Weekend of Hell

[nick_london]

Hi, had a bad weekend of panic and anxiety - reading this site made things a bit better.

I'll post more as I feel better.

[chucklehound]

Welcome to NMP.

Glad reading the forum has helped.

Take care

Chuckle

xxxx

[hayles]

Welcome aboard!
Hope you feel better soon x

Hay x

[arethaire]

Hi Nick

I know the feeling ..... Are panic/anxiety attacks new to you, or have you had them a while?

Take care ~ Cath x

[Nicki22]

Hi there welcome to the forum x
i know how u feeling...feel free to pm me anytime x

[Daisybun]

Hi Nick and welcome to the forum. I have found it helps to post here and I've had lots of helpful advice and support from some really great people who have become friends. Hope you get better soon

Take care
Daisybun

'This too will pass'

[manmoor]

Hi Nick,

A big warm welcome to you.

Take Care

Mandy

xx

[nick_london]

[quote]Hi Nick

I know the feeling ..... Are panic/anxiety attacks new to you, or have you had them a while?


quote]Hi Nick

I know the feeling ..... Are panic/anxiety attacks new to you, or have you had them a while?


Hi - nice bunch of responses! Usually on a message board it's tumbleweeds.

I has my first panics in the late 80s as a teenager. I remember sitting on top of a bus one morning - with a hangover, having smoked many French cigarettes the night before - feeling my thoughts to be racing; 'overthinking' I called it. Terror and fear were not there then but it wasn't long before I was walking along the street one Saturday morning, wondering what I was going to do with my life and how I was going to get a job that I wanted to actually do, when I had the first of the 'killer' ones. I somehow got to a pub and glugged a few quick pints down - I'd read somewhere that 'alcohol calms the brain'.
I didn't realise it then but a pattern was being set in stone. I was 19. I'm now 36.
I started to have them in public places: a big one in WHSmith in Croydon I remember; feelings of self-conciousness in public places, pubs and clubs required bigger doses of booze to cope. Meanwhile, my personal life was turning to crap. I had big ambitions - to act, to write etc but the anxiety and panic/ booze therapy always got in the way. Back then this was all a taboo - I never thought about seeing the doctor: I just thought there was something uniqely wrong with me.
So I binge drank, did menial work, had panic attacks and eventually became unemployed. Now I was 21. I had asthma (I sometimes think that a study of Ventolin use in childhood and its correlation to adult panic and anxiety would be revealing: a friend of mine who I only came to know in the last couple of years and who is exactly the same age as me has had a similar, though markedly worse 17 years of panic and anxiety). One winter my asthma became bad and I went on steroids which caused weight gain and ratcheted up my panic attacks 50 fold. They gave me dizzy spells and on one occasion I had a huge attack. The attack that was really the year zero of the whole condition.
It sealed my great fear of dizziness. I was incapacitated with fear; lying on my bed for ten hours convinced I'd had a stroke or suffered some greivous brain injury; I whimpered - I'd never known fear like it. No young person - nor old for that matter - should.

After that I got it back together but I developed a morbid fear of another 'attack'. In pubs and social company I tanked up to escape the fear - and suffered nervous hangovers. By my early twenties I was - by the rigorous John Hopkins University test - an alcoholic. I worked for periods and then didn't work for longer ones. I discovered marijuana - which at first was very calming. I developed a liking for drinking alcohol and smoking marijuana because 'it made it all go away'.
Only it didn't of course. And a panic attack on Marijuana is like a normal panic attack triple distilled. The strength of the twentysomething kicked in and, not put off, I just loaded more booze into the equation with a wider set of friends and acquaintances. Aged 23 and bound up with panic attacks and anxiety and the dissociation symptoms of marijuana I went into an extended period of panic, anxiety and depression. Of course, I didn't quite know what it was, except that I was more scared than I'd ever been, was scared to be alone, felt guilty all the time and hopeless.
So I presented to the doctor - who was a bluff young Australian doctor with his rugby trophies on the shelf behind him, who decided that there was nothing much wrong with me and that I 'should talk to my friends'. It was a problem long undiagnosed and now I left the surgery, scared witless and walked slowly down a dark suburban street in November - utterly lonely. I just got on with it after a fashion and worked all Christmas in a department store fighting panic, anxiety and utter despair.
The next few years saw me get some work, move in with a girlfriend and get up to all sorts of adve

