Hi, sorry this post might be a bit long, but I'd like to get it off my chest.
About 7 weeks ago my anxiety went out of control and I was having massive panic attacks all the time, being sick, couldn't eat, my whole body burning. I daren't go out to pick the kids up from school and I was scared of being left alone. I started on 20mg citalopram about 6 weeks ago and I've gradually been getting better and some days I feel almost normal again. I'm not sure exactly what caused my 'breakdown', but I have been worrying constantly about my mum who has got frontal lobe dementia, she's only 65, and my dad, who is really struggling to look after her. My dad often phones me up crying because she doesn't recognise him.
Anyhow, my mum and dad live about 70 miles away so I can't help them on a day to day basis, but they come down here to stay a couple of days a week to give my dad a bit of a break, although not much of one because my mum is very hard work, she's much harder to look after than the kids. The thing is she needs to be doing things constantly, and not just that, she needs other people around her to be busy as well otherwise she thinks it's not fair that she's doing all the work. She can't be reasoned with because she's not well and you can't even sit her in front of the telly for a bit like you can with the kids! She can't do anything properly anyway so I have to secretly redo everything afterwards, but that doesn't matter.
The thing is when they come down, they really, really stress me out. I'll be feeling better and then they come down and set me back again. Last week I had a huge panic attack while they were here, so I am dreading them coming again tomorrow. I even had a really bad dream about them during last night and so all this morning I've been panicking really bad and made my husband stay off work to look after me. I'm starting to feel a bit better now, but I really don't think I'll be able to get through tomorrow. I tried phoning my dad up to ask him to come friday instead, but he's been having a bad few days and says he really needs to come down tomorrow and in fact he'll come down friday as well! I expect he feels worse than I do.
Anyway, thanks for reading if you made it this far down! It helps to write it all down. I don't think there's much I can do about the situation, I'll just have to put up with it!!
Debbie.
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