Afraid of everything? Not sure how to fix this.

[LiveAboveIt]

My intense anxiety has turned into an overreaction of fear towards most worrysome thoughts. For awhile I was afraid of being alone, taking a shower because of the small space, and just generally being alone with my thoughts.

It feels like my fear reaction is hypersensitive, even when I know the reaction is irrational towards the subject matter, I can't get out of this "state of fear." I've been working hard on challenging the fear, I've been forcing myself to be on my own and do things that bother me and it does seem to be helping..

But it's more based around my thoughts at this point. I keep having worries that pop into my head about being crazy or just frightening thoughts about having the anxiety and not being able to NOT think about it, and just feeling strange and not myself. I ALWAYS have this feeling of dread that has pretty much overwhelmed my sense of being and I no longer trust myself or my judgement towards worry.

How does one UNDO this hypersensitive state? Is this a normal part of anxiety and GAD?

[MyNameIsTerry]

It can be normal, we are all different with our symptoms. Mine was 24/7 afraid of anything that could be a threat. And by anything, I mean any new sensation. So, showers were impossible for me at first.

I believe this can be a matter of a steady and structured effort to move from stage to stage. Each stage sees an improvement. I think Claire Weekes may have talked about something similar when she termed "layers", peeling the layers of the onion. I haven't read Weekes' work but I did find my GAD moved horrendous, to slightly less, a bit less again, etc. Each stage could be a subtle shift or it could feel more noticeable. I also found that at first it was just terrible days, then the odd not so terrible day came. Over time this changed so that slightly less terrible days came more often, then things were not so bad all the time, then the odd neutral day, then better days.

Moving through the stages, I saw the pattern shift from the worst to something much better, but it was slow & gradual.

Changing our beliefs, our negative thinking styles, etc are all important. But I don't believe that's all it is about. We also need to improve our self confidence, self worth and ultimately self esteem or we could leave a crack in the foundation so that anxiety seeps back through again later. CBT teaches us to self monitor and work on ourselves without a therapist in the future, well it's supposed to but I doubt the poor standard in the UK achieves this with our IAPT framework, so like physical health it is a matter of ongoing maintenance so we don't slip again.

I don't care how long mine takes as long as I get there. I would rather have it longer but get the future back then chase my tail and never get anywhere.

For me, you've just had a pretty horrendous time with Cit. Your new med is going to take time. Take it step by step, it's all micro goal, and don't place unreasonable expectations on yourself. It's early days right now and I believe having big shocks like you had with the med can take a bit of time to bring down those sensitivity levels. I always suffer on these meds and spend time clawing my way back at first, it may not be the same for you but if it is, don't berate yourself for it, just keep working and you will get there.

In terms of intrusive thoughts, I think we've probably covered a lot of this in terms of challenging and accepting/observing. The rest is about time for it to change. But ask questions if you have them and the OCD board is a good place as intrusive thoughts pretty much dominate that board.

Pushing yourself is good. Avoidance can be useful at first but it's always going to make us worse long term. It's about not avoiding but adopting healthy "adaptive behaviours" instead. But be wary of pushing yourself too far, too soon. Create a hierarchy, like in ERP, and approach it with structure and move on as you feel you are beating the current step on the ladder.

[LiveAboveIt]

Thanks, Terry.

You always seem to help ground me and rationalize whats going on, I always look forward to your responses. I know you also suffer from GAD and you mentioned having a really tough time with yours in the beginning. I was diagnosed with GAD at a young age and have struggled with mild anxiety my entire life. It didn't really get severe until I hit about 22 and now it's even worse at 27, mainly because of the different symptoms/fears.

I think my main problem is, I've been struggling with this intense severe anxiety nearly 24/7 for about 3 months now and it's completely brought me to my knees. I'm definitely better now, but after feeling this way for so long, I feel like I'm crawling my way back up. My social anxiety is gone because I have this "Nothing really matters, I can't feel anything outside of me" attitude because of the fear taking control of every aspect of my life. It's been hell. My only solace is being out of the house and around people, with a purpose, as this tends to lend much needed distraction to my life. I work from home, but I've been seriously considering getting myself a part time job to get me out of the house more.

I keep struggling with thoughts about fear of going crazy or losing my sanity because I am so stricken with anxiety and intrusive thoughts. Although they have absolutely diminished in severity I still struggle with the constant feeling of dread and the thoughts of not being able to handle it and irrational fear of losing it or somehow getting worse/going off the deep end. I try to ignore it as best I can and just get on with my day, I constantly tell myself how irrational the thoughts are, but I just can't seem to get rid of that fear feeling, it drives me insane.

Hopefully I'm on the slow road to recovery, I am a lot better than I was a month ago or so, but I just want to feel like my old self again. I can't even feel sadness, anger, or love as much as I used to because they all seem to be foreshadowed by the fear and anxiety.