Can anyone relate

[Gonagetbeta]

Hi everyone, I new to the forum and just looking for someone to identify with what I might have. I feel I have a combination of things. For one I feel like my mind is a bundle of noodles with thoughts, emotions all over the place, but the funny thing is I know this but can still function normally during the day at work as a GM, although I do have problems with focus. I can not travel anywhere or be away from home, and I feel worse if my parents are not around. I look around and don't feel myself, Im sometimes scared to look in the mirror because I won't recognise myself or scare myself (and its not because Im ugly . I have good sense of humour and most people probably couldn't pick I have a problem. Im usually Ok when Im busy its quiet times that get to me. I feel as though my body is weird and unfamiliar to me. I am also much more aware of myself and my being and it scares me. I think about intricate things like how we swallow, breathe etc and it scares me, Im not to sure why. Its like I have a heightened sense of self. I look around and see many happy people and think why can't I just be like them, what is going on with me. I go through times of being depressed, then feeling OK. My dr's have wiped me off from having BiPolar but what I don't understand is why can I feel Ok one moment and totally helpless and depressed the next some times this cycles from minute by minute or days. I don't know if my thoughts are triggering these cycles or if its just my brain chemistry. I have taken half a tablet of Zyprexa in the past and it seems to help with anxiety and depression, but even knowing that Im taking a tablet to feel normal doesn't sit right with me. I question life and my purpose all the time. I don't drink alcohol because Im constantly monitoring how it will effect me. I think I have some sort of condition with being obsessive over monitoring how I am feeling all the time, to the point that I am paranoid over being spiked even at work. I have talked an SSRI before and this sent me over the edge, I did not feel myself, I was out of my head to the point that I began to hallucinate, then a short while later totally convinced I was going to die much more than a panic attack, this was a panic attack on steroids. So Iam a little reluctant to take antidepressants. I also have had OCD which zyprexa helped with, I thought that I would hurt someone every moment of the day or even myself. This has calmed down a lot ever since I had Zyprexa which I took daily for one week. The funny thing is I suffered this 10 years ago after a cocaine taking episode and I overcame it, I was not 100% but I did not have the symptoms above and was able to travel by plane to short distances or go away on holiday. I worked extremely hard for that, then 3 months ago I went to get hypnosis to beat my fear of travelling completely and since then I have gone 90% backwards. I recently went for a drive with my father to a place that was 3 hours away to try and beat my travelling phobia, I was Ok on the way there, but my father had to drive back, I felt lost, depressed, not capable and I had running thoughts of my life, my partner, my situation I was totally engrossed with them. Can anyone relate on any of the symptoms?

[debs71]

Hi and welcome,

Yep.....to all of your symptoms. They are near enough identical to mine when I was first diagnosed with depression, GAD and panic attacks in 2003.

Firstly, you are not mad, will not go mad, etc. Your symptoms are due to high levels of stress and anxiety. When I first had counseling, my therapist told me that the mass of thoughts and 'bunch of noodles' in your mind that you describe is like a tangled up ball of wool, created by anxiety, and it is a case of unraveling that ball of wool.

That (invariably) comes through appropriate meds for you personally, at the right dosage and ideally, therapy of some kind, preferably talking therapy, as not only does the anxiety need help medicinally, but also you need to identify what has lead you to becoming so unwell with anxiety.....what caused it? There is always an underlying reason.

I know the symptoms are frightening, but they are purely the creation of a highly sensitive mind and an overstressed mind. The depersonalisation and DR symptoms you have is the feeling like you are not yourself/don't recognise yourself, etc. This is the mind's way of protecting you from the high anxiety, nothing more. It sort of detaches you from the here and now, which creates that 'in the wrong body' feeling.

I know this is very, very scary, but it can be got rid of. I had the exact same thing. I remember looking in the mirror one day, about to dry my hair. I looked at myself and it was like I was looking at a total stranger, and I burst into tears. I have never been so scared, as you say to yourself, 'if I am not me, then who the hell am I?'

I also relate to wanting to be with family and not alone. I think a lot of sufferers would relate to this too. Being alone is the absolute worst with anxiety, as we don't have any distraction that can deviate out mind from the anxious thoughts, so we think and think and think until we end up panicking, whereas when someone is there with us, we can move away from that for a while, plus we also have the comfort of someone there if we do feel awful and panicky.

