cough wasn’t too bad they’ve heard worse and it’s very mild now) – and I keep going around and around in my head again and again. I’m on my own again today and I think this makes it worse, which is why I thought going to work may help - but I am petrified if I go in and lose it then I will make things worse.

Any comments?

My thoughts on getting over this:

I have rung CBT and they have said it will be around 6 months for an appointment. I am worried about this as I have not been able to cope with a week let alone a month!!!
I need to do this myself and no one else can help me if I don’t manage to get myself under control. This scares me a lot as I worry I haven’t got the strength to do this.
I seem to have moments of lucidity like a moment ago where I feel much better but then the nagging doubt that ‘Oh you’re going to feel worse again’ comes back and it is like a trigger, dragging me back down. Then I suddenly have a physical symptom again like shakes or feeling sick or from not eating and then it also fuels my panic.




VICIOUS CIRCLE

My mind is saying to me “You can’t cope” and you are better off at home on your own with more time to prepare to get better.

WHAT HAPPENS? – I stay at home. I am alone or with Laura who is upset at how I am acting. My body gets anxious because things are not getting better and my perception is that they should be getting better. I then tell Laura how I feel which makes her upset and that makes me upset and makes the situation worse than it was before.

I stick to these behaviors or relapse into them as these are all I know and the only way I have known for many years; I come home, calm down, argue with Laura, promise to get better, the initial situation is resolved, I feel better for a bit, but the problem thoughts are still there so I go back to the beginning again and nothing changes.

I sometimes think I will be better off alone because it means I can get my mind in control, but by internalizing I am actually just making the problem worse as I sit around or pace around and just think until Laura gets home, then I tell her how I have been feeling and this upsets her as she has her own pressures to deal with and doesn’t deal with them the same way, so it is hard for her to understand why I act like this because it is not her way of coping. I need to do more physical things or things to take my mind off the problem and find ways of not loading my problems onto myself or to Laura.


THANK YOU ALL FOR YOUR HELP AND ADVICE IN ADVANCE. I HAVE SUFFERED FOR YEARS BUT THIS IS THE WORST AND I DON'T WANT IT TO AFFECT MY JOB OR DESTROY MY RELATIONSHIP. MY MOTHER IN LAW IS TERMINALLY ILL SO MY WIFE HAS A LOT ON HER PLATE BUT I CAN'T STOP ADDING TO IT EITHER WITH THE ABOVE.