AlanL
30-12-08, 23:36
This may take a bit of writing because I have a long history of anxiety, although this is the first time I've joined a forum.
I've always been an anxious person - it's easy to spot in old photos by the worried look on my face! About 25 years ago, shortly after my daughter was born I had a severe bout of generalised anxiety. I went through a long process of learning to cope with the anxiety, developing coping strategies of the kind that are described on this site.
My GP was (and still is) brilliant and helped me enormously. I also adopted an unusual therapy I've not seen mentioned here - called the Alexander Technique. This is really meant for posture training, but it also helped me learn to feel and control my musculature and by improving my posture, this has given me numerous benefits over the years in terms of reducing stress. I learned various techniques for coping with the anxiety and symptoms and eventually it cleared up.
I thought I'd learned my lesson after that. I kept my workload to a manageable level, we had two more children and - with some minor exceptions over the year - no more serious anxiety attacks.
My wife and I have always had a good relationship and our kids are wonderful, but as they grew up, I realised that I seemed to have a lot of time on my hands. I took up a sideline which I saw as at least partly recreation, but was also really hard work (more than I realised).
Lately I've been brooding about the economic situation, imagining the worst, pretty much assuming that my wife and I will both lose our jobs (clearly it's entirely possible that one or both of us will do) and so on. At the same time, my workload has increased - partly my fault for not saying no enough, partly just circumstances. At Christmas the storm broke and I found myself in the Emergency GP clinic getting Diazepam so that I could sleep. My sleep pattern is disturbed but I can sleep some of the time with help from the pills.
I went to my GP and he put me on Citalopram. I'm still using the Diazepam to help me cope - 5mg at night, half that in the morning and again later in the day (5mg knocks me out and I've only got a limited supply of tablets). I think that's OK, but I'm not entirely sure. I can't keep this up for very long I know, but I'm told that I should be able to come off the stuff once the Citalopram kicks in in a couple of weeks' time (or sooner).
I don't seem to be able to break free of my mental focus on the condition itself and it's really nasty. I know it will clear once the Citalopram kicks in but until then I'm really struggling. Also my mood is very volatile - it swings without warning from wary and alert, to adrenaline pumping, to brooding (depressed?).
This is as coherent as I've been all day pretty much. Writing this all down has actually made me feel better for a bit. I hope I'll get a good night's sleep but I'm not certain of it. I do feel the need to sleep now however - which is good, provided I'm still sleepy after my head hits the pillow.
I've always been an anxious person - it's easy to spot in old photos by the worried look on my face! About 25 years ago, shortly after my daughter was born I had a severe bout of generalised anxiety. I went through a long process of learning to cope with the anxiety, developing coping strategies of the kind that are described on this site.
My GP was (and still is) brilliant and helped me enormously. I also adopted an unusual therapy I've not seen mentioned here - called the Alexander Technique. This is really meant for posture training, but it also helped me learn to feel and control my musculature and by improving my posture, this has given me numerous benefits over the years in terms of reducing stress. I learned various techniques for coping with the anxiety and symptoms and eventually it cleared up.
I thought I'd learned my lesson after that. I kept my workload to a manageable level, we had two more children and - with some minor exceptions over the year - no more serious anxiety attacks.
My wife and I have always had a good relationship and our kids are wonderful, but as they grew up, I realised that I seemed to have a lot of time on my hands. I took up a sideline which I saw as at least partly recreation, but was also really hard work (more than I realised).
Lately I've been brooding about the economic situation, imagining the worst, pretty much assuming that my wife and I will both lose our jobs (clearly it's entirely possible that one or both of us will do) and so on. At the same time, my workload has increased - partly my fault for not saying no enough, partly just circumstances. At Christmas the storm broke and I found myself in the Emergency GP clinic getting Diazepam so that I could sleep. My sleep pattern is disturbed but I can sleep some of the time with help from the pills.
I went to my GP and he put me on Citalopram. I'm still using the Diazepam to help me cope - 5mg at night, half that in the morning and again later in the day (5mg knocks me out and I've only got a limited supply of tablets). I think that's OK, but I'm not entirely sure. I can't keep this up for very long I know, but I'm told that I should be able to come off the stuff once the Citalopram kicks in in a couple of weeks' time (or sooner).
I don't seem to be able to break free of my mental focus on the condition itself and it's really nasty. I know it will clear once the Citalopram kicks in but until then I'm really struggling. Also my mood is very volatile - it swings without warning from wary and alert, to adrenaline pumping, to brooding (depressed?).
This is as coherent as I've been all day pretty much. Writing this all down has actually made me feel better for a bit. I hope I'll get a good night's sleep but I'm not certain of it. I do feel the need to sleep now however - which is good, provided I'm still sleepy after my head hits the pillow.