Asharai
17-04-16, 16:40
Just joined here after trying to just reason with my anxiety for... a ridiculous length of time. I had my first panic attack four years ago when I had just finished packing all the boxes to be shipped to here (Finland) from Ireland (I'm originally from South Africa, grew up in UK - no stranger to moving!).
Since then it's been on and off from just daily, general anxiety to weekly (at times daily) panic attacks during tough times. I had 3 months of pretty much no anxiety and now it's back up again.
Predominantly it's triggered by any threat of confrontation or by health worries. My symptoms mainly centre around my chest. When it's bad I'm afraid to go to sleep incase I don't wake up.
I'm on no daily medication but have beta blockers which I occasionally take. I've been to the doctors 3 times about it here in Finland. The first two times they were mainly concerned about my general health (I've lost 30kg since then!) the third time the doc wouldn't discuss it because it wasn't a booked appointment, it was a walk in. The fourth. The first doc wanted to give me meds but I was breastfeeding which rendered most of them inappropriate. He said he wouldn't sort out therapy because it would be too difficult to find an ENglish speaker (I don't think I've spoken to a university-educated Finnish person who didn't speak English).
I guess I kinda gave up on the health service here when it comes to mental health - though the two times I've had to deal with the hospital because I had major panic attacks, they were very sweet and helpful.
This is turning into an essay. ANYWAY. I find talking about it and hearing from other people who have similar issues with worrying about health, really reassuring. :)
Since then it's been on and off from just daily, general anxiety to weekly (at times daily) panic attacks during tough times. I had 3 months of pretty much no anxiety and now it's back up again.
Predominantly it's triggered by any threat of confrontation or by health worries. My symptoms mainly centre around my chest. When it's bad I'm afraid to go to sleep incase I don't wake up.
I'm on no daily medication but have beta blockers which I occasionally take. I've been to the doctors 3 times about it here in Finland. The first two times they were mainly concerned about my general health (I've lost 30kg since then!) the third time the doc wouldn't discuss it because it wasn't a booked appointment, it was a walk in. The fourth. The first doc wanted to give me meds but I was breastfeeding which rendered most of them inappropriate. He said he wouldn't sort out therapy because it would be too difficult to find an ENglish speaker (I don't think I've spoken to a university-educated Finnish person who didn't speak English).
I guess I kinda gave up on the health service here when it comes to mental health - though the two times I've had to deal with the hospital because I had major panic attacks, they were very sweet and helpful.
This is turning into an essay. ANYWAY. I find talking about it and hearing from other people who have similar issues with worrying about health, really reassuring. :)