Just letting it all out.
Hi Guys,
I don't really know where else to go, it feels as if I have no one to talk to, and those who I can talk to, just don't understand. But at the same time, I know that is not true. I'm just so tired and so fed up. I hope you all don't mind that I made a thread to just let everything out somewhere.
I've had anxiety since I was about 15, or that's when I had my first panic attack anyway. Previous to that I was really destructive and such an angry teenager, I would self-harm and I dropped out of school. It really wasn't very good.
However, when I started high school (aged 16, I'm not originally from the UK), everything seemed to get better. I had very supportive, kind teachers who encouraged me to behave and work on my school grades etc. I was still quite erratic, but I was all in all a quite normal teenager. This continued through the rest of my high school. The only times when I would get really upset (e.g. anxious) was when I felt I wasn't performing well at school, or when my friends and I argued (again, quite common causes for anxiety for any adolescent).
Then when I was 18, the winter before I turned 19, I began having really dreadful panic attacks. I remember my first one; I was walking to school, and I had felt quite agitated all morning, and all of a sudden this indescribable feeling just hit me (those of you who suffer from bad anxiety know that exact, paralyzing feeling). I couldn't stand up, I just sat in the snow sobbing, and then I called 999. Initially, the mental health services thought I was psychotic because I couldn't stop screaming; I was just so, so, so scared. They didn't do anything (as always). I didn't sleep for 3 days and I just had panic attack after panic attack. Eventually, my mum took me to A&E and made the doctor subscribe me medication (Sertraline, zopiclone and diazepam). This made me better (though 'zoned out'), but at least it worked. I was functioning OK, and I moved to London in autumn the following year.
I'm sorry for typing out my whole life story, I know that this is of no interest to you: but I just need to tell *someone* (in this case, the entire internet). Sometimes, I can strangely enough find comfort in reading that someone else is suffering like me (which is so dreadful; I know) because it makes me feel that at least I am not alone; I am not that different.
Anway, in London I got on OK, until I had lived here for about a year. The horrible, panic attacks stating coming back. I would have heart palpitations for hours, and I would have tunnel vision and that iced feeling in the pit of my stomach, and pain all over my body, and this SO STRONG feeling that something is wrong, so very, very wrong, and that I had to escape. But how can you escape, when the danger is inside you? I ended up in a psychiatric hospital, and was put back on sertraline (which I had stopped taking earlier that year). Again, the sertraline worked, but with so many side-effects; I gained weight, I had no interest at all of being intimate with my partner, I couldn't drink alcohol, it just made me fall asleep (my GP says this side effect "does not exist", if anyone else has experienced this, please let me know). And even with the sertraline, I still had panic attacks. They were not quite as prominent, but they are still there. Then I was better a while again, and now, 2 years later, I am back in this depth of sadness, hopelessness, panic, frustration and feeling so so lonely.
About 3 weeks ago, I took some antibiotics (on prescription), and I had a very bad reaction to them. As my anxiety is health related, I had a horrible, horrible panic attack, and I ran to my GP surgery (I don't go to A&E anymore, because I'm always just told to stop wasting their time; I know the NHS are overcrowded, I know it's just a panic attack, but sometimes, in the worst panic, you just want someone who is medically trained to say "no, you are not dying, I promise, and I know what you are feeling, it happens, it's normal". But I can't expect them to do that when there are people with real problems. My GP couldn't see me, so my boyfriend called an urgent advice line for mental health issues in my borough. The nurse I spoke to said "look, just breathe in a paperbag or something, there is nothing I can do". I am so tired of people saying that "there is nothing I can do, I'll refer you to someone else". And, funnily, that someone else never actually does anything; ever. Of course,eventually, the panic attack subsided.
After that (literally the day after), my GP called me and wanted to see me. She told me that my Sertraline wasn't working (which is true), and instead gave me Citalopram. I was a bit anxious but also happy I could maybe have a better experience with Citalopram. However, when I went to the pharmacy, the pharmacist told me I had to wait at least 3 days after stopping the Sertraline before taking the Citalopram.
