Delayed response?

[NorseWolf94]

Hello everyone,
I just have a question I'd like to ask to see if any of you have experienced this yourselves.

Have you ever experienced something stressful or traumatic that you dealt with pretty well on the day, only to find that the next three or four days after that are riddled with debilitating anxiety symptoms?

There was an incident with my partners crazy ex-boyfriend a few days ago when he came to drop his daughter back after having her for the day. He became very abusive to my partner at the front door, swearing with his foot in the door to stop it from closing. When the door was eventually slammed in his face he ran round to the back garden and jumped the wall, he was trying to get to me to attack me but fortunately the back doors were locked. My partner got on the phone to the police and he then did a runner.

I'm someone that can stand their ground in a confrontation but this guy is over twice the size as me and has a screw loose so you can probably understand that I had a lot of adrenalin running through me at the time. Me and my partner were pretty shaken up afterwards but for the rest of the day I felt strangely calm and Okay.

However, the next day was filled with unbearable physical symptoms of anxiety, as was everyday after that up until today. I've felt so unwell physically which has fired up my Health anxiety again and brought me back to a level of anxiety that I haven't felt for a long time.

I think that maybe this was some sort of delayed anxiety response or something? Have any of you had a delayed response like this?
Thanks.

[MyNameIsTerry]

I think you are right.

Have you ever heard people talking in TV documentaries how they just dived in and got something done only to later spend time wondering about the consequences if it had wrong?

It seems unusual in anxiety disorder sufferers as we would be expected to freeze in difficult situation because we so often are struggling with daily things that the non anxious take for granted. But this isn't the case, we may freeze or shy away but there are times our bodies react with fight or flight in the way it was always meant to before our disorders...and we fight!

It's happened to me a few times. With my GAD I would struggle with confrontation as it would be triggering yet I've had a few times where someone has been having a go and I've stood my ground and even gave them some back. Then I'm back home struggling to do basic stuff again :doh: so it seems bizarre to take on the bigger stuff. Yet we do, we can rise to the challenge.

Perhaps sometimes we do because anxiety doesn't define us and there are more important beliefs inside of us that take hold? For instance, if someone is harming a loved one does your much deeper beliefs about protecting your loved ones mean the adrenaline pushes you into fight mode?

Then later when we think about it, anxiety gets an "in" because it's back to negative thinking such as "what ifs", catastrophizing, etc.

Also, it can be demanding. Our neurotransmitters are being used in all these situations and even if something it stressful, like how medical testing may be for you with your HA, but we keep going as we know we need to and then come home and collapse in a heap? We feel drained. The body is doing what it has to to calm us down so it can rebuild what it needs to. Just like how DP/DR can follow bad panic attacks where the body escapes those feelings to allow itself time to recover. That's all about neurotransmitters and their balance in the brain.

Once I was shopping in LIDL and to be honest I was in a bit of a state and holding back some tears. A woman came running out of the storeroom asking for help as s delivery driver had become trapped under a heavy truck used to offload. There was only 2 women in the store. So, she asked me for help. I went in, got him free, checked he was ok then went back to my shopping. All calm, like you. Queue walking home an hour later anxious running the situation back & forth through my mind blah blah blah...Again, fight or flight doing what it was meant to do and in this case the right thing to do was help just as the right thing for you to do was protect your GF and seek help from the police.

[Pegi21]

Hi, a similar situation happened to me on Thursday when my boyfriends ex slapped him & barged into his house to meet me at the top of the stairs. Ranting about my ex, I had a terrible delayed response too that night and the following day. I felt guilty I didn't feel like I supported my partner enough during it and catastrosised the situation on what I would do if she returned. I'm over it now though.

[DustingMyselfOff]

Hah! I haven't been on this site in a while but specifically came here today to do a search for "Delayed anxiety" and that's how I found your post. It must be a real thing because we are all here writing about it. I remember decades ago working in an office when a factory worker came busting in with blood spraying out of his hand. I took control of the situation, tended to him, called an ambulance, calmed everyone else down, and all was fine. Until a few hours later when I was in the post office and had a panic attack. Totally froze.

Again a long time ago and similar to the other stories, a deranged ex of mine broke the front window of my house to get to me and my husband, came in trying to kill us. I got away and was able to run next door to call for help while my husband stayed and tackled him. I was fairly calm through the crisis and through all the questioning at the police station, but not so good a few days later.

And just this past week, I had "Hell Week" at the office. Lots of international VIP's all day and all night and lots of stress and multi-tasking and pressure. All my co-workers kept coming by to check on me to see how I was holding out through the stress and long hours and my answer was always "I'm doing surprisingly great - no problem!" The wind down of craziness started Friday afternoon and Saturday I was an exhausted zombie, and today I'm having high anxiety, which is triggering health anxiety, so of course I feel physically terrible on top of anxious.

I don't have the scientific reasons behind this but apparently it DOES occur. Misery loves company, so thanks for being here and sharing.
Sue

[NorseWolf94]

Thanks for the reply and sorry it took me so long to reply! I definitely agree with everything you said in your reply. It is strange when you think about it really, an anxiety response can go one of many different ways and I've found that quite often, the situations I imagine myself to freeze in (like your Lidl incident) I actually jump into action with and the situations I imagine myself doing well in can be terrible! Upon reflection, the delayed response makes sense as in a situation in which your body thinks it needs to be alert to survive it wouldn't really have time to be traumatised, there's plenty of time for that after the situation when you begin replaying it in your mind constantly.

---------- Post added at 10:58 ---------- Previous post was at 10:56 ----------

Thanks for your reply pegi and I'm sorry you had to experience that, some people are just complete you know whats. I'm glad you made peace with it fairly quickly though!

---------- Post added at 11:05 ---------- Previous post was at 10:58 ----------

DustingMyselfOff, thanks for the reply! All three of those scenarios sound pretty bad but especially the one about your ex :O I'm glad you made it out of that one okay! And i'm glad that you found my post on this topic, I hope it made you feel less alien and alone. It seems to me that a delayed response is indeed a common phenomenon. It makes sense to me though as the human body wouldn't be doing a good job at keeping you alive if it froze and dismantled during every stressful scenario, but knowing that doesn't make it any easier does it!

[DavidJ85]

I can totally relate to this. Without going into too much detail I had bailiffs at the door of my parents house and I wasn't there and on the phone to the bailiff I was reasonably calm and collected but wanted to rip his head off but kept cool in a very anxious situation.

Since then my anxiety has been through the roof, as if like a delayed response and I feel terrible.

[NorseWolf94]

I'm really sorry to hear that David, having baliffs at the front door to your parents house is definitely an anxiety and stress inducing situation! It definitely seems as if this delayed response thing is real then. Sorry you're feeling so awful right now, if it helps, I ended up calming down significantly a few days after I wrote this post so hopefully that might work out the same for you too? All the best