Miss social life

[Wendie j]

Hi everyone

this is my first major thread so would be so happy to hear if anyones in a similar position/has any advice/can boost my morale abit.Sorry guys im asking alot from you!

Ive been suffering from health anxiety/panic attacks for a few months now.Apart from the obvious distressing symtoms ive lost the old confident me,the one who could go on holidays,have a good social life and hold down a job.Im not "me" anymore if that makes sense.

Friends/family are supportive but i miss being able to go out and really "enjoy" it rather than spening the time worrying if i will get an attack or be bad.

Does anyone else miss their hobbies,passtimes and social life,and any advice to make me feel less upset about it.

Thank you so so much.

Wendie j x

[belle]

I wish i could offer you some advice, but then i would be taking it myself and i wouldn't be stuck in my house day in, day out.

Sorry :(

Sarah x

[daisy2]

Dear Wendie,

I can relate to everything that you have said, it is a nasty feeling when you feel that you are being stopped from living your life because of anxiety.
I agree with what JoeA has said about getting out there and facing it head on, i know its hard, and i understand that its not all that easy, but if you keep telling yourself that the anxiety will pass and that nothing is going to happen to you, you will be teaching yourself that you have nothing to be afraid of, you will then become more confident again, and at the end of all of this you will be a much stronger person.
Dont hide away from it like i did for so many years, i have not been able to go on hoilday for four years now because i kept putting it off, thinking when i get better i will go then, but because i did that my fears have got bigger and bigger, and it is taking alot now to overcome all the anxiety that i feel, but i will get there!!
You will overcome this!!!!
I hope this has helped a little,
Take care and let us know how you are getting on

Nina x x x x

[Keitharcher]

Hi

I used to be bad, in fact i was sucidal at one time, then i found NMP now i consider myself cured. I will not offer advice, but I will tell you what worked for me.

First I talked to the people on NMP and the doctors about my problem I was totally honest. Talking helped me see my problems with dispassionate eyes. Then I started to turn negatives into positives, no matter how negative i use to exam everything until i found some positive element. Thats what I concentrated on, building it up making it better. Pretty soon I wasnt having negatives just a series of positives, some nmore positive than others.

My next stage was to re-evsaluate my life, what was I doing, why wasnt i doing the important smelling the flowers, just seeing what a winderful place the world and life really is. I started to smile, when i did I found the world smiled back. It was like a drug, so different from the down side of life, I wanted more of it.

Now I look at life as she really is, I try to be positive all the time (not always easy) and I laugh. It took me a year but now i cringe when i think of the sucidal person I was.

I achieved this by talking to the wonderful people on NMP, I even reccomended this site to my doctor and re-evaluating my priorities. It worked for me - give it a try it mught just work for especially if you modify my technique to suit yourself. You will to be busy gettting better to worry about anything else.

Keith

[Wendie j]

Thankyou to everybody who has taken the time to reply.

I think what hasnt helped was that i had a long standing respiritary virus that had similar simptoms to panic (i.e the breathlessness) and after a while i couldnt differentiate the 2!,its knocked my confidence abit as i couldnt get out far to push my boundaries as far as the agoraphobia goes.So i started again yesterday getting out.

Wendie j x