Seeing spots

[bashley]

Hi I have severe anxiety so I get every symptom going and it's getting me own. I've tried anti depressants they didn't help. I'm having counselling too. The thing is I get the palps and racing heart but now I've noticed when I get up in the morning my heart pounds like crazy and today as it was pounding I could see like black dots. I sometime see sort of floating things when I get up but these were going in sync with my pounding heart. Now I'm scared it's something serious. Could this be just anxiety as I'm constantly in panic mode and feel like I'm so drained by it all. I've had blood tests, and I had a blood pressure test done a couple of months back as I was worried about pounding heart and they said all was fine.:wacko:

[anxietyoverload]

This is definatly anxiety. When my anxiety was at its worst I saw flashes that took up my whole vision, flickers, white floating spots, black dots the works! I could be sat there watching TV and then it would look as though a flash came on and it didnt it was just my eyes. I went to the opticians loads as i didnt believe them and they were right. Its because when your adrenaline is high thats all :) i still get them just not as bad! I cant look at bright things like a sky or a bright white wall without seeing thousands of tiny white moving spots xx

[NoPoet]

Hi, black spots can be a million things. The only ones I can think of are not serious.

It could be "floaters" which, despite their amusing name, are basically normal and seem to occur more in tired people. Anxiety puts a lot of strain on your eyes and this is probably causing it.

It could be headache or migraine related which is also a symptom of stress due to anxiety. Anxiety puts horrendous stress on your body and it "acts out" like this pirely as a response to sustained pressure.

Your anxiety seems to be health related so you definitely need to start by targeting this aspect of the illness. Health anxiety is a never-ending spiral which will put the rest of your life on hold. Health anxiety is related to the fear of death, so that's another thing to take into account. If you went into a spasm of anxiety just reading that you've found a core problem.

Eliminating the core problem, which takes time, patience and determined effort, will take a lot of crap with it. However you can't just jump straight into the fight against a core problem - it's like a Level 1 Barbarian charging into a Dragon Ogre. For those who didn't play Warhammer Quest in their youth, that's the kind of fight where you get splattered instantly and embarrassingly and you feel like worthless crap for ages after. (I probably took those games of WHQ too seriously.)

My advice to you is to immediately start building your confidence in your own ability to withstand, and eventually recover from, the anxiety. You are currently telling yourself that every symptom is a potential disaster and a secret part of you is thinking "This is it, I'm definitely going to die!" You might not hear that thought but you are DEFINITELY thinking it. You haven't trained yourself to pick up on unconscious thoughts yet, but you will learn.

So you could start with the following:

* Anxiety is trying to PROTECT me - but I can look after myself.
* There are no threats. Alternatively: * I am safe.
* I am healthy and strong. My body is healthy and strong. My mind is healthy and strong. I am going to be all right. I am all right.
* I am healthy. I am normal. I am safe.
* My body is an incredible living machine which is designed to live. I am happy and confident about my health.

These are just starting points which you can tailor to your own needs and make new ones up. You should choose something that works and repeat it to yourself over and over for several minutes at a time - some sources say you should do this for at least 15 minutes a time.

You won't believe them at first, if you did you wouldn't be so anxious. They may seem false and hard to believe. Stick at them. You can either choose to be a victim or you can choose to start taking ownership of yourself and your life. Nobody else will make this decision for you. The anxiety will make this difficult but it is YOUR choice.

Medication won't do jack plop unless you work at rebuilding yourself mentally. It may take days or weeks, but if you do what I have suggested you WILL see a difference in time. You have trained yourself to believe you are vulnerable. Now it's time to train yourself to believe you are strong.

By the way, if you or anyone reading this suddenly finds themselves unaccountably feeling like shite, you've had an unconscious thought that snuck in behind your normal "surface" thoughts and scored a goal. Most people will never know what's going on behind the scenes. A person who intends to recover from anxiety and ESPECIALLY depression MUST LEARN TO HEAR THESE HIDDEN THOUGHTS so you can train yourself to refute them.

[vicky-books]

Excellent post PsychoPoet but I have a question. How can we train ourselves to hear these hidden thoughts? If only I could do that I would jump all over them. How did you manage to find a way to do it? Thanks, V.