I can also relate to your fear of travelling (we could be twins, lol!!!) I have a fear of mostly plane trips, but also I get anxious prior to even short trips away from home here within the UK. My family like these 'mini-break' type trips (yippee....not) A couple of days before we are due to go, I get edgy and nervous. My theory is that this is all down to not wanting to leave your safety/comfort zone. Home is where we feel most settled, and I think that anything or anywhere out of our normal routine/place freaks us out. I think that there is also the worry (especially on a plane) that we cannot escape if we feel anxious or worry that we will panic. It is totally normal to feel that way with anxiety, so don't feel you are alone with that.

OK.....so as far as meds and stuff. I know you had a bad experience with the SSRI, but I do have a feeling that what you experienced were perhaps the initial heightening of symptoms when starting them. Sadly, this is par for the course with many meds. When I started Escitalopram (an SSRI) I had the worst ever symptoms of anxiety, far worse than before starting, but I was told this may happen, and sure enough it did. It was scary, but it did not last. It is just the drug starting to work and you adapting to it that causes the worsening of symptoms, but once you get over that bump in the road, you do feel better, I assure you.

I can strongly recommend Escitalopram for your anxiety. I know not all meds suit everyone, but my symptoms were identical to yours, and I got a lot of help from this particular SSRI. I would really strongly suggest you please discuss your options with your doctor. There IS help there for you with meds. You don't have to suffer the way you are now, and it is possible to get your life back again, I assure you. I know the thought of taking a med is scary, but think about it this way. If you have a physical ailment, what would you do? Take a med to help it. Mental health is no different. It is purely that people think that meds change you in some way, or are making you something you are not, and artificially. That is not true. You are still you. All the meds do is increase serotonin in the brain, as depleted levels are in part creating the anxiety, depression, etc. Therapy is what helps you UNDERSTAND why you are anxious, so the two together tackle the problem.

You must also try to look at the positives here. You are still working, despite feeling horrendous. That is a huge win, as it means you are keeping busy and battling regardless. keeping busy and distraction are key when feeling anxious, as is being with people as much as you can, as time alone (as said already) is a nightmare when anxious. Positive thoughts also help ' this is just anxiety' 'I am not going crazy, I am just super stressed', etc. Negative thinking fuels anxiety. It sounds hippy and cheesy, but it is very true.

Just wanted you to know that all of your feelings, thoughts, etc. are without question anxiety, and you are not alone. Please do go talk to your doctor. There is a way forward and through this.xx

[Gonagetbeta]

Hi Debs71,
Thank you so much for getting in contact with me, I really appreciate you taking the time to write such detailed response. Its great to hear it from someone who has been through it and not just learning from a book. Im so sceptical on anti depressants because I first went through this in 2004 and Im pretty sure it started because of taking cocaine. (by the way I only had it once before), and I remember waking up 4am in the morning 2 days after taking it and I could not sleep or lay still, I had to get up and keep walking I was loosing my mind and I thought I was surely going to die or loose my mind if I stopped walking. The scary thing now is when I took the SSRI 2 months ago, I got nearly the insect same feelings where I felt as high as a kite, my brain felt like it was sitting in a pool of chemicals physically, which I then ended up in the mental ward of a hospital, which I started hallucinating in. Freaked the hell out of me. Did you have anything like that happen to you with SSRI's? Not asking to be smart, I just want to know the extent of which our side effects are similar? The other thing is I can not pin point when I will fee depressed, anxious etc. have tried experimenting with coffee and I don't see much of a relation to my anxiety. The other is stress or anxiety induced situations. Sometimes I feel OK driving other times its more difficult. Is this normal?
Thanks again Debs71

[debs71]

Hi again,

I didn't have such an extreme reaction as yours, but I certainly felt horrendous. Initially when I took meds, I felt ok, and generally better. I had been depressed for weeks before I got anxiety, and I actually felt I could get out of bed, which I just hadn't done for weeks.....but after about 2 weeks on the meds, the side effects hit me like a ton of bricks. I had some very, very scary symptoms and feelings. I was fixated on stuff like 'I am sniffing too much, coughing too much, swallowing too much'.....just paranoid about illogical stuff. I had scary thoughts like 'what if I go out of control and hurt someone close to me'......I also (and I can't believe I am telling anyone this) thought I saw people's faces in the wallpaper, and then that scared me senseless. I don't know if this was a hallucination of sorts as while I was looking at the wall, I KNEW that that was stupid and ridiculous....I didn't believe it at all, but it was like my mind was trying to persuade me of it (if that makes sense)

Basically, it was as if my every nerve was totally on edge. I was hypersensitive to noises (I couldn't have the tv volume up very high as I just couldn't hack it) and during this time I also became agoraphobic. Couldn't go out anywhere, and if I did it would have to be with my parents. I really thought I was going insane, and I felt like I was hanging on by a very thin thread.

