Unbearable crisis - don't know where to go from here

[wanderer02]

Hey friends,

I've had my fair share of issues with anxiety, ocd and episodes of panic in the past but somehow this one seems like the worst yet.

A few days back I went to party and there was excessive drinking involved. The next day I woke up with an incredible hangover which quickly spiraled into a series of panic attacks which would come in uncontrollable waves. I somehow managed to survive this day but the next day was not much better. Now on the third day I'm still feeling extremely dizzy, depressed and unspeakable. I can't function normally and needles to say I'm terrified because life doesn't cut me a beak right now. I need to work and be productive to sustain my family. My wife is already exhausted from the last 3 days of me going haywire with panic and anxiety and I don't want to stress her more...

I just don't know what to do and where to go from here. Feeling that things will never be the same again and at the same time I can't take another day feeling like like this. I'm not sure if anyone can relate how continuous panic and anxiety can make you feel and that you rather want to be just gone. I'm so exhausted and scared.

What can ease my pain and restore the chemical balance of my brain? Can I ever be the way I was a few days back before this all started? I've managed to get through similar episodes in the past but this one seems to be much worse...

Thanks for reading and listening. I'm sorry for taxing you with my problems and feelings but I don't know what else to do. I'm worried I won't be able to bear the pain anymore and that I will end up in a mental institution pumped full of sedatives and my life is finished.

[MyNameIsTerry]

It's a bit like an event that spikes your anxiety for days until your body calms down. You feel much more sensitive to any trigger. Just in this case it's likely about your Serotonin levels spiking due to excessive drinking followed by your body needing to make more to cover the shortfall. This means food to get the precursors.

Keep yourself hydrated and eat foods that help in this respect and your body will re balance anyway. It's just it can knock some anxiety sufferers side ways for a few days.

Just keep working day by day and it will change back. Aside from the neurotransmitter side our behaviours & thoughts just amp it all up and keep us even more heightened. Trying to work some relaxation techniques in may help. Exercise may help with the adrenaline side.

Given your reaction it would be wise to consider how much alcohol you can get away with so that it doesn't affect you like this. It doesn't have to mean abstinence, just strategies to test what you can enjoy e.g. drinking smaller amounts initially to see if you are fine with it, pacing it out across the session, etc.

[wanderer02]

It's a bit like an event that spikes your anxiety for days until your body calms down. You feel much more sensitive to any trigger. Just in this case it's likely about your Serotonin levels spiking due to excessive drinking followed by your body needing to make more to cover the shortfall. This means food to get the precursors.

Keep yourself hydrated and eat foods that help in this respect and your body will re balance anyway. It's just it can knock some anxiety sufferers side ways for a few days.

Just keep working day by day and it will change back. Aside from the neurotransmitter side our behaviours & thoughts just amp it all up and keep us even more heightened. Trying to work some relaxation techniques in may help. Exercise may help with the adrenaline side.

Given your reaction it would be wise to consider how much alcohol you can get away with so that it doesn't affect you like this. It doesn't have to mean abstinence, just strategies to test what you can enjoy e.g. drinking smaller amounts initially to see if you are fine with it, pacing it out across the session, etc.Terry, first of all I would like to thank you for your help and for your very calming post you have already helped me so much. I almost feel guilty about all the times you have helped me and all the time and effort you put into writing people on this forum you're a cutting the time out of somewhere and and I would like to ask you if I can donate something to help you keep doing what you're doing

Again I think you are spot-on with the drinking being the trigger to this insane episode of panic and anxiety right now I cannot imagine getting over it because it feels like it's very much on a physical level and it's related to brain chemistry at the moment but as the past is Sean I always managed to get over it except for that I have a feeling that this time it won't happen but we already know how that ends

I think I'm really gonna watch how much I drink next time especially when I'm going sometimes where I am already unstable and I feel like anything can knock me off my feet

Do you have any other tips in terms of nutrition and how to stabilize after an event like this any recommendations in terms of what I can read all self-help books would be appreciated

[Ronstar666]

Sorry you are feeling this way one of the main reasons I don't drink now is because it causes really bad anxiety and panic attacks the next day. Try not to think about the anxiety too much try and focus on exercise make sure u drink plenty of water and eat healthy I hope you are feeling better soon

[MyNameIsTerry]

Thanks for your kind words, wanderer, just happy to help so if something I've said has helped you, that's enough for me! Being able to help others helps me too. If you want to donate, I'm sure Nic would be very appreciative for the support.

