Tic things

[TheStrangeOnes]

Hi.I have been diagnosed with GAD and I suffer from various tics now and again which can occur anywhere on my body. Sometimes it's my eyelid, which I know happens to many people, but sometimes it can my cheek or my neck or even my foot! The one I have right now is on my forehead. I know it sounds weird, but I'm sure they're related to stress. The thing is I can become obsessive about them if they persist and that just makes them worse. They can become so annoying that they cause me really severe anxiety. In fact the one on my forehead right now has been getting worse lately and although I don't have panic attacks, I do actually feel sick and my heart has been thumping hard non stop. I know it sounds crazy but this is the effect the tics are having on me. I'm not the least bit concerned that they're a sign of something serious. It's just the terrible feelings of anxiety they're provoking as they sometimes won't go away even when I'm lying down and trying to sleep. I feel foolish getting into such a state over something so trivial. I've always been an extremely anxious, neurotic and excitable person but this really is driving me to distraction.
Ian

[sial72]

I get them too. Do you do anything for relaxation?
I do deep breathing, tapping and I give myself a massage with relaxing oils x

[Oosh]

Oh yeh. That's a weird one.

Maybe try something like yoga. As well as relaxing you and lowering stress levels it would also get rid of some of that nervous energy throughout your body that you might have built up. Would give you something else to focus on too.

[TheStrangeOnes]

Thanks for your replies. I don't find it easy to relax at all but I guess I'll have to try harder!

[Anna1707]

I'm having those and fasciculations both. For 6 months now. I really try not to give it any attention any more. There was one period of 5 weeks when one spot under my left rib constantly was "dancing" or pulsating or I don't really know how to describe what it did. But 24/7, no stopping, not even during my sleep.

My anxiety started because of that. Course, the trigger was stress and worrying after those ticks and fasciculations came, I was so afraid I had ALS, that I almost stopped breathing one night because I couldn't stop crying for like 10 hours. I thought thats it, I maybe have few more years, so I better push away everyone I cared about so they would never feel sorry for me.

And that my friends is how you make yourself a problem so big, so quickly, that you need years to recover from it.

[MyNameIsTerry]

There are various tic disorders, Tourettism, Tourettes Syndrome and even Tic Related OCD! I was reading about some of this recently (the OCD form was a new one on me!) and it said that in people with such as TS, their tics get worse when under stress. Now, as an OCD sufferer (and I've heard others say the same) I can tell you that if my overall stress levels rise (I have GAD too) then my OCD gets much worse. So, people with Tic Related OCD are likely to see that too, and I suspect I have had this and only recently found it out.

So, doing things to reduce overall levels of anxiety will be very helpful in reducing the intensity.

Do you have OCD?

People having various twitches with anxiety are common and all the hypnic jerks and so forth. They can be distressing at first and what I learned about them is that they tend to go away as you start to recover and feel less anxious in terms of peak intensity and duration. I know someone else on here with facial twitches and she seems to have hers when she is far more anxious.