kitty18
07-03-13, 14:45
Hi everyone. I've been a member of this forum for some years now, in the past I've only posted a few times because of general anxiety and health anxiety. Now, I'm sad to say, I've returned because my problems have changed and in fact become a lot worse.
Backstory: I have a history of anxiety dating back to at least when I was 17 (I'm now 27). When I was 17 I had an incident of gastroenteritis which gave me stomach issues afterwards and a mild form of IBS along with an eating disorder. This all snowballed to create anxiety, I had agoraphobia and would get mild panic attacks leaving the house. This got better when I got my first job, I don't remember how I got over it... I just think I simply pushed through for the sake of working. I was 'cured' of general anxiety by the time I was 20, and also of the depression I'd been suffering without a job. Fast forward to age 22/23, I was in a great relationship and engaged to be married, but circumstances including the death of my father led me to be severely depressed again during that year. I also developed health anxiety and was in and out of the hospital for tests. At the end of the year, my doctor prescribed me Prozac to alleviate my symptoms in light of my upcoming wedding. I felt much more normal on Prozac, I wasn't as depressed, I felt more emotionally sound and my health anxiety started to go away. I only stayed on the Prozac for eight months and felt fine coming off it and in the months following.
I was unemployed for a year because my husband was relocated for work and I moved with him; this made me a little depressed but nothing too bad. I got another job within a year and was happy for a while, no anxiety or anything. A year after that, I was thinking of starting my own business and/or retraining for another career, everything was going pretty well for me mentally. Then my husband got offered a job in Germany, and just over a year ago we moved there from the UK. I would describe my mental state as terrible ever since. I'm homesick and alone, I don't speak the language well enough to be confident and we can't afford lessons, and I am just deteriorating.
In summer last year I got hit with gastro again, and since then I seem to have developed IBS like I did the last time I was sick like that. This has led to near-constant anxiety because I feel sick all the time, no matter how careful I am with what I eat or what I try and avoid. I take good care of myself and I still feel terrible every day. In the past six months I started getting panic attacks when out of the house, but they were very severe in comparison to ones I've had in the past, and worse because they also affect my digestive system and I feel like I don't have any control over my body. And more recently, I've started getting them when I'm at home, too. Absolutely anything can trigger them... and by anything, I mean I can be relaxing in front of my laptop or the TV, reading or watching something that should cause no problems, and I have a sudden hit of extreme anxiety. The anxiety happens literally at any time, and the bad attacks are getting more frequent. I can't predict or prevent them with anything I do.
Is anybody else like this? I know that I'm an anxiety prone person, I've been a worrier for years, but now I'm not worried about anything, I'm just panicking for no reason and I can't handle the attacks. I find it difficult to ride them out and none of the methods I know calm me down. I have thought about killing myself when the bad ones hit me, because of how severe they feel.
I'm not sure what to do at this point. My husband knows everything but he doesn't quite understand, he will usually tell me to relax because it's all okay, when obviously that isn't going to help. I am signed up with the local medical practice but there is always a language barrier - this is fine for more physical problems that need addressing, but not so much for mental issues. I'm so desperate to regain a sense of normality now that I'm thinking about asking for SSRIs again, even though I always said I'd rather manage without them. I basically feel like I'm dying every day. Does anyone have experience of things like Prozac helping severe panic attacks? Because this is much more my problem this time around, rather than the depression - the depression I feel is just a side effect of feeling so anxious.
I am also taking into account natural remedies - I have a course of Vitamin B complex that I'm going to start taking tomorrow, and trying to make yet more changes to my diet, but I don't hold out much hope at this rate. I was trying to take up more exercise, but the day after I went out for a long walk, I suffered a crippling, terrifying panic attack at home, which made me just want to lie in bed for the next week, so now I'm just scared to even bother. I work from home, and on my own terms (I'm a freelance writer) so I don't have to answer to anyone or be 'normal' under pressure - in a way I know this makes things worse as there's nothing pushing me to try harder. But this is the position I'm in so I need to figure out how to feel better.
Sorry for the very long post - I'd appreciate any advice or support that anyone can offer, or just if someone can tell me they've been in a similar place mentally. I'm in so deep this time that I don't know how to fix it - all my other episodes seem like cake in comparison to this.
