Trying To Get By Day To Day While Living With Anxiety.

[Pkstracy]

I thought I would start this thread talking about my struggles of living with mental illness. In hopes that I may help someone else. I want to start off by posting some trigger warnings, I will be talking about suicide, mental issues, death.

Hi my name is Tracy..in 2012 I had my first ever panic attack. My husband and I had just been walking back to our car after eating pizza at a local shop. I felt myself suddenly get really hot, then couldn't catch my breath, I started shaking, I told him I need to go home please take me home, I was crying by this time. We get home and are getting ready for bed and I start to panic, I don't want to sleep. I lay there in the dark clinging to my husband trying to calm myself down, I stayed up all night, the next day I begged him to stay home from work with me. He does so, after three days of this he tells me, he is taking me to a therapist, that there is something wrong. So we go see one and she diagnoses me with anxiety and depression, and suggests I seek a psychiatrist, which I do and he diagnoses at the first session with Generalized Anxiety Disorder with Panic Attacks, PTSD, OCD, after five sessions he also determines that I have mild agoraphobia along with Bipolar. I felt like I had been hit with a ton of bricks...I lost a lot of friends as I stopped going out and communicating with them, I did tell them what I was going through. During all this as well I was slowly losing my mom to dementia, which was caused by her noncancerous brain tumor that she got diagnosed with when she was 56. She hadn't lost all her memories yet and could still talk to me. I also developed so many fears, fear of the dark, fear of enclosed spaces, fear of being out in public, fear of being alone, fear of elevators, health anxiety, I am going to fast forward a bit to 2018, by this time my mom forgot who I was and was slowly losing her ability to speak, I was also battling cellulitis I got from a cat scratch, I was already a member of the board at this time. I recovered from that thankfully and decided to start working on myself and lose weight and really do the mental health work to heal childhood and adult trauma. I dropped weight and was in a good place or so it felt like I had motivation and determination. 2019 hit..we all know what happened in 2019, COVID, I became afraid to leave my home, I already had health anxiety as well...for two years my husband and I did not get it. I joined a support group called ACA, started really feeling good, working out still and working on my mental health, this was 2022, we went to an event and back to a hotel the next day I started feeling sick, I took a covid test it came up positive, I went into panic mode, thankfully it was mild, but it took something from me...it took my energy, and made my depression worse. By this time also my mom was on hospice..I recovered from covid, however my depression was bad that I attempted to take my life, thankfully I didn't succeed, I was put on bed rest. I decided to start working on gaining my mobility back and build up my energy as I now have to walk with a wheeled cart with a seat anytime I want to walk anywhere. I lost my self confidence, I lost myself, and I grew to hate myself, I used to bea able to walk three to five miles a day I could barely walk a few steps without getting tired. , I decided to get back to taking care of me, 2023 we had to move from our home of nine years due to the landlord not fixing anything, we moved to the place we are now and I became more depressed and fearful of the elevator as every week it seemed it would break down, no one got trapped inside, but in my mind I felt like it would and will be me. June of 2023 I lost a friend suddenly she passed due to an illness, two weeks later in June of 23 I got the call my mom died, she was 67, I collapsed and took to my bed due to bad depression and grief, August 23 I got notified a friend of mine took his life, I was by this time grieving three people, in Sept I had another friend die, in Nov my cat Pepe, suddenly got sick and had to be put down, the grief was building up more and more, Jan of 24 my dog had to be put down, we fought to save her when she got sick at the end of dec, Feb I had another friend die, March I had another friend die, July another friend died. I was still trying to process the deaths from last year, the grief got to much and I started isolating, I stopped taking care of myself, I ended up getting sick with whatever this is I have now, four covid tests and all negative, nine days I have been sick with a stuffed up nose, and cough, loss of smell and limited taste, telehealth tells me it's a upper resp infection..could last two to three weeks. I am beyond exhausted. I know this will pass I know that one day I will heal, I know that it will get better...I have hope. I have determination. I made myself a promise after this head sinus thing went away I was going to work out, eat healthy, work on my mental health, put in the work, get back to ACA, and sign up for a support grief group. bigredbook.jpg (ACA)

[Carnation]

That took a lot of courage to write PK
When I read through it, it showed me actually how strong you are. Everything you've been through and you are still standing. Yes, I know you are using a wheel cart but you are still going out.
I think you need time, to get over all the deaths, to grieve for your mum, your pets, your illnesses, all the shocks that life has thrown at you.
You will come out the other side because you are still here to tell your story. You are an inspiration x

[Darksky]

Oh I agree, you have been through such a massive amount of stress and grief. Coupled with coping with anxiety. You are much stronger than you think Tracy and you are right…you WILL get through this and out the other side. It will take time as you know but the body and mind will heal and one day you will step out into the sunshine

[JHR]

Thirded (made up a word) by me PK....one thing this forum has taught me in this last fortnight is just how strong we all are and I wonder, what I call the "normals" out there, would cope with just a 1/10 of our daily struggles.It has also taught me to ignore their judgemental comments of "drama queen" and "wallowing in self importance" that come from them. Don't know how I coped in the past without the help of the like minded folk on here

[Pkstracy]

Carn thank you so much, I told you and Terry and Fish my full story in the chat on New Years one of these days I'll post it here, You are strong as well Carn never forget that. Darksky, I am going to cling to those words thank you my friend. JHR Yes we are very strong all of us, I too, ignore those that say things as they don't understand what a struggle it is.