I would say that within about 6 weeks from starting the meds, I saw changes. I felt calmer, more like myself, more able to think, and more able to handle the anxiety. Things turned around from there on.

As far as why you are anxious and depressed, it is often the case that we can't pinpoint an actual thing that has caused it. My counselor and my doctor said that a lot of the time it is an accumulation of things over a long period of time, that we thought we could handle, but it is like a snowball effect. Things build and build until we explode with anxiety/reach the end of our tether. That was the case for me. I had relationship issues, I lost a close friend, I had been physically unwell and the biggest cause for me was the huge stress I was feeling from my job. It all just came to a head.

It is totally normal to have times you feel better than others. Anxiety has no real pattern to it, and that is what is so infuriating. My Dad also suffered for years and years with anxiety and panic attacks, and his panic attacks would mostly happen when he was driving, so he came to fear driving on his own. I spent my later childhood and my teens/twenties accompanying my Dad places (if Mum couldn't) as he just could not bear to be alone in the car in case he had a panic. It was only when he started Citalopram a few years ago that he was able to drive alone, or rather feel confident enough to try. Now he goes most places alone, but has the odd blip on occasion, but is so much better.x

[Gonagetbeta]

Hey Debs, Firstly Merry Christmas :x

So you persisted on with the meds even though they made you hallucinate?

When this happened to me it freaked me out and during the time I was having OCD thoughts about harming myself or others so I really thought I was going crazy.

Do you ever go through a stage in your anxiety where maybe for a couple of days or hours what ever you felt completely recovered only to wake up or have your mood shift in to deep depression, where all your thoughts and feelings were negative? Do you still get this if so? I try to be aware before I go in to these states and prep myself up by saying when I get into this state I will be mindful and not let it get to me, but its like when I get in to these states that there is nothing else just that, and its hard to believe I will come out the other end of it. Do you experience anything like this?

[debs71]

Hi again....Merry Xmas to you too!

Yep, I carried on with them, but mostly because I had a lot of support from my family and I was with my Dad all day, every day, who spent a lot of time holding my hand and telling me I wasn't going mad, as I really thought I was. I found the weird thoughts much worse when I was alone anytime, like late at night in bed and when I woke in the morning.

Oh God yes....yes I did!!!! My mood was shifting all day, every day when I was in the worst stage of side effects. I would think that I was over the worst anxiety, sit and watch some tv with my Dad, but then very soon snap and burst into tears again. It would stem from any quiet time when the anxiety would creep back into my mind and tell me I felt awful again, and then that would set me off. The only way I can describe it is like a rollercoaster. Total ups and downs, and a messed up head full of tangled thoughts. Waking in the morning was awful then as well. I would wake up with clenched fists and nail marks in my hands, heart pounding and sweating like hell. I would have to lay there for ages to try to compose myself before I could get up.

Yes, I do still get like this periodically, but not anything like I was then, thank God. I would say it was like at that time, I could not think straight to be able to rationalise my weird thoughts....all I felt was sheer terror and panic, whereas NOW when I am feeling anxious or weird, I can think my way through it and calm myself down....or I can use the coping methods I have developed like keeping busy, occupying my mind, breathing and relaxation techniques, etc. It is different now as the anxiety effects don't grip me so tightly as they did then. I can just tell myself I am having a bad day and get through it.

I will say though that I know what you mean that you think that you will be able to deal with it before you get into that state, and then when it happens it is different and you can't and lose confidence. I still have days like that, where the anxiety still really scares me, but when that happens, I remind myself of how I have been bad like this before, but I got out of it then, so I will do now. That is the ONLY advantage of long term anxiety experience! x

[Gonagetbeta]

Its interesting how anxiety slowly loosens its grip over time, I wonder what helps this, if it is the constant facing of the monster and acclimatising to it or what. At the moment Its so confusing on how the brain works to sort out these issues almost robotic.

