Sazza
30-10-12, 17:23
*Having typed most of this post already and then realised it was very long - even after I tried to pare it down a bit, I'm just giving you an essay warning! LOL...*
Hi, I'm currently having some quite intense anxiety... Even the prospect of typing this is bringing my heart rate up...
I believe specifically, it is Generalised Anxiety Disorder (I've been diagnosed with varying levels of depression and anxiety over the years). Currently, I'm not really afraid of any particular thing or place, it's mainly just "what-if's" and feelings of fearfulness about life in general, and it is making my gastric reflux, IBS, and Tachycardia worse, and is disturbing my appetite and sleep, which, as you can probably guess, is no fun. :sad:
It's not a new thing for me, I've had it before... In fact I've been through worse than I'm currently going through... It's just that at this moment in time I find it harder to remember, actually, believe, that it's going to pass, or will not get worse and worse until I can't cope...
I think it's flaring because of a mixture of real life stress (not just the imagined stress that is now a symptom I'm suffering with), and hormones in my present case, but while that would usually comfort me (because I would feel better knowing that a talk and the chance to have a good cry would help, or that I'd feel better when my "monthly" visitor went away or I managed to get a good night's sleep), it isn't really helping right now...
In the past 5 years, I had my 2nd and 3rd children, lost both my parents (one on the day after my daughter was born), developed Fibromyalgia, and there has been a plethora of absolutely ridiculous amounts of ongoing issues, which both my best friend and husband say are bound to make me feel "delicate", plus recently, my oldest son has been very ill, so I know it's understandable, but the level of anxiety just seemed to suddenly step up lately, when I wasn't really expecting it, and because of that a part of me thinks it "shouldn't" be there...
I am suffering with early waking with horrible palpitations, constant nausea, and intrusive automatic "bad" thoughts (usually kind of flash-backy in the sense that it's a memory of something horrible I saw/read in the news or something and imagining it's really happening)...
So I thought that maybe this wasn't about just talking about my feelings or taking care of my health (both things which I intend to do anyway), but maybe I need to step up the CBT much more right now.
I've already given myself a back-pocket option of asking for beta blockers if the physical symptoms become too hard to bear, but whether I use them or not, I know that working on my attitudes and thinking patterns will help the most...
The reason I know this is because I've already started to do it in the past (without realising what I was doing at the time)... Let me explain;
I've always had ups and downs, my life has been extraordinarily stressful at times, even in childhood; lots of losses; lots of issues... But at first I used detrimental coping strategies, like addictive behaviours with food... Then about 2 years after I got into recovery for that, I had a MASSIVE nervous breakdown (this was about 10 years ago and it was probably because I'd stopped "covering up" my feelings so was having to learn how to deal with them for the first time), and for about 3 more years after recovering from that, I would have periodic stomach upsets with palpitations, along with general fearful feelings...
At that time, I would sometimes get so afraid, I would be physically sick. It didn't help that my "neurosis" over eating "normally" meant I thought it was wrong if I didn't eat ALL of my food, so I forced myself to eat everything and that often actually made me far more unwell (as you can probably imagine).
So after some time I learned a few things that really helped, a) to be much more gentle on myself about what/how much I eat, b) that I've been through this before and I CAN do it, and c) this too shall pass...
This put a sort of "ceiling" on how bad it actually ever gets, but that ceiling is still quite high, if you know what I mean, and I'd like to be able to expand on those coping strategies now...
I remember from previous experience with depression (especially postnatal depression when I was 18/19) that exercise, funny movies/comedy shows, and listening to/singing along to music are all very good for regulating the brain chemistry naturally, and I'm glad to see that this works for anxiety as well as depression, so that's one thing I can add, and bizarrely I had at one time found acceptance of it does seem to make it easier (but only if I'm not trying to make it go away by accepting it), but that's one I'm gonna have to master as right now all I want is for it to bloomin' go away! Not surprisingly... :winks:
But it's building up my "tool kit" for coping with it when it's here...
I'm just looking at the CBT/self help sheets that I saw someone else mentioned from a website (can't seem to find the link now!)...
But there's loads my mind keeps saying "Ooohh! Try that!" or "That'll fix it!" about... :roflmao:
That's obviously something I'll have to be gentle with myself about and not go mad trying everything all at the same time, but I'm starting to feel hopeful again because this site is so encouraging.
I was scared at first to look at the posts, but I see that while there is space given to those who need to share about the hard stuff, there's lots of positivity on here too, which is SOOOOO what I needed today...
I find it hard to get the balance between talking about my feelings and allowing them to be processed, and just taking it easy, and distracting myself or "talking myself up", but as I'm doing counselling already, and I'm trying to avoid using anything to "squash" my feelings, I guess it's about balance.
I gotta say one thing that is helping is the music... I'm a musical person (singer) and not only does the singing really help with the breathing (like belly breathing) but it seems to make my endorphins boost up too...
I gotta say I am (and my children are) really having fun with that new Robbie Williams song "Candy" just because it's so silly and fun! They keep making me sing it to them.
It also really helps that my husband (amazing man), is so understanding and supportive.
I think I'll leave it there. I originally intended to "formulate" my post a bit more and maybe ask some questions, but I think I'll just leave it as a "saying hello" post (albeit it a long one)!
