Anxiety

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I had a bad patch many years ago, but I feel like keeping my post brief.

Exercise is a godsend, find something you can get interested in. Can't find something? ********, keep looking and try :)

Diet. Think of your body as a factory, if the materials you're putting into it is crap, don't except a good end product. What you put into your body has a large impact on how you feel both physically and mentally.

Personally, becoming teetotal and introducing this sort of self discipline has helped.

You need to face irrational fears, ideally before they become too set in. Some avoid supermarkets or the pub. Try going at a quieter time to start off, like midnight shopping, or a Tuesday night at the pub. It will become easier over time.

Try to keep thinking positive, things can improve. They did for me.
 
Over the past 18 Month I've been battling with purely obessional OCD.. which is a form of anxiety.

Without going into too much detail, I'd get a thought or image stuck in my head and it would stop me dead with fear.. thing is tho as it was frightening me I was thinking about why I was having these thoughts and in doing so was magnifying the original thought/image.

Took me about a week to go see the doc, she gave me some escitalopram and told me to try and do exercise and generally relax. I was very much against taking an SSRI at first but it must be said that it has helped immensly.

I started going to private CBT sessions but found that they weren't working for me.. I then googled OCD and found a good foundation called OCDUK and from this website I found good information on how to control the thoughts and images.

I've been feeling pretty good recently, got cleared by a CBT specialist only last month and now I'm gonna try and work on reducing the tablets (with help from my GP).

Its a hard road, a long road too, but with patience and strong will you can get through it.

I feel one day I will have a relapse, due to the fact that this may be a brain issue with me, but at least I know I'll be ready :)
 
Oh and I cut out all caffeine related products, Tea/Coffee etc and I've had no alcohol for 18 months.

I do drink Coke which is bad but I'm trying to reduce that also.

Exercise is something I need to pick up on tho!
 
Off the back of this thread I've made an appt with my doctor to see if I can cope better with this. Maybe get a referral for CBT or similar.

I'll report back to let you know how it goes.

Chris344 said:
Did anyone has increased blood pressure readings during long term anxiety?
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I had my blood pressure read a couple of weeks ago, it came back at the lower end of pre-high.
 
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Lysander said:
Off the back of this thread I've made an appt with my doctor to see if I can cope better with this. Maybe get a referral for CBT or similar.

I'll report back to let you know how it goes.
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Good news.
Be frank and honest, don't hold anything back!

I was tempted to in my first visit to the GP as its quite hard to admit some of the things you're feeling!
 
I do get this, but I sometimes find ways of boosting my confidence too when need be. Still, it's a real drag to cope with it especially if you sometimes suffer from depression too.
 
+1 to those who are advising openness, being upfront and frank with the GP.

I was a quivering wreck when I first went to talk to my GP about the issues that nearly cost me my life.

I sat in silence before the doctor for about 30 seconds then just started blurting it all out complete with tears and everything.

Doesn't matter, better a cry for help in your local surgery than anywhere else.
 
I don't have any problem about talking about my issue. I talk to anyone and everyone about it. I think the people at my works must be bored of hearing about it but it helps to get stuff of my chest. I used to get random crying, for no reason, never did understand that. I remember once just suddenly crying with clenched teeth and had no idea why I was. That is something else I find I do a lot recently. I clench my jaw. To the point where when I go to eat it hurts as my teeth have moved slightly.

I think I am currently having my anxiety set off by crazy / extremely random dreams. That or my anxiety is causing them? It seems during the day my anxiety drops off as I'm at work, can talk to people and generally get my head stuck into things and don't have time to think about anything else. At night however from about midnight on I sleep extremely restlessley and can feel that horrible anxiety buzz. I have some sleeping pills but as I said before I'd like to try and avoid taking those if possible but I can see the redness appearing around the eyes now and even though I'm eating like a horse cycling in to work is becoming harder. I somehow need to get on top of this poor sleeping / anxiety at night and soon.

I'm hoping my g/f returning back to the UK in a few weeks will help settle it as I'm sure her being away is part of the reason I'm having anxiety issues at the moment.
 
I have struggled with anxiety for years now, and it's hell. At one point I couldn't even leave my house, and going to work was a nightmare. I was offered CBT by my gp which was a huge help and allowed me to start living a normal life again and manage my anxiety better. My new job up here has some extremely stressful days and at one point I was feeling so dizzy I nearly fell out of my chair. Really put me in a bad place for the rest of the night, and I'm just concentrating on moving onwards instead of focusing on it and getting in a rut. I might speak to the local gp anyway and see what they suggest, because anxiety is the biggest limiting factor in my life by a factor of 100. Hell, I can't even go for a run without thinking I'm having a heart attack. That's no way to live. Yeah, that decides it, time to make an appointment.
 
