without meds.....

[asear85]

hi is any 1 else scared about medication... i went to the docs last year after becomin agoraphobic was prescribed sertraline.. i cam home read the side effects didnt take them and forcd myself to go out the next day.. it took months but after hard work i continued going outside.. i have started to fl low again and was considering meds but have been reading a few posts and am seriously concerned so i am now going to try and pull myself together and go outside with confidence........
:yesyes:

[NoPoet]

Hi, if I were you I'd get in touch with Anxiety UK (see my sig, below) and discuss your fears with them. While they cannot help you make your mind up about what to do next they are all anxiety sufferers who have managed to recover from their problems, or at least are able to control the anxiety so they can lead normal lives. It's surprising how much it can help to talk to a stranger who knows what you're talking about.

Regardless of whether or not you need medication, you should consider getting CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy). This can involve some hard work on your part but it seems to be the most useful therapy for anxiety.

As for going outside, forcing yourself is not the way to do it. It just makes a bad experience even more traumatic. Going outside is going to be difficult for you under any circumstances (for now), so rather than pushing yourself, you could simply stand by an open door looking outside for a few minutes. Repeat this every so often for a few days until you get used to it. You will feel your panic increase quite noticeably at first, but if you simply stand there and "let go" of yourself, just surrender to the anxiety, you will gradually find that you can actually wait it out and it will start to die away. It's important to hang in there until the anxiety starts to drop, otherwise all you'll have done it get yourself into a state.

If you stay until the storm of anxiety blows over (although you will still feel anxious, just not as much), and you repeat this exercise over the coming weeks, it trains you to understand that you cannot be hurt by your anxiety. Your anxiety is worse at the moment because you are straining against it, constantly expecting something terrible to happen. Nothing terrible will happen, and this is a kind of exposure therapy which proves it.

When you go out, don't measure how far you go. Congratulate yourself on being able to go out while you're still feeling anxious. If you're going to recover, you need to train yourself to be able to carry on doing whatever you're doing while still feeling anxious.

[asear85]

thankyou for ur reply.. i wish i didnt have 2 force myself but i have no choice i have to do the school run and my mum and partner seem to have given up hlpin m and no 1 was there to do it today.. it was ok.. on the way back i had a little sense of fear but i jus tried to ignore it and drank some water to hlp my dry mouth.. now im home i feel great that i achieved something that most people take for granted.

[Stormsky]

i believe you need to face whatever the initial cause of your anxeity is, so you can look at curing it...meds dont cure.
Meds may help mask your anxiety, so you can go about day to to day life... and maybe, if your lucky, when you stop them, you may have lost your fears, as you will have had confidence to go out more anyway while on meds...
.. but you have to be prepared that you may be back at square one if you come off meds.
Even though you may tackle things fine on meds, and seem to lose fear of certain things, once off them, you can be back to same old fears coming back... as like i say the meds only mask your anxiety.
On meds, your still feel fearful about things, but the meds mask the anxiety symptons so you can still go through with things... but those fears are still there to be delt with when your off meds...
I came off meds 6 months ago, and anxiety seemed to come back worse, but trying to tackle my fears myself, to overcome them once and for all. Its more frustrating for me, as you tackle things ok on meds, and then dont understand why you go back to not being able to do the same things without the meds.
So basically my opinion, is to try and find other ways to help yourself, and not meds. But thats a decision for you alone.

[frenchbean]

I am in a similar position as I am also considering taking sertraline but am terrified of the side effects. Someone on here suggested taking half a tablet, which I might do - I think that would be 25mg and see how I feel...I don't know, so many good stories and so many bad stories of the SEs.

Well done for having the courage to go out. As you say, if you've got kids, you've no choice but to just carry on - I have 3 and most days when I just want to get back into bed I can't.

Good luck in what you decide.