It's a shock to the system. It hits you hard. Just like a blip, you slip into thinking how you've never felt so ill and that you won't get better but that's the pain at the time talking because you will have felt like this before I reckon and you know that whilst it's horrible it does pass. Blips get easier to manage the more you move forward in recovery and you react less to them because you've crossed that point where you've truly realised it can't hurt you, only make your days really bad if you let them.

So, plenty of water, eat a good diet and be wary of foods that send your mood up & down such as sugars. Foods high in tryptophan will help provide the precursor material to Serotonin but only if you avoid foods with branch chain amino acids in them (BCAA) as these just drag the tryptophan elsewhere rather than it crossing the blood brain barrier (BBB) for conversion.

Yes, if your anxiety is already rocky it's worth looking at it like any other issue with the body e.g. if you pulled a muscle you would easy on the physical activity, if you were laid up with a streaming cold you would be downing the fluids and taking it easy, etc.

You could try some relaxation vids/tracks e.g. visualisation. They can be useful in heling to calm your body/mind. Try some grounding techniques as they are much quicker to apply than Mindfulness but do some of the same by bringing you back to the moment (they are used to treat DP/DR). I've found acupressure useful with certain symptoms (such as nausea) and it's very easy to start (tons of stuff online and very little to know to start some quick techniques e.g. pressure points and how to apply pressure with thumb). If you are struggling containing panic then techniques that fill your mind to give it little space to fill with panic are useful e.g. a guy on here raised a thread called "Stacking" where he named the technique this although it's around under different names (basically something like name 5 breeds of dogs, 5 colours of dogs, etc). And breathing techniques can help calm you down too (calming breathing technique).

Not sure on the self help books as I rarely read them myself. I've always used the free stuff on the internet for the bits I need other than a book on Mindfulness.

[ankietyjoe]

It's probably worth noting that your body responds to alcohol as if it were a toxin, because it's a toxin. If you drank a lot, and had a bad hangover, it's because your body is recovering from a significant stress to the system. If you already suffer with anxiety and/or panic, that will be a major stressor.

One of the main techniques you can use is to mentally remind yourself that you know this episode had a specific trigger. You know that your body will recover from the toxin, and that you need to allow yourself to mentally let the episode go as well. Using language like 'this is it now', will only prolong the suffering, even if you just say it to yourself in your head. Let your central nervous system process the 'event' and allow yourself to let it go.

And yes, this is why I rarely drink any more. Maybe one beer every month or two.

New Years Eve my partner and I shared a bottle of champagne over the period of a couple of hours, and the next day I felt horrendous. Alcohol is a major depressant. I didn't have a hangover, I just felt dark.

That's not to demonise alcohol, you just have to use it within the parameters of your condition, which means probably not getting drunk.

[wanderer02]

Thank you so much for your very useful and informative course I think some very important information there for me like I said I had the similar situation before when I was travelling and I had 4 days of absolute hell and at one point and it actually passed just always feel like it is different this time I suppose you guys can relate to this and that it always feels like it's going to be worse this time or it's going to stick I think that's when my anxiety and panic is all about it's the fear that it's going to be permanent either way some people have been telling me that this might be a burnout and when I hear the word burnout and if they tell me how long it took them to recover I get very concerned that I won't be as stressable and performant in my work anymore and it will affect me for the rest of my days....

On the other hand I think it's a special case with me because I've been struggling with anxiety and occasional panic for many many years now just about 15 years and that this time it's just a bit over the top it was triggered by the drinking and probably the best if I don't make more out of it then it actually means....


