I'm at the bottom of a slippery black hole ...

I'm struggling with acute anxiety and consequential depression and every time I wake up I feel I can't face climbing out of the pit again, because every time I go to sleep I wake up back in the pit. Life like this isn't life, it's simply existence. I've always had a phobia about dying - the initial symptom which set off my problems 55 years ago - but waking up and feeling like this is unbearable. It isn't just depression that hits me as I wake, it's the surge of adrenaline, which feels strong enough to fire a Saturn rocket into orbit, and then I'm on Planet Panic for up to 48 hours stuck between terror that I'm dying and thinking death has got to be better than this. I only get respite for about half an hour after each anxiety attack - they can last up to 48 hours - then I fall asleep for a couple of hours if I'm lucky and I'm woken up by the adrenaline rocket again. Anyone else experience anything like this. I've always been told that adrenaline cuts out after a few minutes. In that case I'm some kind of mutant?

That sound quite horrid for you hun. I wonder what does your gp say to you and are you on any medication

I also wonder what self help methods you have tried upto date? I find exercise very good for getting rid of the free floating adrenaline rushing round my body on anxious days and I swear by my muscle relaxation cd from the charity Nopanic.

Love Piglet :flowers:

Hi Helen - I wonder if it can be a rush of coritsol rather than adrenaline? Someone was asking about morning anxiety the other day, and I remembered a link that another member had posted a while ago:

http://anxiousnomore.blogspot.com/20...g-anxiety.html

It might be that regular light exercise helps to regulate this a bit, and eating something in the evening that releases energy slowly, so that you avoid a blood sugar crash while you sleep. It sounds weird but apparantly having porridge at night is a good way to do this. xx

Thanks guys, but nothing helps, that's mostly why I feel so bad - 55 years of anxiety in all its forms and last 3 months have been worst ever and nothing works. I've been a member of 'No Panic' for ages, done Recovery Groups - I'm on one now - they make me feel like an alien - and 1-1 Mentoring and I know nobody, however well meaning, understands. It all further alienates and isolates me.

I wake up with that surge of adrenaline whether I fall asleep in the chair during the day or after a couple of hours in bed. Valium was the only thing that ever helped me - I was put on it in my teens, before they knew it was addictive, and not surprisingly it doesn't work anymore unless I take enormous amounts and other meds do my head in, particularly SSRIs.

I can't even do relaxation, I end up in a state of rage and feeling like throwing the CD out of the window or thumping someone - if there was anybody to thump. I'm afraid that if I 'let go' someone will 'jump' me - it's irrational because I live alone, but that's how I feel.

Such a struggle and a fight for so long... I wish there was a way that you could have a rest, even just for a short time. Shame you can't ask for a holiday from anxiety, promising to come back to it after a few weeks on the beach chilling out and splashing around in the sun. I guess once you'd been away you'd never go back and anxiety knows it so that's why it won't let you go.