Thankyou for reading,
xx
Backstory: I have a history of anxiety dating back to at least when I was 17 (I'm now 27). When I was 17 I had an incident of gastroenteritis which gave me stomach issues afterwards and a mild form of IBS along with an eating disorder. This all snowballed to create anxiety, I had agoraphobia and would get mild panic attacks leaving the house. This got better when I got my first job, I don't remember how I got over it... I just think I simply pushed through for the sake of working. I was 'cured' of general anxiety by the time I was 20, and also of the depression I'd been suffering without a job. Fast forward to age 22/23, I was in a great relationship and engaged to be married, but circumstances including the death of my father led me to be severely depressed again during that year. I also developed health anxiety and was in and out of the hospital for tests. At the end of the year, my doctor prescribed me Prozac to alleviate my symptoms in light of my upcoming wedding. I felt much more normal on Prozac, I wasn't as depressed, I felt more emotionally sound and my health anxiety started to go away. I only stayed on the Prozac for eight months and felt fine coming off it and in the months following.
I was unemployed for a year because my husband was relocated for work and I moved with him; this made me a little depressed but nothing too bad. I got another job within a year and was happy for a while, no anxiety or anything. A year after that, I was thinking of starting my own business and/or retraining for another career, everything was going pretty well for me mentally. Then my husband got offered a job in Germany, and just over a year ago we moved there from the UK. I would describe my mental state as terrible ever since. I'm homesick and alone, I don't speak the language well enough to be confident and we can't afford lessons, and I am just deteriorating.
In summer last year I got hit with gastro again, and since then I seem to have developed IBS like I did the last time I was sick like that. This has led to near-constant anxiety because I feel sick all the time, no matter how careful I am with what I eat or what I try and avoid. I take good care of myself and I still feel terrible every day. In the past six months I started getting panic attacks when out of the house, but they were very severe in comparison to ones I've had in the past, and worse because they also affect my digestive system and I feel like I don't have any control over my body. And more recently, I've started getting them when I'm at home, too. Absolutely anything can trigger them... and by anything, I mean I can be relaxing in front of my laptop or the TV, reading or watching something that should cause no problems, and I have a sudden hit of extreme anxiety. The anxiety happens literally at any time, and the bad attacks are getting more frequent. I can't predict or prevent them with anything I do.
Is anybody else like this? I know that I'm an anxiety prone person, I've been a worrier for years, but now I'm not worried about anything, I'm just panicking for no reason and I can't handle the attacks. I find it difficult to ride them out and none of the methods I know calm me down. I have thought about killing myself when the bad ones hit me, because of how severe they feel.
I'm not sure what to do at this point. My husband knows everything but he doesn't quite understand, he will usually tell me to relax because it's all okay, when obviously that isn't going to help. I am signed up with the local medical practice but there is always a language barrier - this is fine for more physical problems that need addressing, but not so much for mental issues. I'm so desperate to regain a sense of normality now that I'm thinking about asking for SSRIs again, even though I always said I'd rather manage without them. I basically feel like I'm dying every day. Does anyone have experience of things like Prozac helping severe panic attacks? Because this is much more my problem this time around, rather than the depression - the depression I feel is just a side effect of feeling so anxious.
I am also taking into account natural remedies - I have a course of Vitamin B complex that I'm going to start taking tomorrow, and trying to make yet more changes to my diet, but I don't hold out much hope at this rate. I was trying to take up more exercise, but the day after I went out for a long walk, I suffered a crippling, terrifying panic attack at home, which made me just want to lie in bed for the next week, so now I'm just scared to even bother. I work from home, and on my own terms (I'm a freelance writer) so I don't have to answer to anyone or be 'normal' under pressure - in a way I know this makes things worse as there's nothing pushing me to try harder. But this is the position I'm in so I need to figure out how to feel better.
Sorry for the very long post - I'd appreciate any advice or support that anyone can offer, or just if someone can tell me they've been in a similar place mentally. I'm in so deep this time that I don't know how to fix it - all my other episodes seem like cake in comparison to this.
Thankyou for reading,
xx