Just how bad is this Anxiety attack

[MarkUk]

When, like now, I'm going through a really bad anxiety attack/episode which is constant 24/7 I always say to my wife "this is the worst it has ever been " & I do feel that it is, but when I begin to get moments of clarity I often wonder if it really is the worst. I have been looking back & notice a pattern which starts with intense anxiety where my mind just turns on itself & I get a feeling I am going to loose it, I sleep for 3 hours then wake with my mind constantly thinking negative thoughts then I am unable to eat for a few days my whole focus is turned in on myself for a bout tree days then I normally start to come out of it to some degree where I can function on some OKish level.

It happens so fast, weekend I was OK, had a sleep in was eating OK had control of my thoughts then Monday am I was having intense anxiety thoughts wreching, not eating feeling like I just wanted to go into a mental hospital & just be drugged up so I could not think, I just wanted it to stop.

My point in posting is to just see if you can share these feelings/thoughts, do we just feel that this time is the worst or do we just get tricked by our anxious minds. I might start keeping a diary so I can look back & see if I am making progress or it is indeed getting worse.

Thanks for listening:)

[craigj1303]

Hi Mark

I have suffered the same way with some of the symptoms you raised there. I can particularly relate to the anxiety consuming my thoughts for a few days and then coming out of it to an OK level.

I started a diary in December last year because I really wanted to see just how bad and how common my anxiety was. I recorded each day an anxiety level of 1 - 10, how much alcohol I had drunk, how much sleep i'd had the night before, looking for any kind of link, any one thing that was causing all this. But on reflection, there was no real common theme. Sometimes I had drunk alocohol and had a late night and been fine the next day.

The outcome was the most days I recorded anxiety levels between 1-3. Only a couple of times in the 3 weeks I kept the diary did I record levels of 4 + and never got anywhere near 10 (closest was 7 I think). So I decided to stop keeping the diary in the end as I accepted that I have anxiety, probably no one single thing causes it and I just need to accept it's there and let it alone. I'm not afraid of it, it won't stop me doing anything and the symptoms will now start to pass. It may take weeks, months, years even. What will be will be.

[MarkUk]

Hi, yes I am beginning to see that I can't blame anything or anyone on my anxiety it has been with me since childhood in one form or another but back in my late teens I masked it with drink then later drugs so although I stopped drinking over 20 years ago I had been on prescribed anti depressants for many years but came off them just over a year ago.

Alot of what you say makes sense to me & I am staring to just accept that I just need to live with it & not blame it on anything. That's not to say it wont get better as I am sure it will but at the time when it's bad it just feels like nothing will change & I guess that's what anxiety is, feeling everything is out of control & thoughts are exaggerated out of all proportion.

[PanchoGoz]

It is in the nature of panic to feel "worst", not just bad or worse, but "worst" because it wants you to think that so it can better protect you. It's catastrophisation