I stopped taking anything, and, being a bit daft, I thought "you know, I have panic attacks on SSRIs, I have panic attacks off SSRIs; I might as well not take them and at least have a healthy liver". Now I have not taken anything for 2 weeks: and it has been an emotional battlefield. My poor, poor boyfriend (if he ever reads this, and figures out I wrote it, I want him to know that he is the strongest, most stable, more admirable man the world has ever seen, and I am eternally grateful for everything he has done for me, even after all I put him through, and I promise that if I ever become 'normal', I hope to be able to repay all the kindness and care he has provided me with). The withdrawal symptoms from most SSRI's (especially when stopping cold turkey) are horrendous. Panic attacks all day, crying, uncontrollable anger, brain zaps... I can't do this anymore. I have been off them for two weeks now, and the withdrawal effects are subsiding (or so I thought). Today has been a horrible day, I cried for ages and when trying to clean the kitchen I screamed at all the spare plastic bags because they wouldn't fit under the sink (I called them all some pretty dreadful things, poor bags) and I threw them all over the kitchen. Then I cried some more. The never-ending sadness, the deep, gnawing anxiety that sometimes floods (it literally feels as if it is flooding from my stomach out toward my limbs) me, and this explosive anger. It's horrible; WHAT IS HAPPENING TO ME.
I was referred about 6 months ago to psychotherapy (previously, my GP sent me to 6 sessions of CBT; like I don't know how to breathe in a square after 10+ years of panic attacks), but I still haven't heard anything. I was also referred to a psychiatrist, but I haven't heard anything from there either. Then, when my GP gave me Citalopram, she also re-referred me to the people who are supposed to be organizing the psychiatrist and the psychotherapy. I received a letter from them saying "I don't know why you are referred back to us, you should be having psychotherapy by now". Yes well, I agree, I should, but where is it? I am hardly skiving off it just for fun. Then, further down the letter, it read "I [the mental health nurse] spoke to the psychiatrist, and he says you have emotional instability disorder/BPD". Really? So this doctor has diagnosed me several months ago, with BPD, after never having met me, and not even telling me that this is his diagnosis? Really? I was so upset by this!
I have googled quite a lot about BPD (this diagnosis I apparently have and was not told how to treat), and in all fairness, some of it fits me quite well; e.g. the fluctuating moods and the anger. But today, I am not suicidal, not self-harming, I am not destructive, and I have been in a stable (-ish; excluding panic attack induced arguments) relationship for almost three years now. But how do I treat it? And more importantly, considering no one at the NHS is going to help me; how do I treat myself (this is a quite rhetorical question, I understand there is not much I can do, and I just have to wait for some medical professional to have mercy on me and help me).
Finally, and the greatest fuel to my anxiety at the moment is this: Last week, my boyfriend and I were having dinner and discussing my mood(s), and he said; "when we met, you were actually quite ok, but now you are deteriorating". This statement is heart-breaking to me. It's terrifying, and it is so anxiety-inducing that I am panicking just writing it on here.
Maybe I am deteriorating; maybe all these dreadful (but previously seen as isolated incidents) panic attacks and episodes of sadness, are slowly getting worse and I will never be happier than I am today (if that makes sense; e.g. tomorrow I will be a bit more unhappy, a bit more anxious, and it will just get worse as my life rolls on). I don't know if I can bear a life so filled with these powerful emotions and the fear of panic attacks. I really don't know. I love my life when it's great, I am so blessed, but my mood is really taking over my life, and I am exhausted. If I knew what if was (apparently, it's BPD), how to control it, and how to make myself better, than I would be ok. If I had a GP, psychiatrist, therapist, ANYONE who cared about me and had the knowledge to help me and the willingness to actually help me, I would be so happy. I would feel that there was hope. But now, there is no hope. I am stuck in this evil pit of anger, sadness, anxiety (damn this anxiety) and what if it never ends?? What if the rest of my life, I will spend feeling that I cannot go through the day without screaming at someone, crying hysterically, or breathing into a paper bag? I'm only in my early twenties, and I have so many years left to live; will they really be spent like this?
I need help so badly; I need someone to tell me it will be ok, I need something. I can't fight this battle by myself anymore. I feel so selfish because we are all suffering on here, and I am ending this thread with "I, I, I, I". I (!) am sorry for that, and I wish I could help you all instead of sitting here begging for help for myself, but I don't know what to do anymore. I'm so abject. Please, if you have any idea how to feel better, or if you have felt like me and have managed a way to get better or even a way to get some health professional to take me seriously and give me more than a 10 min appointment and a useless referral, please tell me, because I feel so lonely.
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Originally Posted by Pepperpot
