Anxiety has come back due to stress

[gracesophia]

Hi everyone,

I used to be a regular on these boards, especially on the Health Anxiety one. I had Cognitive Analytic Therapy 5 years ago, and felt like I had recovered, although I knew I would probably always be on Citalopram (I'm on 20mg a day).

However, my partner and I are currently going through a really stressful time together and it's set my anxiety off horribly. I need to be able to support him with paperwork, appointments etc. but feel like I'm falling apart.

I haven't been able to get out of bed till after midday for the last few days because I lie there with the sense of 'dread', nausea and my heart pounding. My appetite has completely gone so I am feeling faint a lot of the time and am on the verge of tears.

The only time I feel ok is when I go out running. It doesn't help that I work in schools, and over the summer work from home so there is nowhere I have to be in the morning.

The situation we're in is one where we have little control and that's a massive trigger for me. I know we just have to get through it but my anxiety is making it a nightmare.

I don't know whether to go back to my doctor and see if I need to be on another kind of drug (maybe betablockers?) or whether to go and see my amazing therapist again (but that's expensive, and money is one of our worries).

I feel like I know how to deal with anxiety that is groundless, but not when it's about an actual real problem.

Help?

[Oosh]

"I feel like I know how to deal with anxiety that is groundless, but not when it's about an actual real problem."

Thats what im like.

Is this "out of control" period temporary then ? Is it likely to end at some point ?

With me, i freek out at a real and significant danger but calm myself down by seeing how its going to end up ok. I "see the way".
"Its going to be ok because im going to do this."

Without it you sort of wake up every morning dreading the uncontrolled anxiety youre inevitably going to face again.

At least those real anxieties are actually solvable a lot of the time. Theyre real world problems and tend to have some sort of solution one way or another. Give yourself a solution to wake up to and relieve some of that morning dread.

[gracesophia]

Thanks Oosh. It's sort of indefinite - it could be resolved, but equally it could drag on for years so it's hard to predict. I am the sort of person who likes to expect the worst and think about how I would deal with it, but that's not very helpful when my partner needs me to be hopeful. I need strategies to cope with the uncertainty and be able to live with it - don't we all?! :)

[Oosh]

Yeh the indefinite thing is hard. I did it for years over a work situation and I think it was responsible for poor balance, brain fog etc which have all gone now.

It's sort of automatic to home in on dangers in your environment and if that perceived danger is there when you wake up every day the anxiety will take its toll.

My work fear happened. I'm self employed now. And over the last few years brain fog and balance issues have gone. I believe it's because that fear of the inevitable nightmare scenario has gone.

Some of us are just wired to worry. We are prone to it. It's really unhelpful to always have something real to worry about every day when you wake up.

I think when we wake up we ask
Who am I ?
Where am I ?
Is everything ok ?
Etc etc
You remember and that is reflected in the mood you wake up in.
I did it for years when I had bad social anxiety and lived alone.
I woke with heart palpitations almost every day as the reality of my situation was so terrifying to me.

I feel so much better with a lot of my real world issues solved.

Hope you can find away to relieve some of the anxiety.