I wish I could explain the weird symptoms!!

[starlight78]

Hi everyone,

I feel really eurghhhhh!!!! I wish I could explain my anxiety and panic better, to myself even.
I talk to understanding friends and family about 'anxiety' and they are so kind to me, but I don't really tell them what's driving it.
I don't have the palpatations or hyperventilation that others talk of. I'm not scared of dying, I know it's sounds crazy but I'm scared of living.
Sometimes it feels that everything about life is so scary that the thought of going to sleep and not waking up is so welcoming. I'm NOT suicidal and I know that this will pass, if I take it one day at a time. I don't feel hopeless, I believe I will get better.... But every so often i feel a total freak, so abnormal and scared of my own shadow that I want to cry.
Over recent months I have feel scared of (in no particular order) The snow, the floods, being on a spinning planet in the middle of an infinite universe (what's that about!!), scary bad people, serial killers, terrorists, trains, planes and traffic! I've been scared of losing control of myself, going crazy and hurting someone, being unable to keep feeling like this and ending it all.

I'm ok when I'm busy, which makes me think I'm not depressed and this is anxiety disorder, but when I get home after a stressful day my thought whir and I start to feel frightened.. I wish I knew what of, then I could face it! It's a general feeling of fear, foreboding, feeling out of control and flashes of hopelessness. I always work my way through it by saying these weird thoughts and feelings are symptoms - not real and they will pass as they always do..... BUT for now I feel Bleurgh!

Thank you for reading, it helps so much to write on here. I hope everyone is doing ok and getting through their Bleurgh days to.

Huge hugs to you all x x

[nomorepanic]

Hi

Have a read of the symptoms website page on the left and look for this bit:

The Fears: going crazy, of dying, of impending doom, of normal things, unusual feelings and emotions, unusually frightening thoughts or feelings

[starlight78]

Thanks Nicola, I have just read it. It's so reassuring to see some of your symptoms listed like that. Makes me feel less of a weirdo! :)

[Sunshine77]

Hi Starlight, I identify so much with you! Eurrghh says it all!

I find that my fear is "free-floating" which makes it hard to explain to anyone what's scaring me. I wake up with it and it's all-consuming and then it will attach itself to something - anything - and that particular thing will become inflated in my mind for a while.

A while back I got to the point where I really didn't care if I lived or died - was driving along the motorway thinking "I wonder what would happen if I just twisted the wheel to the left" but not in a suicidal way - just a kind of dispassionate "don't care" as if it was happening to someone else.

Like you I'm ok if I distract myself so when the free-floating fear is enormous I just say to it "I know you're not real, you're just a stupid feeling" and then get on with something or ring someone or stick my head in a book and it gets smaller and more manageable. I've been off work 6 weeks but back tomorrow and hoping it will help not hinder - work's one of the things the fear has attached itself to!

You're certainly not alone. :hugs:

By the way - fear of stairs has been my weirdest one yet!

[Lissa101]

I've had this too! I think it's better to laugh about the weird thoughts. I couldn't sleep some nights for thinking that by the time I woke up the whole planet would have spun half way round on its axis and I would lie in bed thinking about this massive planet spinning really fast in space and it totally freaked me out. I had to stop watching all Brian Cox programmes because he was giving me existential angst! On a more earthly level I've been freaked out by everything from dogs (in case they could tell I was mental with their doggy 'sixth sense') to radios.

Happy to report they've all been gone for a long time now so try not to worry :hugs:

[starlight78]

Sunshine and Lissa, thank you so much for your replies.
I woke up in the early hours feeling on edge, couldn't sleep, I came on this site and found your replies and they made me smile.
I love Brian Cox Lissa, but struggle with his program's because thy freak me out!! Lol... He is lovely to look at though. X

[Lissa101]

Brian Cox is pretty hot. You can just watch him with the sound off lol. I know its the hardest thing in the world but try not to obsess about the wierd thoughts because they do go. I was too ashamed to mention them to my GP and even if I was talking to a friend or someone I'd be thinking 'if only they knew the crazy stuff that goes through my mind, they'd probably think I was nuts'. I don't know why I got them, I don't know why they went away. But they will go away so don't let them scare you.

x

[starlight78]

Absolutely!! I think that's the feeling I was trying to describe.. The feeling totally crazy! Not wanting to say anything about the weird thoughts, fearing no one else would understand and think I'm bonkers! That's why this site is so fantastic. It makes me realise I'm not alone, even at the toughest times.
Thanks Lissa, your post gives me alot of hope x x

Ps - old Prof Cox really is hot isn't he ;)

[Sunshine77]

I have to confess girls, Brian does nothing for me at all!

However... Lissa your post reminded me of something I was taught on a Buddhist meditation course I did a few years ago....it was about learning not to engage with every thought that enters your mind. e.g. you imagine your mind as an empty stage with you in the middle of it and the random thoughts that come in are entering from the wings... if you choose to follow up the thought and "converse" with it then it will become a dialogue but if you ignore it then it will walk right across the stage and out the other side without you picking up on it. I had forgotten about this completely till now but it used to help me quite a bit. I hope I have made sense trying to explain it :D

I've been back at work this afternoon and have had some really mad thoughts whilst there, I hoped that being busy would stop them but nope not yet! I suppose it will take time.

Take care both :hugs:

[starlight78]

That's a nice analogy summer. I heard a similar one; imagine you are at a train station and trains are whizzing past you on the different tracks.. The trains ate thoughts and we don't need to get on any of the trains, we can just watch them come and go..

I hope work was ok today for you summer

Ps - Cox is a Fox! ;) x x

---------- Post added at 20:13 ---------- Previous post was at 20:12 ----------

Sunshine Sorry for calling you summer!! X x

[Sunshine77]

That's ok Starlight, I answer to anything!

We'll agree to differ on old Coxy but I like your train analogy and I do like that none of us are alone!

Work was pretty tough, thanks for asking, but I think I'll live to see another day... :shrug: xx