anxiety of surroundings and sky - agorophobia?

[Rocker77]

Hello All,

I have been suffering with a vestibular condition called Vestibular Migraine for the past year, it was triggered ever since I broke up with my long term girlfriend and ever since then have not been quite right.

My symptoms consist of a feeling of constant imbalance and sensation that things slightly sway in my vision. These sensations vary in their intensity.

The neurologists have said this is all caused by Migraine and in time will change, they have put me on a medication called Nortriptyline which is actually an old school anti depressant but used at a very low dose is also helpful for migraine prophylaxis.

The one big side issue of this condition is a huge amount of anxiety and I guess my anxiety is based on my surroundings as my world is somehow not the same stable place it was before so its only natural.

I seem to feel extremely anxious on sunny days when the sky is completely blue but I know its totally irrational and can't understand why I have the anxiety.

With this condition I also seem to have anxiety non stop, like my mind can never rest and this causes the feeling of a sense of impending doom, like something bad will happen or I won't be able to cope in a certain situation.
In face, I look at things that people are happy doing and think "I wish I could do that and be so happy aswell". Its like I am disabled but without the physical appearance of being disabled...

Any tips on dealing with the anxiety side of this greatly appreciated :)

[trish1955]

hi anxiety is a crippling illness and because you can not see it people who dont have any of these probs think yr joking about it being crippling you do need to go see yr dr and ask for help on the anxiety because mine began in 60s led to panic attacks wich was not heard of then so i struggled till i was in my late 20s to even be told what my probs was by this time i had got agraphobia to a point were i could not go out alone or stay home alone there is more help now than there was back then go seek what ever you can get for support and here is a good place for that as well people on here do understand were you are coming from take care trish x

[owlkeeper]

Any form of migraines has a sensitivity to light. The meds you use can dilate your pupils and increase your light sensitivity even further.

Now have you ever heard someone saying that if you paint a room in light colours it looks bigger? This is a perspective trick by our brain. The more light the more we see thus the bigger it looks.

My son and I both have the same symptoms and it took me years of freaking out over it (everything out of the ordinary makes me panic) before I found out what was going on. My anti depressants caused the world around me to look bigger because I already was sensitive to light and the meds dilated my pupils further and made me more sensitive to light.

My son now wears sunglasses and I wear baseball caps because I get irritated by glasses. The baseball cap makes my world look more "small".. I know it sounds idiotic but it helped me so much that I have caps laying around everywhere.. At home, in my bf's car, at my mum's etc. etc.

I hope you will find things that help you too!