Hi all,

This is an outpouring of everything I've been thinking today... I'm sorry if it brings anyone down... I need to get this out of me somehow... it is pretty dark and bleak but its the truth of how I feel right now and therefore needs expression.

As I'm writing this a part of myself is shouting at me; "stop questioning all the time, you have anxiety, just let it happen, stop being afraid, and it will pass!"

But I am really struggling again this week with the CONSTANT nature of my mental state of mind. Since waking up feeling anxious nearly 4 months ago, there has not been 1 second of 1 day when I have not had an "awareness" of my anxious / low mood. It is like something snapped and won't heal itself. I manage to sleep about 6 hours a night, and in sleep comes my only relief. I awake and immediately the thoughts and the anxiety comes, and that is it for the rest of the day. I try to just let it come, I try to think positively. Nothing works. Some hours are a little better than others, but it is always there. It dominates everything. It has taken away all of my joy in life, and I have a lot to be joyful for.

This is what hurts the most - the fact that my life is good and that I cannot see where this has come from. I have all these great things in my life and they are all out of my reach because of my state of mind. It is like seeing a beautiful diamond and every time you reach out to grab it, it moves a few inches away from you.

My symptoms have been distressing (entirely of the head variety - pressure in the head, full ears, prickly sensations on the brain). Last week I thought I had conquered them. They are back with a vengeance. It seems that most people get a variety of different symptoms, many around the heart and other parts of the body. Why do mine all feel like they are actually located inside my brain?

The other weird thing is that I just don't get panic attacks. Everyone else seems to get them. In the past I have had times when my anxiety has massively increased, but it wasn't really panic. I don't get the racing heart, sweats, palpitations. Why don't I get panic attacks but everyone else does? This site is called nomorepanic - I feel like I don't belong here...

Also, I'm not afraid of doing anything. I can go on planes, be on my own, drive my car, be around loads of people. Nothing seems to make me any less or any more comfortable in my head. There is no circumstance where I feel any better or any worse. Can you understand from that statement why I am questioning all this? I just don't seem to fit any "anxiety profile" - I don't seem to be like the rest of you.

I am trying so hard and doing so many things - psychotherapy, healthy eating, exercise 3 times a week, deep relaxation every single night, hypnosis CDs, supplements, books, challenging my negative thoughts, letting the anxiety and low mood come and trying not to judge it. I get up every day and I come to work. I come home in the evening and I try to engage properly with my wife and in my home life, but this wall is there - of this feeling in my head. It's like living in a nightmare.

I come on here to read people's messages probably too much, and I am afraid that I may now simply have become obsessed. Every thought, every action, even when I am distracted, is still shrouded with this "awareness" of anxiety - like seeing everything through a filter. The world and everything in it seems a little darker and a little more distant. I try to come back to the world but it won't come.

I have a great life. A good job, a caring, loving wife, enough money, good friends, good health. And then one day something snapped and every ounce of joy that I had was removed and my mind turned on me. I am really struggling today to see this as a beginning of a better way of being. I can only see it today as something unexplainable having broken in my brain, and that I must somehow (but how?) learn to feel like this for the rest of my life.

really sorry, but that had to come out somewhere,

Gareth

*** I think, therefore I'm anxious ***