Compared to a couple of days ago I feel much better today I can do sport again I'm going out and not having consistent panic attacks I'm driving around with the car I even managed to drive by myself today and talk to you a few people on the phone so I think that's a very big improvement and it speaks against the burnout I don't even exactly know what burnout means maybe someone has some experience with that but I really hope that this is not what I have and that I'm able to bounce back just as quickly as I did before....

[ankietyjoe]

On the other hand I think it's a special case with me because I've been struggling with anxiety and occasional panic for many many years now just about 15 years and that this time it's just a bit over the top it was triggered by the drinking and probably the best if I don't make more out of it then it actually means....




It's not special to you, there will be thousands of people on this forum alone who have experienced what you have experienced. Including myself.

It's just how anxiety works.

[MyNameIsTerry]

Glad you are feeling better. This is what tends to happy to those on here who go through this (only my observation) in that it hits them like a train a few days and they bounce back. It's more problematic for those who experience longer periods of overall increased anxiety and that's about how a shock affects them.

Per my point earlier about tryptophan, you can get around the BCAA diversion issue by adding carbs to a meal.

I'm less sure on the GABA side without more investigation as it's been a while since I looked into that. But GABA is the major inhibitory transmitter that calms us down. Getting it out of whack with excitory neurotransmitters means the brain will want to rebalance it all. Much of it's efforts are on balancing against glutamine which is the major excitory neurotransmitter that can have your thoughts bouncing around like mad.

If you have drank before without feeling like this it's not an indicator of much. It may not happen next time, it may be reduced, you may be fine. It could be what is in certain drinks as opposed to others are % alcohol content of some drinks vs others. Lots of potential factors. Sometimes we're just having a shitty time and adding something to it that unbalances us can be a catalyst.

[GiantMogwai]

I drink rarely. Even a pint can have a huge impact on how I feel. If I do drink it's about 3 or 4 times a year. Something like a half of Guinness or a can of cider. Coffee and tea are also best avoided for me. If I want to start the day feeling a little more balanced I have some porridge with a little flaxseed and maple syrup. A good slow energy release meal. Cook it in a pan and the stirring can occassionally be therapeutic. Not great when in a rush but really sets up my morning otherwise.

[wanderer02]

Glad you are feeling better. This is what tends to happy to those on here who go through this (only my observation) in that it hits them like a train a few days and they bounce back. It's more problematic for those who experience longer periods of overall increased anxiety and that's about how a shock affects them.

Per my point earlier about tryptophan, you can get around the BCAA diversion issue by adding carbs to a meal.

I'm less sure on the GABA side without more investigation as it's been a while since I looked into that. But GABA is the major inhibitory transmitter that calms us down. Getting it out of whack with excitory neurotransmitters means the brain will want to rebalance it all. Much of it's efforts are on balancing against glutamine which is the major excitory neurotransmitter that can have your thoughts bouncing around like mad.

If you have drank before without feeling like this it's not an indicator of much. It may not happen next time, it may be reduced, you may be fine. It could be what is in certain drinks as opposed to others are % alcohol content of some drinks vs others. Lots of potential factors. Sometimes we're just having a shitty time and adding something to it that unbalances us can be a catalyst.

Terry, as always I have to thank you so much for your amazing feedback and knowledge that you present to all of us on these forums. You are indispensable to this board. Enough said my situation is much better in regards to the pure panic that I was having a few weeks back. The problem is that while I was feeling super anxious and panic ridden some of my older "friends" came back to pay me a nasty visit. Namely POCD which is flaring up right now and making me miserable on a different level. It is not so much the panic but the feeling of being a monster, guilt and absolute defeat that is making my life hell at the moment. I tried going a few days without posting here because I want to spare the likes of you my endless rants about something that I know is irrational but nevertheless I can't take it at the moment and I will be posting another thread here to get some reassurance and maybe a glimpse of hope...