tn13
18-04-11, 22:57
Hi everyone... ugh, I thought I was getting better, but now I'm feeling anxious again. Thankfully not as badly as I was before I was being treated, but I really don't want to start slipping backwards again.
I've posted on here a few times in the past month about various things and this forum has been a great help, so I hope I'll be able to find support here again! I am a 19-year-old uni student and have been suffering from generalized anxiety disorder and panic disorder as well as mild depression for the past two and a half months (although now that I've been to a few therapy sessions I realize that anxiety is something I've been dealing with all my life, it's just flared up now). It's been a hell of a ride, and not something I would wish on my worst enemy. It started out with a panic attack I had at work after waking up with a sore arm one day because I was afraid I was going to have a heart attack. Over the next few weeks I developed all the telltale physical symptoms of panic disorder: chest tightness and occasional pain, feeling like I was choking, shakiness, tingles in the face and scalp, derealization a few times... Every day I was terrified of dying and ran through a gamut of illnesses that I thought I had: heart attack, stroke, appendicitis, kidney stones, a collapsed lung, and probably my biggest fear, a brain aneurysm. I was terrified of going anywhere, wasn't able to concentrate on my schoolwork and would break down crying and panicking at least once a day. I went to my doctor who checked me out and then prescribed 0.5 mg of Ativan to control my panic attacks and while it's a godsend for when I'm in the midst of an attack, it didn't work to control my anxiety overall and I was put on 10 mg of Cipralex a few weeks later. Unfortunately I got the side affect of it making my anxiety worse before better and I ended up rushing to the ER one night after feeling tingles on my scalp and a slight headache, convinced I was going to have a brain aneurysm. Of course I didn't, and I was referred to a psychiatrist who upped the prescription to 20 mg.
I've been on that a month today and it has helped a lot. I am no longer afraid of dying, haven't had a full-out anxiety attack in a couple of weeks and don't experience the physical symptoms anymore. I'm completing my schoolwork and exams again and doing well. I have also started to see a therapist as well as continuing to go to the p.doc every few weeks. The therapist has helped me to realize that a lot of my worries are unreasonable and has also talked me through some issues in my past that contributed to my anxiety.
For two weeks I felt really good, almost back to normal. I have actually found myself to be less nervous than I ever was, and for a bit I was feeling as happy as I did before this started. I have always been afraid to get my learner's driver's license (even though I'm far beyond of age to get it :blush:) as I have an eye condition that I thought would make it impossible for me to get my license, but two weeks ago I went and finally got it, and I've driven a few times already. I'm looking forward to a trip to Florida in a few weeks and the fact that I just bought tickets to see my favourite band live in July. I thought I was finally out of the woods, but then...
I've had some problems thinking clearly through the anxiety, most of which are, I (and my doctors) think are caused by my obsessing over thinking - I posted a thread about it here (http://nomorepanic.co.uk/showthread.php?t=92509). I don't have the problem I described of not having an internal dialogue anymore, just the issue that I'm still foggy and sometimes my thoughts get mixed up or it's an effort to think. Sometimes I'll be thinking of something and won't be able to think of the proper word even though I have the idea of what I'm thinking about, if that makes sense? It's sort of hard to describe - I've been able to complete my schoolwork including a research essay, know what I have to do, can communicate fine and so on, but it just feels like I'm not thinking the way I used to. In the two weeks I was feeling really good I felt like it was getting better. But on Friday I made the mistake of looking up thought disorders, which led me to schizophrenia, and I started reading all of these websites and watching videos about it, and now I'm terrified that I'm going to develop it. I am a very smart and creative person and a high achiever with a lot of goals for my life, and the thought of losing my mind is worse for me than death. I've always been a person who is very imaginative and I daydream and fantasize a lot, spending a lot of time in my head. Lately since this obsession with the way I'm thinking developed I've noticed it's easier for me to drift off in a daydream than concentrate on what's going on, and while I definitely know the difference between reality and fantasy and don't have delusions or paranoia or hallucinations, I'm scared that it's always been lurking and this is the beginning of it.
