Ollie12
06-05-09, 10:45
Hello all and may i say how amazing the people on this site seem to be, so much help and advice. It really is refreshing to be able to talk to and read about people in similar circumstances to myself and not feel as though i'm some sort of outcast. Mental health is a subject that is still very much swept under the carpet by the majority of people even in this day and age which is a great shame seeing as it affects such a large percentage of people over a lifetime. My thanks go to everyone in advance for your willingness to listen and help a soul in need.
My story starts 6 years ago, i'm now 26. I was always keen to be in with the cool crowd at school and this lead me down a path where i made a lot of wrong decisions in order to be popular. To cut a long story short i left school with a very bad cannabis addiction and the early onset of a drinking problem which only got worse the older i became. One thing led to another and before long i was experimenting with harder drugs and because of my all or nothing view to life this was taken to the extreme whilst i was at university (which i might add i didn't last long at!). It was one day when i decided enough was enough that the anxiety problems started to kick in. I had never had an anxiety or panic attack before so was very distressed when i started having feelings of going mad and losing the plot. This was followed by what i now know were intense depersonalisation and derealisation feelings and thoughts which have stuck with me in phases for the past 6 years or so. At the time i thought life was over and that things would never get better again contrary to what everyone else was telling me! However, bit by bit life did get back on track and quicker than i realise now looking back on it. A good job with great colleagues, a great understanding and loving girlfriend and fantastic family have all helped me to recover and make it through the hard times which still crop up every now and again.
I've come back to this site for some advice and help really as unfortunately my old demons have started to re-surface. I try my very best to stay away from alcohol and drugs these days as they really cause my anxiety to go hay wire and i have been somewhat successful over the last couple of years into limiting my alcohol consumption to nearly nothing and completely staying away from drugs. I do have the occasional blip and they are not very nice at all but i always seem to recover after a period of looking after myself and exercising a lot. Now, last weekend was my birthday and i deciced to go fishing with a few friends. I was chilling out when one of my friends offered me a beer which from some stupid reason i agreed to. One led to another and before i know it the fishing has gone out of the window and i'm on a binge. This ended at about 2 o'clock when someone started passing a joint around which i duely helped smoke not in the slightest thinking about the consequences as i was drunk and don't care about anything when in this state. I then went to sleep in a drunken/stoned stupour and woke up in the morning with extremely bad anxiety, what a surprise!
I decided that this would go away if i just tried as much as possible to ignore it and get some good sleep and carry on taking Cipralex as normal (20mg daily). However after four days things have got worse and i'm now convincing myself that i have done some severe damage and that i'm going to get Schizophrenia from smoking that joint! Why i did this to myself i really do not know but the worse thing is a cannot discuss this with the people closest to me as they have given me so many chances i feel this would be the straw that broke the camels back so to speak and i cannot risk losing my girlfriend who is my rock. I really do feel as though i'm losing my mind and all the same horrible side affects are coming back - panic, loss of rational thinking, fatigue, scared to go to work (i am at work though which is a good thing i suppose). It's just things seem to be getting worse than better which is really worrying me.
I must apologise for rambling but i thought in order for you to offer some help or advice you needed to know a bit about me! One day i'll learn to stay clear of the things that affect me but right now i'm really quite scared.
Regards
Ollie
My story starts 6 years ago, i'm now 26. I was always keen to be in with the cool crowd at school and this lead me down a path where i made a lot of wrong decisions in order to be popular. To cut a long story short i left school with a very bad cannabis addiction and the early onset of a drinking problem which only got worse the older i became. One thing led to another and before long i was experimenting with harder drugs and because of my all or nothing view to life this was taken to the extreme whilst i was at university (which i might add i didn't last long at!). It was one day when i decided enough was enough that the anxiety problems started to kick in. I had never had an anxiety or panic attack before so was very distressed when i started having feelings of going mad and losing the plot. This was followed by what i now know were intense depersonalisation and derealisation feelings and thoughts which have stuck with me in phases for the past 6 years or so. At the time i thought life was over and that things would never get better again contrary to what everyone else was telling me! However, bit by bit life did get back on track and quicker than i realise now looking back on it. A good job with great colleagues, a great understanding and loving girlfriend and fantastic family have all helped me to recover and make it through the hard times which still crop up every now and again.
I've come back to this site for some advice and help really as unfortunately my old demons have started to re-surface. I try my very best to stay away from alcohol and drugs these days as they really cause my anxiety to go hay wire and i have been somewhat successful over the last couple of years into limiting my alcohol consumption to nearly nothing and completely staying away from drugs. I do have the occasional blip and they are not very nice at all but i always seem to recover after a period of looking after myself and exercising a lot. Now, last weekend was my birthday and i deciced to go fishing with a few friends. I was chilling out when one of my friends offered me a beer which from some stupid reason i agreed to. One led to another and before i know it the fishing has gone out of the window and i'm on a binge. This ended at about 2 o'clock when someone started passing a joint around which i duely helped smoke not in the slightest thinking about the consequences as i was drunk and don't care about anything when in this state. I then went to sleep in a drunken/stoned stupour and woke up in the morning with extremely bad anxiety, what a surprise!
I decided that this would go away if i just tried as much as possible to ignore it and get some good sleep and carry on taking Cipralex as normal (20mg daily). However after four days things have got worse and i'm now convincing myself that i have done some severe damage and that i'm going to get Schizophrenia from smoking that joint! Why i did this to myself i really do not know but the worse thing is a cannot discuss this with the people closest to me as they have given me so many chances i feel this would be the straw that broke the camels back so to speak and i cannot risk losing my girlfriend who is my rock. I really do feel as though i'm losing my mind and all the same horrible side affects are coming back - panic, loss of rational thinking, fatigue, scared to go to work (i am at work though which is a good thing i suppose). It's just things seem to be getting worse than better which is really worrying me.
I must apologise for rambling but i thought in order for you to offer some help or advice you needed to know a bit about me! One day i'll learn to stay clear of the things that affect me but right now i'm really quite scared.
Regards
Ollie