I stayed up way late last night not going to bed until around five am, so it's about noon now I am feeling about 90 percent better if my stuffiness in my nose would go away I would be 100 percent, oh and the smell and taste come back. I have been itching to sit up and game for a bit, yes I am a gamer, I play world of warcraft and BG3 as well as Disney Dream Light Valley, let me tell you that game may sound like a kid's game, but it's not it deals with mental health. I found myself sobbing during that game. I talked to my ACA sponser last night, and will be going back to ACA on Sunday I think. She also hosts a grief support group. I am not sure what I am going to be doing today, I had a panic attack last night, my mind going to the what if this head thing doesn't go away, it's been nine days now. "When I was younger these only lasted five days and I got my smell back "( my mind saying this to me) "Well I am not young anymore it's going to take longer "( me to my brain) "What if you have .....(insert whatever horrible thing could happen with the nose and brain) "It wouldn't be improving day by day if it was X number of horrible things " (me to my brain )

[Pkstracy]

posting a note to myself that I found while searching on here about loss of smell, I am having such anxiety about it and then I found this

Re: Have anyone ever lost sense of smell and taste after a viral cold?

Yep I had a nasty cold last month and didn't get my sense of smell or taste back for about two weeks. (I am putting this here as a reminder to myself)

I had a horrible cold it seems in December of 2022 and this was my post to someone.

I was able to smell my apple scented candle just now it was very dull but I was able to smell it. I have a anxiety filled day to where I cannot relax, I have only eaten one meal today, I've lost about six pounds in a week since being sick due to not feeling like eating caused by the bland taste of the food and not being able to smell, I am going to have to move my mom's pictures to the wall behind me, as everytime I glance to the wall that my computer desk is at, I see her and the pain of her death and the grief just wells up within me and I start sobbing I haven't wanted to get out of bed in a week or more.

[Pkstracy]

Man it's not been a fun day, I woke up at 11 am with my nose running or so I thought, it was blood, I had my first nosebleed, lasted maybe 10 mins, get it stopped, I go to the living room and I sit down, for a bit, then go back to my room and I lay down, on my side, it started up again, so I told my husband to take me to urgent care I was having a panic attack as well, I get there my nose stopped no blood at all, they get me back take my blood pressure which was 138/90 I was surprised as I thought it would be higher, they asked me the usual questions told them I had been dealing with an upper resp infection and that I was most likely dehydrated, and I run a fan all the time, they looked at my nose said it's anterior and looks irritated as I had been blowing my nose a lot the last few weeks, and wiping it, my husband and I leave, go to Jack in the box to get him a coke zero, then a lottery ticket then to CVS to get his meds and I get home I sit down in the living room and bam another nose bleed lasted not even five mins, but i had rubbed my nose on that side, so i calm down go to the bathroom go back into my room i get on the bed and lay on my side, it started again an hour later, lasted five mins, so far it's been two hours and no nose bleed, i did do the snort back where you're about to hock out a booger and coughed out a huge red blood clot from my nose, my anxiety is through the roof. I havent eaten and I am drinking water to combat the dehydration and hubby got me an air humidifier the one that puts mist in the air to moisten the air and I have to put Aquaphor in my nose three times a day.

[Pkstracy]

update I am having nosebleeds every four to five hours lasting maybe a min or two. I am freaking out.

[Pkstracy]

So I ended up going to urgent care who cauterized my nose, that hurt like several bees stinging it, he also gave me blood pressure pills to take,, my nose started gushing again after the procedure, he sends me to E.R. had to wait six hours to be seen, but I did meet some interesting people, one I even exchanged numbers with, so ER doc sees me and tells me, you should have come here first we do two other things before cauterization, he wasn't impressed with urgent care doc, told me that my blood pressure would have to be in the 220s and higher for it to cause nosebleeds that urgent care doc shouldn't have scared me like that it's also very rare, he said most likely my nose was highly inflamed after having the upper resp infection and that my excessive blowing could have weakened the vessels, and the fact that I kept checking my nose when it stopped caused it to bleed again, he didn't see any posterior bleeding, so that was a good thing, and that it was anterior and a large area, as for the blood doing down my throat that can happen with a nose bleed, I swear if it isn't one thing it's another.

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[Carnation]

Hi PK.

Firstly, big (HUG)

Reading your earlier post I was thinking "why has he given you blood pressure tablets?" Then I read the second post and thankfully was corrected by a doctor who knew what he was doing.
And well done for dealing with it all PK

Re : moving the picture of your mum.
I did the same. It seemed to the right thing to do at first, having a photo of my mum by my bedside. But it was causing lots of dreams and when I woke up I felt sad. So I moved it too. x