Has anyone else wrestled with this fear before and has any advice on how to get over it? And has anyone gone through feeling better and then suddenly slipping back into yet another anxiety? It's just a bit discouraging :\
I've posted on here a few times in the past month about various things and this forum has been a great help, so I hope I'll be able to find support here again! I am a 19-year-old uni student and have been suffering from generalized anxiety disorder and panic disorder as well as mild depression for the past two and a half months (although now that I've been to a few therapy sessions I realize that anxiety is something I've been dealing with all my life, it's just flared up now). It's been a hell of a ride, and not something I would wish on my worst enemy. It started out with a panic attack I had at work after waking up with a sore arm one day because I was afraid I was going to have a heart attack. Over the next few weeks I developed all the telltale physical symptoms of panic disorder: chest tightness and occasional pain, feeling like I was choking, shakiness, tingles in the face and scalp, derealization a few times... Every day I was terrified of dying and ran through a gamut of illnesses that I thought I had: heart attack, stroke, appendicitis, kidney stones, a collapsed lung, and probably my biggest fear, a brain aneurysm. I was terrified of going anywhere, wasn't able to concentrate on my schoolwork and would break down crying and panicking at least once a day. I went to my doctor who checked me out and then prescribed 0.5 mg of Ativan to control my panic attacks and while it's a godsend for when I'm in the midst of an attack, it didn't work to control my anxiety overall and I was put on 10 mg of Cipralex a few weeks later. Unfortunately I got the side affect of it making my anxiety worse before better and I ended up rushing to the ER one night after feeling tingles on my scalp and a slight headache, convinced I was going to have a brain aneurysm. Of course I didn't, and I was referred to a psychiatrist who upped the prescription to 20 mg.
I've been on that a month today and it has helped a lot. I am no longer afraid of dying, haven't had a full-out anxiety attack in a couple of weeks and don't experience the physical symptoms anymore. I'm completing my schoolwork and exams again and doing well. I have also started to see a therapist as well as continuing to go to the p.doc every few weeks. The therapist has helped me to realize that a lot of my worries are unreasonable and has also talked me through some issues in my past that contributed to my anxiety.
For two weeks I felt really good, almost back to normal. I have actually found myself to be less nervous than I ever was, and for a bit I was feeling as happy as I did before this started. I have always been afraid to get my learner's driver's license (even though I'm far beyond of age to get it :blush:) as I have an eye condition that I thought would make it impossible for me to get my license, but two weeks ago I went and finally got it, and I've driven a few times already. I'm looking forward to a trip to Florida in a few weeks and the fact that I just bought tickets to see my favourite band live in July. I thought I was finally out of the woods, but then...
I've had some problems thinking clearly through the anxiety, most of which are, I (and my doctors) think are caused by my obsessing over thinking - I posted a thread about it here (http://nomorepanic.co.uk/showthread.php?t=92509). I don't have the problem I described of not having an internal dialogue anymore, just the issue that I'm still foggy and sometimes my thoughts get mixed up or it's an effort to think. Sometimes I'll be thinking of something and won't be able to think of the proper word even though I have the idea of what I'm thinking about, if that makes sense? It's sort of hard to describe - I've been able to complete my schoolwork including a research essay, know what I have to do, can communicate fine and so on, but it just feels like I'm not thinking the way I used to. In the two weeks I was feeling really good I felt like it was getting better. But on Friday I made the mistake of looking up thought disorders, which led me to schizophrenia, and I started reading all of these websites and watching videos about it, and now I'm terrified that I'm going to develop it. I am a very smart and creative person and a high achiever with a lot of goals for my life, and the thought of losing my mind is worse for me than death. I've always been a person who is very imaginative and I daydream and fantasize a lot, spending a lot of time in my head. Lately since this obsession with the way I'm thinking developed I've noticed it's easier for me to drift off in a daydream than concentrate on what's going on, and while I definitely know the difference between reality and fantasy and don't have delusions or paranoia or hallucinations, I'm scared that it's always been lurking and this is the beginning of it.
Has anyone else wrestled with this fear before and has any advice on how to get over it? And has anyone gone through feeling better and then suddenly slipping back into yet another anxiety? It's just a bit discouraging :\