Anxiety improving signs ???

[LAS]

Hi All

Not sure if anyone has any positive reassurances for me, I am new to this site. Quick history, I had an acute anxiety onset last year July 2016, bought on by some family conflicts. This scared the living daylights out of me and phoned the GP straight away. I saw the GP the following day and she put me straight on Escitalopram and some Lorazepam (which I only took once), but the Escitalopram I took for 7 months, and after the initial start-up increased anxiety, which at the time I didn’t notice as I was so scared by it all, it worked wonders and after two weeks I was getting back to normal and was back to my old self in 4 weeks and felt wonderful and decided to taper it off after 7 months, as I felt I no longer needed it.

A few months after coming off, I felt my anxiety coming back slowly, nothing as bad as before, but got scared, as had a holiday coming up which I didn’t want to ruin, and thought, I know, I will go back on the Escitalopram so I will be OK for my holiday. Big mistake, the anxiety increased x10, so much so I stopped taking the tablets after 3 days. Since then (end of June) my anxiety has been bad (++ anxiety, heart thumping, breathlessness, hot flushes, shivering, nervousness, nausea, no appetite, very fidgety, pacing) for two weeks, then feel ok for two weeks, then bad, on and off up until now. I have lost so much weight. I have two children and sometimes I feel that I am letting them down, as all my attention is on my anxiety.

However, over the last 3 weeks, I have noticed that my anxiety has changed and is not as severe, but still feel I cannot relax, tight shoulders, stomach issues, worrying about every little niggle in my body, which I didn’t do before, jaw ache, appetite still isn’t good. I am due to meet with a psychology wellbeing practitioner tomorrow, so hoping I can improve on everything. Could this be a sign that my anxiety is getting better, am I on the road to recovery. I just want to get back to being the person I was before this all came on !! Some positivity would be great !!:unsure:

[Beckybecks]

It's possible that because you've accepted that all your symptoms are due to anxiety and that you know it's controllable, you're not scared by it anymore. That's a BIG step towards recovery.

I see anxiety as a bad habit that will continue until we un-learn the habit.
Some people need therapy to manage this, but sometimes one's brain just does it for you.

It seems that you understand your anxiety and the symptoms it produces. And the fact that you saw your doctor immediately means you like to confront your problems rather than try to ignore them and hope they'll go away.

In my experience once we've suffered from anxiety, we can never go back to the carefree person we were before, because we now know what our minds are capable of. it's scary!
But at the end of the day, you'll be a better person for having gone through this, more understanding and compassionate. So there are compensations!

Medication has its place but I've never felt it was the complete or long-term answer as it just masks the symptoms. What has really helped me was plenty of research so that I can gain full understanding of the disorder. And CBT is wonderful in getting our minds to un-learn these bad habits.

I hope your meeting tmorrow will be another step forward and that you'll soon feel completely on top of the situation.