Last time I went through this which was about 10years ago I remember it being horrible, but since it was so long ago I can't remember if I had the same symptoms..I got through it last time by pushing myself through my fears, keeping busy and I believe my addiction to the gym and exercise substituted the anxiety, it was a long haul from just getting in to a car, to driving through tunnels, to being away from home for one day, 2 days, then 3 days, a week. Planes were horrible but I managed to somewhat confront them over time.

Iam reading a book at the moment called 'The stranger in the mirror' have you heard of it? Im hoping to get some relief and advice on how to tackle the depersonalisation side of things. I have also registered to http://depersonalizationrecovery.com, which is quite interesting and insightful to the triggers and treatments for depersonalisation

I don't mean to harp on about the symptoms but I will ask if you ever seem like time is dismantled, like you are caught in a time warp or your sense of time is all over the place. Sometimes I look out and see that its getting dark and that would be the only way I would know that its becoming night.

[Gonagetbeta]

Do you exercise at all? I remember exercise really helped me get out of anxiety and depression, I took baby steps at first but then became very involved in gym, soccer, surfing.

Im reading a book at the moment called the stranger in the mirror? Have you heard of it or read it? Im also a member of http://depersonalizationrecovery.com, where Im learning a lot about the triggers of depersonalisation and also the treatment exercises it seems to be helping.

I beat anxiety and depression about 80% last time, I had to go from getting in to a car, to driving through tunnels, then to staying away from home for a day, then 2 days, then 3, then a week. This took a lot of energy and courage. I even started flying short distances chewing up my fear. Its like the more you confront the monster the more strength you get. Do you find this?

I don't mean to harp on symptoms but do you feel or have you felt that your in a time warp, where your mind can't keep sense of time? Sometimes I will have to look outside to see it getting dark before I know its getting in to night time.

[debs71]

Yep, I go through times when I exercise a lot and then other times when I do next to nothing, but I find that when I do exercise regularly I feel a lot better in every way. I feel better physically and mentally. Must be the endorphins that exercise creates, I think. I used to be a member of a gym, and go to there straight from working a night shift - go on the treadmill and bikes and then have a swim. I found it very therapeutic and felt proud of myself for doing it. I find it very, very hard to stay motivated to exercise though. It is so much easier just to sit and mooch!

It is really good that you are reading up on anxiety and symptoms. I really do think this is hugely helpful, primarily because it explains what they are, why they are happening, reassure you that you are not going crazy and that this IS anxiety, and then guide you as to ways to overcome or cope. I read a few books on depression and anxiety when I was very ill which helped me enormously. The best was called 'Coping with Anxiety and Depression' by Shirley Trickett. I found it good as it was very simply written, and made everything totally clear and understandable. This was helpful for me at the time as my brain was like mashed potato!

Thanks for the info about your book....I will certainly check it out.

I totally agree that the more you face your fears, the better it gets. I have found this over the years. It does get easier and less frightening to deal with, and each time you are able to do something you find anxiety inducing, the more confidence you gain. The irritating and frustrating thing I find is that I haven't been able to totally escape it, and that really scary feeling when my anxiety peaks ( but thankfully that isn't very often these days)

I think that what you describe about time is quite understandable in the sense that if your mind is really overtaken with the anxiety and all the horrible symptoms, something as simple as timings does just get lost amongst it all. It is all part of the confusion and lack of clarity that anxiety breeds.

I do recall that when I had my breakdown in 2003, my entire thoughts were consumed with anxiety. I spent days in my pyjamas, days in bed with the curtains drawn and I had no concept of time whatsoever. I think that is the same for many sufferers.

Ooh, just to add, there is a very, very helpful website called calmclinic.com. I have found it so good for explaining both the mental and physical symptoms of anxiety and other mental health problems. It explains both the conditions themselves, and also the symptoms. It has some great pages on DP and DR as well as things like hallucinations and their relation to anxiety:

http://www.calmclinic.com/anxiety/sy...ersonalization

http://www.calmclinic.com/anxiety/sy.../derealization

http://www.calmclinic.com/anxiety/not-schizophrenia

[Gonagetbeta]

Thank you, I'll check them out.
Im just doing some exercises now on DP from the website I sent you. Its all about observing things around you and describing them, and also identifying feelings etc. I was reading the <removed by admin> and he talks about not talking about anxiety, prevent you don't have it. I did this for a while and it worked a bit. Im not sure if it made a difference or not.