[trac67]

Hi,

Welcome to the forum, you will get a lot of good advice here and make some new friends.

take care

Trac xx

'Live your life with arms wide open, today is where your book begins, the rest is still unwritten'

[arethaire]

Hi again Nick

So you have battled with it for quite sometime then ..... Lets hope now with the help of your Dr & the right medication, you will start to feel much better again.

As you said 'reading this site' made things a bit better for you. It certainly proves how many of us actually suffer with this illness!

Take care ~ Cath x

[emmy]

hi and welcome hope you feel a lot better soon it does pass..

and i find this site helps me so much

emily xxx

if it looks like it works and feels like it works then it works!!!

[polly daydream]

Hi Nick and welcome to the forum.

Best wishes,

Polly

[nick_london]

Thanks to everyone - it helps to know there are others.

[giddy]

Hello Nick and welcome to the forum
love Helen

[Karen]

Hi Nick

Welcome to the forum.

Karen



Happiness is not a state to arrive at but a manner of travelling.

You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough ~ Christine Cagney, Cagney & Lacey

[EebyJeeby]

Welcome aboard Nick. You have certainly been through the mill, but you will find lots of help and support here now.

Eeb x

[ardyce]

Hi Nick

You are definately NOT alone.

What you said about asthma was really interesting as I am HIGHLY sensitive to it and any other medication for like cough and col....anything with an antihistimaine in it makes me very nervous. In fact I took THEODUR once as a teenager and had to go to the ER with what I thought was an allergic reaction.....but now I am convinced it was one of my first PA's. Any medicine like that makes me extra nervous and shaky ...in fact I dont take thenm at all and hate to even give them to my children because they are so powerful.

Hope things can get better for you!

Ardyce

[nichiren]

B***dy hell, nick... you have my deepest empathy mate... I certainly recognise fear of dizzyness and weakness... and lying there in bed in a pool of sweat to afraid to even reach for the glass of water and valium... and then after doing that eventually dreading getting up to go to the loo... It takes enourmous courage and self understanding to find a way to bring yourself down from episodes like this... I know you have the courage - you're here, which is a good start I'm sure. The once thing I learnt above all else with this stuff is that alchohol and other CNS depressants don't help at all. You have to be in control... We all have so much to offer the world, but sometimes the world doesn't seem to be listening, or receptive. Don't be discouraged. Steve.

To truly see existence as it really is, would be the greatest gift!

[scoobygirl2005]

Hi.

Welcome to the forum. Sorry to hear that you are not feeling too good, hope things get better for you soon mate.

Scooby2005
x x

[mom12234]

hey nick Good to know you are improving. What meds are you on that are making you feel a little better I think if you get a good result it is wise to share cos ther are so many quacks out ther that really dont understand

Any way glad you are a lot better
Maree

maree

[shell100]

well done nick
theres another one out the way & dealt with :)
u can do the same with any others that come ur way :)
hugs
shell
xx

[nomorepanic]

Nick

Welcome aboard and lovely to see you here.

Hope you get some great help here and advice.

Nicola

[Twila]

Welcome Nick. Sorry about the rough time you are having. This forum is such a wonderful place. I hope you can find some help here!
:DTwila

[Daviburg]

Hi Nick,

I only joined this site yesterday and the support from the people on here is great. I never realised there were so many people suffering with panic/anxiety etc.

It sounds like you have had a tough time of it, but I hope you begin to feel better soon!

Daviburg

[rosebud1984]

Hi Nick. Welcome to the board. You poor thing, you have been through a lot haven't you? I hope life gets better for you.

xxx Rosebud xxx