mgw
30-12-13, 20:05
Hi! Just wanted to share briefly my history and the successful two days I have had, hopefully this will give many of you hope and see that things can get better!
I have suffered from OCD mainly manifesting around repetitive negative thoughts since a very young age, around 6 or something maybe? This has grown and in recent years manifested into general anxiety and in the last year grew severely. It has resulted in a constant general feeling of unease, just not feeling normal ever! It then grew into recurring panic attacks, horrible physical symptoms of faintness, nausea, DP/DR, vision problems, shaking, horrible horrible things! I often suffer from attacks like this on a daily basis, sometimes a day will be spent feeling the horrible DP/DR and other physical symptoms. These symptoms in the last few months have become very severe when leaving the house, particularly in social areas like town centres.
Over the last few months I have been almost completely housebound, only leaving the house a few times when drunk (I know, bad idea using alcohol for this)! I have been incredibly depressed by all this, increasing all the anxiety, and creating a viscous circle by refusing to do anything I know has and will cause me panic.
After numerous attempts at getting counselling through the doctor, being prescribed numerous medications I was too scared to take (although I will say diazepam has a few times been a life saver!) I began counselling. Often I have felt that it was pointless and a waste of money creating even more despair of not getting better! However, a few weeks ago I had a session which really helped! I was encouraged to leave the house with my counsellor and was told to have as many panic attacks, horribly symptoms etc and let it happen. Of course at first this made me want to cry my eyes out! Whilst we were walking I was told to try and walk as slow as possible and often stop and stand still. This of course as many of you will know is horrible!! Its going exactly against what your body is telling you to do and very hard! Eventually although the panic did not go away it did not go as bad as it previously would have done! Yes, I was shaking feeling like I was about to die, but nothing happened and the full scale horrible panic attack did not come!
Within the two weeks after this, I left the house once which was awful, horrible feelings again, panic attacks etc. The second time I tried this was yesterday when I had to go to pick something up from a local shopping centre. I was dreading this for days, crying about it I've been so scared. As I expected as soon as I got out the car and began walking the panic began! My boyfriend who I was with however made sure I was doing what the counsellor had said and walk slow, not letting me rush as I would normally do. At the time yes this made me mad, but it worked! The panic stopped! For the first time in months I was able to walk around town, going into numerous shops, standing in ques. I even forced myself to go into a busy starbucks que and get a coffee. Something I don't think I've been able to do in the last year at all!
Since then I have taken the dog out three times, been into local shops and not felt one bit of panic. This may sound stupid and small to many people and my amazing happiness at it may be hard to understand! But honestly, today is the happiest I have felt in so long, I feel so proud of myself for being able to do this and feel so confident about my future right now :). I want everyone here to know that you can start to feel better, everything can start changing for the good and when it does you will feel amazing! Nothing beats the feeling of actually starting to look forward to future instead of dreading it!
I really want to thank everyone on here, and there's a lot of you! You have given me so much advice that has benefited me and made me feel not alone, and I'm sure I'm going to continue to get this support from this site throughout my whole journey of getting back to feeling like me again :).
Sorry for the whole rant I'm just so happy with it all right now! xx:yesyes:
I have suffered from OCD mainly manifesting around repetitive negative thoughts since a very young age, around 6 or something maybe? This has grown and in recent years manifested into general anxiety and in the last year grew severely. It has resulted in a constant general feeling of unease, just not feeling normal ever! It then grew into recurring panic attacks, horrible physical symptoms of faintness, nausea, DP/DR, vision problems, shaking, horrible horrible things! I often suffer from attacks like this on a daily basis, sometimes a day will be spent feeling the horrible DP/DR and other physical symptoms. These symptoms in the last few months have become very severe when leaving the house, particularly in social areas like town centres.
Over the last few months I have been almost completely housebound, only leaving the house a few times when drunk (I know, bad idea using alcohol for this)! I have been incredibly depressed by all this, increasing all the anxiety, and creating a viscous circle by refusing to do anything I know has and will cause me panic.
After numerous attempts at getting counselling through the doctor, being prescribed numerous medications I was too scared to take (although I will say diazepam has a few times been a life saver!) I began counselling. Often I have felt that it was pointless and a waste of money creating even more despair of not getting better! However, a few weeks ago I had a session which really helped! I was encouraged to leave the house with my counsellor and was told to have as many panic attacks, horribly symptoms etc and let it happen. Of course at first this made me want to cry my eyes out! Whilst we were walking I was told to try and walk as slow as possible and often stop and stand still. This of course as many of you will know is horrible!! Its going exactly against what your body is telling you to do and very hard! Eventually although the panic did not go away it did not go as bad as it previously would have done! Yes, I was shaking feeling like I was about to die, but nothing happened and the full scale horrible panic attack did not come!
Within the two weeks after this, I left the house once which was awful, horrible feelings again, panic attacks etc. The second time I tried this was yesterday when I had to go to pick something up from a local shopping centre. I was dreading this for days, crying about it I've been so scared. As I expected as soon as I got out the car and began walking the panic began! My boyfriend who I was with however made sure I was doing what the counsellor had said and walk slow, not letting me rush as I would normally do. At the time yes this made me mad, but it worked! The panic stopped! For the first time in months I was able to walk around town, going into numerous shops, standing in ques. I even forced myself to go into a busy starbucks que and get a coffee. Something I don't think I've been able to do in the last year at all!
Since then I have taken the dog out three times, been into local shops and not felt one bit of panic. This may sound stupid and small to many people and my amazing happiness at it may be hard to understand! But honestly, today is the happiest I have felt in so long, I feel so proud of myself for being able to do this and feel so confident about my future right now :). I want everyone here to know that you can start to feel better, everything can start changing for the good and when it does you will feel amazing! Nothing beats the feeling of actually starting to look forward to future instead of dreading it!
I really want to thank everyone on here, and there's a lot of you! You have given me so much advice that has benefited me and made me feel not alone, and I'm sure I'm going to continue to get this support from this site throughout my whole journey of getting back to feeling like me again :).
Sorry for the whole rant I'm just so happy with it all right now! xx:yesyes: