Feel like i am losing my mind

[ems43]

Hi,

I have been diagnosed with GAD and had CBT about ten years ago. Up until recently I have really coped quite well. However, about 3 months ago, after a night of drinking far too much, I woke up the next day with the most severe headache I have ever had and felt completly disconnected from my self and felt numb in parts of my body. I was terrified and my first thougths were that did someone spike my drink, was there some damage to my brain? Since then I kept having this disconnected feeling and headaches, went to the GP and thought might be migranes but didn't have nausea and visual distubrances. I became convinved that there was something wrong with my head adn that was causing the feelings of depersonalisation and felt frustrated when people told me it was anxiety. I became hyervigilant for any signs of headaches and would wake up everyone mornign checking on my head. I also had this feeling that one side of my bdoy felt different to the other. I kept having what I recognise now were panic attacks, eg, feeling disconnected, like I couldn't feel my body, but was so sure that they were linked to the headaches that I couldn't work out what was going on. Sorry I;m ramberling.... anyway so eventually agreed to get GP to write me a referral for MRI, which I payed for privately. All came back on, but i still kept worrying when will i have the next headache etc and checking in on myself. I then started to worry that it was temporal lobe epilepsy and that the feels of dp were actually mini seizures. Anyway, since about 3 weeks ago it has been quite unberable, I am really struggerling to get through the day, I just feel terrified to be alive really. I feel like someone has stolen my personlaity and I don't know who I am anymore. I am contantly worrying about something, usually health related, to the point I am becomign scared to go out as fear will have a seizure, will have some severe migrane when out. I also feel constant feelings of dp/ dr. i just wondered if this may be linked to stopping the contraceptive pill, as came off it 6 weeks ago due to the headaches? I have just started escitalopram. Many thansk for any help offered.

[Idstain]

hi ems, it certainly sounds like anxiety.

i am sorry to hear you are feeling this way, it will take a few weeks for the escitalopram to get working but it should help greatly. In the meantime i can't recommend enough getting some books on anxiety so you can understand why it's happening and how to get better.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mindfulness-Acceptance-Workbook-Anxiety-Commitment/dp/1572244992/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1283883961&sr=1-1

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Self-Help-Your-Nerves-overcoming/dp/0722531559/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1283884604&sr=1-1

these two books couldn't have been a greater help to me whilst i was recovering. I know it's hard to see it now but you will get better!

good luck :)

[static1983]

i have gad as well and been in cbt for 2 years i cant stop anxiety and sounds like you cant either after i drink i just feel more anxious and cant sleep or anything..

[blueangel]

Hi there

Sorry to hear that you're suffering so much - your symptoms do sound like anxiety, and for a lot of us (me included) they do seem to be made worse by alcohol.

The headache you had that started everything off could just have been a really bad hangover - alcohol is actually a poison, and headaches are one of the various symptoms that too much booze will cause (along with the sickness, upset stomach etc). it could possibly have been a migraine, as sometimes you can get them without the visual disturbances.

If you've had an MRI and it was clear, then this is really good news, so try to hang on to that. We all get headaches, they're one of the most common human ailments, but the great majority of the time they're nothing more than an inconvenience.

My advice is to go back to your GP and tell him/her how bad the anxiety is making you feel, and see what they suggest.

[ems43]

thank you for your kind comments, i will look into those books x

[phil06]

Sounds very similar to what I've been going through, the worry of brain damage, epilepsy, remembering the event which triggered it..I also feel very scared to go out.

It's awful when anxiety can do this. Seems only a few have this particular worry.

[Nigel H]

ems - if you re-read what you have written ... do you see a pattern coming from something so simple ...... a hangover ..... that you have then pondered on and created further anxiety symptoms for yourself....!?!!?!?

The symptoms you are creating are appearing to be anxiety ... and it is important to realise that you are creating them.

If someone has a headache, they can either choose to believe it's simply a headache and take some aspirin/paracetamol etc ...... or they can create a panic state by pondering on the worse scenarios of brain disorders and things like that.

You can obtain help to enable you to re-program those thought processes and particularly the belief systems you hold, that are what you filter the headache experience through. BY changing the thought process that is triggered from the headache, you can avoid the panic or anxiety that springs out of the imagined negative consequences of what you are assuming will happen.

Having learned to focus on the positive outcome, you will have no need to create an anxiety state. Since - you cannot be anxious about something you perceive to turn out in the way you want it to!

Static - there is really no reason why you should need to have retained the anxiety for as long as 2 years - there are some very effective methods around that would enable you to leave that old problem behind you pretty swiftly. You need to find the root cause of the problem, rather than working on coping mechanisms to deal with something once it begins to happen. In so doing, those symptoms will have no need to arise, since the deeper issue that gives rise to your anxiety will have been dealt with.

It's the difference between beheading a weed in the garden, [which can then grow back] or killing the roots and all.!