I find that before when I got them I noticed really unusual things, or I would see something really strange during it - this always made it worse.

As i'm still not diagnosed properly, I have been to the doctors who palm me off, I did have a blood test as I said I was always feeling dizzy. I'll list my symptoms here and see how many relates to this.

• Dizziness
• State of feeling far away, 3rd person mode as I'd call it
• Sudden jolts as if i'm coming back into reality
• Sometimes going very tense and feeling an unexplained pressure building inside
• Feeling like the world is seen at a slight angle, this also means lack of balance
• A feeling like i'm moving backwards sitting down still
• Sometimes fast heartbeat but not always


Places it can happen

• Gym
• Shopping centres / Food shops
• Busy streets in cities / towns
• Work


What I do to cure it

• Call of Duty 4 or any games I can concentrate deeply on
• Driving as it takes full concentration

From this it seems that it could be large areas or lots of people, but it doesn't happen if I go out to a club with friends where you would expect it to happen due to the large volume of people. I think part of the issue is that because I haven't been told by an official I have a panic disorder/anxiety attacks that it makes it worse because I self diagnose, which never ends well.
 
valkia said:
• Dizziness
• State of feeling far away, 3rd person mode as I'd call it
• Sometimes going very tense and feeling an unexplained pressure building inside
• Feeling like the world is seen at a slight angle, this also means lack of balance
• A feeling like i'm moving backwards sitting down still
• Sometimes fast heartbeat but not always
.
Click to expand...

All of the above.

Lots of the dizziness, also accompanied by feeling like my brain is made of cotton wool and I'm floating around at the back of it.

Sometimes my hearing goes funny like I'm underwater too.

Sharp pains in random places (usually because I'm so tense, but easy to misinterpret as something more serious).

Ugh, terrible terrible feelings.
 
A couple of my ex's used to suffer from panic attacks/anxiety.

I really couldn't imagine how it feels, but know from experience of others how debilitating it can be.

Ironically I'm somewhat on the other side (minor Blunted affect) - which makes this kind of thing even more alien to me.
 
valkia said:
• Dizziness
• State of feeling far away, 3rd person mode as I'd call it
• Sudden jolts as if i'm coming back into reality
• Sometimes going very tense and feeling an unexplained pressure building inside
• Feeling like the world is seen at a slight angle, this also means lack of balance
• A feeling like i'm moving backwards sitting down still
• Sometimes fast heartbeat but not always
Click to expand...

Pretty much spot on to how I felt 6 years ago, it was a year of hell and I had a short amount of time of work until I went Bupa but after that every day get's better and easier.

Relaxation was absolutely critical to any kind of cure for me, you have to become an expert at relaxation, most find it easy to relax but the above is usually from being tense, my therapist gave me a CD which starts of with deep relaxation then working towards relaxing when moving, short relaxation an quick spot relaxation, it was his own work and he said I can give it to anyone, if anyone wants it they can have a copy, it's a dozen tracks I just need somehow to get to anyone I have it now on MP3.
 
How you deal with anxiety will vary from person to person. I used to get anxiety attacks on a daily basis and it got to the point where I was almost unable to work or have any social life.

My GP initially prescribed medication but that didn't help with the anxiety and made me feel permanently sick. I then moved on to CBT, and whilst that helped a little, it didn't resolve the issue completely.

In the end I more or less completely changed my work and home life to accommodate it. I was working in the City at the time, in a very high stress job, but resigned from that to start up my own business. Just the fact I didn't have to do a daily commute for 2-3 hours was a great help (some of my worst anxiety attacks happened on the tube, especially after 7/7 as my office was almost directly above Aldgate where one of the bombs went off).

From a domestic point of view, I made sure I made time to do things I wanted to do, instead of what everyone else wanted to do. I also found some mild meditation techniques helped greatly. Just closing my eyes for ten minutes and imagining I was in a sunny field had an incredible relaxing effect.

I still get attacks from time to time, but I can recognise them before they become all-encompassing now and remove myself from stressful situations at the first sign of an attack.

I'd definitely recommend seeing a professional, but don't get downhearted if they can't help immediately. Its all about fniding the techniques that work best for you.

Good luck OP. It may seem overpowering to you at the moment, but you can learn to manage it and live a (relatively) anxiety free life.
 
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