New Guy :)

[StevePW]

Hi Guys,

I am new to this site and have recently been diagnosed with stress and anxiety, it has been ongoing for about the last 3 months now, was going slightly nuts till i found this site, none of my symptoms made sense to me because they were just so random and varied, they did not point at anything.

Was getting headaches, neck pains, facial / limb numbness, heart flutters, sore limbs, lapses in concentration and feeling very hopeless and low at points to list just a few, went to the doctor to have a full exam and it all came back clear, but when the doctor told me it was anxiety and stress I could not believe that it was all pretty much in my head, i was convinced it was something very serious and probably fatal which as you know is a very hard thing to get out of your head.

I didn't feel stressed or anxious in any way, I do have a stressful job with long hours but really love and enjoy what I do, which makes the whole thing harder to believe that my body could feel this bad and there not be anything physically wrong.

But since I googled what the doc said and found this sight, it really helps after having read the forums to know that there are other people out there who feel the same way as me and can understand what i feel( and the symptoms page helped a lot to make sense of it all :smile: ).

[Marginalia]

I didn't feel stressed or anxious in any way, I do have a stressful job with long hours but really love and enjoy what I do, which makes the whole thing harder to believe that my body could feel this bad and there not be anything physically wrong.

But since I googled what the doc said and found this sight, it really helps after having read the forums to know that there are other people out there who feel the same way as me and can understand what i feel( and the symptoms page helped a lot to make sense of it all :smile: ).

Welcome Steve - I always come back to this site for relief when I have these random symptoms, having now recognised that my mind and body have all these bizarre tricks for expressing stress in indirect ways. I think you'll find a lot of reassurance here.

I am/was exactly like you, no conscious awareness of feeling stressed about certain things (which other people find stressful, such as exams), yet looking back my periods of bodily symptoms correspond with objectively high stress times in my life.

I am starting down the long road of trying to develop better awareness of myself and my needs, so that I can take preventative measures or at least be more quickly alerted to something I need to take action on, before it turns into full-on (displaced) anxiety or even depression.

So I recommend you consider the hypothesis that something in your life (rather than your body) is troubling you at some level. You have mentioned you have a stressful job with long hours, so you may have to consider that this is taking its toll on you even though you enjoy and love it.

It has taken me years to (partially) realise that I am human like everyone else, and do need to make sure I have enough sleep, take all my holiday allowance, not stay late at work for the fun of it too often... even though a childish part of me still thinks I am immune because it's so hard to really feel the stress (though I now I realise afterwards how much I needed to get home/have a break - I can almost feel myself uncrunching, like a sponge).

Anyway, welcome to No More Panic :)
Min