getting worse? blip?

[skymaid]

Sigh..

I seemed to be slowly recovering. Doing mindfulness exercises everyday and trying to do an exposure therapy challenge each day and was slowly recovering. Getting some work done, household chores. I even had the odd enjoyable thing like having a glass of wine with a movie on Friday etc.

Then I had painful stabs and stretching feelings in my lower stomach (IBS/Constipation in hindsight) on Saturday night. For some reason this sent me into the usual panic about whether this was going to make me sick so I took a diazepam. Once it kicked in I was fine. Fell asleep.

That isn't completely out of the ordinary since I usually get some stupid symptom that scares me into a panic attack once a week.

But then the next night I woke up in the middle of the night with a bit of heartburn (probably the 4-5 chocolate biscuit I ate in bed before sleep). Panicked again.. Diazepam.. felt better, fell asleep.

Then last night I woke up kinda choking (nose was a bit runny I guess and I had a huge fan in the room which was probably drying the air out). Obviously I thought the choking might be something to do with being sick again. Got into a total panic. Diazepam. felt better. sleep.

I don't know why I've suddenly got worse. Luckily I've barely taken any of my tablets at all in the previous few week because I was getting better at managing the anxiety.

But now I feel like i'm almost back to square 1 and I don't want to be taking diazepam more than once (or twice) a week at most either.

So depressing. Seems like a huge setback.

Can anyone relate or give any advice?

(I have GAD + emetophobia hence the panic attacks come when I think I might be sick)

[MyNameIsTerry]

Sorry to hear you are having a rough time.

I think you need to treat it as a blip. Recovery is never smooth so you are going to have bad weeks and whilst it's hard we need to try not to kick ourselves too much or let it sink our mood.

I'm not downplaying it, it's easy for me too say the above, but I know when I went through my earlier stages I was just like this and got upset and made myself worse. One of the first lessons I learnt in the walk-in groups was about it never being a smooth recovery pattern. I also learned not too judge things too quickly and assume a severity level when it could be a transient thing so unless I see a pattern developing, I chalk it up to a blip and see what happens.

It sounds like you can work with causing the symptoms here. Learning to change your fear reaction takes time though, it's after all opposing the stronger survival instinct.

[skymaid]

Thanks Terry.

I see your good posts on here quite a bit. Are you recovered now? If so can I ask how?

I was hoping to do this without much medication (Diaz for panics) but I'm starting to think it's too hard and maybe I should give the Lyrica I was prescribed a go again (I only dared take one but didn't have any side effects).

Being a computer programmer I think things to fit into a neat pattern and this "recovery" doesn't at all. It's almost making no sense at all.

Therapy today. Hopefully that'll clear my mind.

[MyNameIsTerry]

No, I'm not recovered. I've beaten my intrusive thoughts (twice) and all my many compulsions but I'm still working on the obsessions (which were very ingrained) and the GAD (which was my primary disorder, the OCD came from starting a med).

I can imagine with you being a programmer. But try to see it like your projects where something doesn't work and you have to backtrack and work through it to correct it. Treat it like the QA testing side where (if it's anything like my last company was) it all goes wrong and you have to make the corrections.

Crikey, whilst the project office in my last firm would be running the cycle, it would fall to everyone within it, the real experts whether in IT or the business, who had to come up with the goods to make sure it all worked whether it was detailed what should happen to making sure it did. I'm perhaps biased, whilst a BA at the end, I was from the business originally. :whistles:

What I can tell you, is what I have done and much of it I bet you already know. It's all micro goals, nothing big, just keep chipping away and let the cumulative effect get you there. If an exposure is too much, and you can't get past it, insert a stepping stone to get you closer too. Then it's all time & repetition.

For me, Mindfulness has been a great helper. I took me months to get into it with daily practice but it sort of clicked. After 6 months I felt a sudden shift in my thinking, which I later learned was called a Cognitive Shift. I felt a shift to compassion. It was a good feeling.

I also had some epiphanies with it. I had a few days where I was out walking and just felt like sitting down on that warm summer day. I sat on the bank of an old stream and just felt free. I felt so good, it has been so long since I had felt anything like that. I just sat watching the birds & grass move, listening to the sounds, feeling the long grass through my fingers. I felt intuitive. This happened the next few days and then it just sort of went. But I felt different for the experience.

Another one was a big helper with my nausea. I won't go into detail with this as I recall you have emotophobia and it could be triggering for you. Apologies if any of this next bit is triggering. I had a bug and I suddenly felt like I needed to (well you know) and ran for the toilet. The strangest thing happened. As I was (I won't say), something in my head literally went "this is what true nausea feels like" and I recognised it for being far different and more powerful than the nausea that had been plaguing me for years with the anxiety. From that day, I've hardly had any nausea and even then it has been due to food (too much on occasion) or I've just pushed through it easily.

Mindfulness did that. So, it's worth trying things to work on your thinking, it often just creeps up on you despite all your conscious efforts and things click into place.

Other than that I used to walk daily. This ended becoming an obsession though and another avoidance of changing my routine or being in the house having to sit with my anxiety. I've got through this too now. I stayed in the house for 2 months solid other than going to the back yard. At first going back out was tricky (when at my worst I had suffered some agoraphobia, nothing as bad as a true agoraphobic though, I just couldn't go out of the house or panicked when inside places not near exits) but that quickly went away and now my old daily walking obsession had been broken. Years on, it hasn't come back.

Distraction has been used.

I got through some of my issue with exercise that focussed on racing HR through some Behavioural Experiments when in therapy. My therapist had me doing short sprints and thinking about how I felt. Tough at first but after a few attempts it got easier. What really cracked this one though was walking my dog years after initially doing this. My dog just looks up at me sometimes with "can we run" face on...and off we went. Sprinting with him felt easier than alone. That cracked the HR issue with exercise and the breathlessness. I'm still working on the aches & pains side as I really want to get back into shape on the weights.

My sleep cycle is a big one I've struggled with. I sleep in the days and it just got worse & worse in my relapse. I corrected it before to go back to work but my relapse has been so much worse as the obsessions came with it (cheers doc for the SNRI you put me on!). I've tried unsuccessfully to beat it quite a few times, it slips back and it slips back worse. I'm trying something new the last few weeks, hence not being on here much right now, and it is finally working. So, hopefully I can crack that problem next.

My belief is you keep looking for what works. It's not about one thing for many of us, it's a whole load of things combining.

[skymaid]

thanks terry.

Sounds like i'm sort of doing most of the right things then at least. as usual my impatient nature is getting in the way. I'm seeing some good results from mindfulness meditations at least just not when I wake up in the middle of the night in a panic.

I'm going to bite the bullet and try the medication route too. Much as i'd like to do it on my own I can't seem to.

[Cherryade]

Skymaid,
Are you getting any help to manage the panicky feelings (breathing exercises etc) as taking Diazepam every time is not the way to go! Sounds as though this is what you should be working on, either through self help or with a counsellor.

[pulisa]

I would say the same. Diazepam is a false friend and is not the answer. You really don't want to have to deal with withdrawal.