Saz x :blush:
Hi, I'm currently having some quite intense anxiety... Even the prospect of typing this is bringing my heart rate up...
I believe specifically, it is Generalised Anxiety Disorder (I've been diagnosed with varying levels of depression and anxiety over the years). Currently, I'm not really afraid of any particular thing or place, it's mainly just "what-if's" and feelings of fearfulness about life in general, and it is making my gastric reflux, IBS, and Tachycardia worse, and is disturbing my appetite and sleep, which, as you can probably guess, is no fun. :sad:
It's not a new thing for me, I've had it before... In fact I've been through worse than I'm currently going through... It's just that at this moment in time I find it harder to remember, actually, believe, that it's going to pass, or will not get worse and worse until I can't cope...
I think it's flaring because of a mixture of real life stress (not just the imagined stress that is now a symptom I'm suffering with), and hormones in my present case, but while that would usually comfort me (because I would feel better knowing that a talk and the chance to have a good cry would help, or that I'd feel better when my "monthly" visitor went away or I managed to get a good night's sleep), it isn't really helping right now...
In the past 5 years, I had my 2nd and 3rd children, lost both my parents (one on the day after my daughter was born), developed Fibromyalgia, and there has been a plethora of absolutely ridiculous amounts of ongoing issues, which both my best friend and husband say are bound to make me feel "delicate", plus recently, my oldest son has been very ill, so I know it's understandable, but the level of anxiety just seemed to suddenly step up lately, when I wasn't really expecting it, and because of that a part of me thinks it "shouldn't" be there...
I am suffering with early waking with horrible palpitations, constant nausea, and intrusive automatic "bad" thoughts (usually kind of flash-backy in the sense that it's a memory of something horrible I saw/read in the news or something and imagining it's really happening)...
So I thought that maybe this wasn't about just talking about my feelings or taking care of my health (both things which I intend to do anyway), but maybe I need to step up the CBT much more right now.
I've already given myself a back-pocket option of asking for beta blockers if the physical symptoms become too hard to bear, but whether I use them or not, I know that working on my attitudes and thinking patterns will help the most...
The reason I know this is because I've already started to do it in the past (without realising what I was doing at the time)... Let me explain;
I've always had ups and downs, my life has been extraordinarily stressful at times, even in childhood; lots of losses; lots of issues... But at first I used detrimental coping strategies, like addictive behaviours with food... Then about 2 years after I got into recovery for that, I had a MASSIVE nervous breakdown (this was about 10 years ago and it was probably because I'd stopped "covering up" my feelings so was having to learn how to deal with them for the first time), and for about 3 more years after recovering from that, I would have periodic stomach upsets with palpitations, along with general fearful feelings...
At that time, I would sometimes get so afraid, I would be physically sick. It didn't help that my "neurosis" over eating "normally" meant I thought it was wrong if I didn't eat ALL of my food, so I forced myself to eat everything and that often actually made me far more unwell (as you can probably imagine).
So after some time I learned a few things that really helped, a) to be much more gentle on myself about what/how much I eat, b) that I've been through this before and I CAN do it, and c) this too shall pass...
This put a sort of "ceiling" on how bad it actually ever gets, but that ceiling is still quite high, if you know what I mean, and I'd like to be able to expand on those coping strategies now...
I remember from previous experience with depression (especially postnatal depression when I was 18/19) that exercise, funny movies/comedy shows, and listening to/singing along to music are all very good for regulating the brain chemistry naturally, and I'm glad to see that this works for anxiety as well as depression, so that's one thing I can add, and bizarrely I had at one time found acceptance of it does seem to make it easier (but only if I'm not trying to make it go away by accepting it), but that's one I'm gonna have to master as right now all I want is for it to bloomin' go away! Not surprisingly... :winks:
But it's building up my "tool kit" for coping with it when it's here...
I'm just looking at the CBT/self help sheets that I saw someone else mentioned from a website (can't seem to find the link now!)...
But there's loads my mind keeps saying "Ooohh! Try that!" or "That'll fix it!" about... :roflmao:
That's obviously something I'll have to be gentle with myself about and not go mad trying everything all at the same time, but I'm starting to feel hopeful again because this site is so encouraging.
I was scared at first to look at the posts, but I see that while there is space given to those who need to share about the hard stuff, there's lots of positivity on here too, which is SOOOOO what I needed today...
I find it hard to get the balance between talking about my feelings and allowing them to be processed, and just taking it easy, and distracting myself or "talking myself up", but as I'm doing counselling already, and I'm trying to avoid using anything to "squash" my feelings, I guess it's about balance.
I gotta say one thing that is helping is the music... I'm a musical person (singer) and not only does the singing really help with the breathing (like belly breathing) but it seems to make my endorphins boost up too...
I gotta say I am (and my children are) really having fun with that new Robbie Williams song "Candy" just because it's so silly and fun! They keep making me sing it to them.
It also really helps that my husband (amazing man), is so understanding and supportive.
I think I'll leave it there. I originally intended to "formulate" my post a bit more and maybe ask some questions, but I think I'll just leave it as a "saying hello" post (albeit it a long one)!
Saz x :blush: