Anxiety and me.

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

So, some quick background:

About 7 years ago I had an accident. I passed out one night after going to the bathroom, fell on my face and fractured my maxilla. I had to wear a brace in my mouth for a month and couldn’t eat solid foods. Well the doctors said I passed out due to low blood pressure from dehydration. Made sense since I had been at the beach all day, and back then I hardly, if ever, drank water.

About a week after my accident I was back at work, when suddenly my heart started pounding, my chest hurt, I was dizzy, lightheaded, and felt like I was going to pass out again. I went home, laid down and it passed. I immediately made a dr’s appt.

Over the next 3-4 months I went to one doctor after another, one test after another, and everyone said I was perfectly healthy. However, I kept having these damn episodes where my heart would just pound, I would get dizzy, sweat, etc… Nobody could seem to tell me what it was. Meanwhile, these episodes had really begun to erode my life. By the end of the 4th month going back and forth to work was about all I could handle. I never left the house, and when my roommate went out of town I would have someone come stay with me. It was not good.

Finally one day my step-mother asked if I had considered that all these problems were just anxiety or panic attacks. Honestly, until she said that I don’t think I had ever heard of either word before!! Not a single doctor in 4 months had even uttered either word!! Well I did some research, and damn, I sure did have all the symptoms!!

I spent the next 3 months trying to convince my self it’s “only” anxiety, panic attack, while trying to get my life back together. Sadly, that didn’t work. It seems even knowing what it was didn’t help. And in the back of my mind I kept thinking, hoping really, it was something physical. How could my mind be doing this to me??

After a total of 7months of trying to deal with this, a friend recommended I seek help, professional help…a shrink. Of course being the macho guy I thought I was, I disdained the idea. But the continual panic and erosion of my life changed my mind!! So I started looking for doctors. The first two I found wanted to medicate me right away. I refused. I just did not want to cover this problem, I wanted to beat it. I finally found a doctor who thought she could help me without medication.

When I started with her I was a bit wary. I had seen enough TV and movies to know how these people worked! J They would want to know all about my childhood, parents, friends, trauma etc… And sure enough she did. She insisted that panic and anxiety are all about FEAR. That somewhere in my life instead of dealing with a fear, I ignored it, and continued to push down and ignore all the fears in my life.

Well to be honest I did have a what some might consider a “traumatic” childhood. However, in my mind, in the grand scheme of the world I always thought it was bad, but it could always have been worse. And I considered myself lucky in a lot of ways. So I told the doc, that I would talk about these things, but that I had dealt with them a long time ago and didn’t want to go thru it again. I just wanted help now, dealing with this.

She was reluctant, but agreed, and we began to work on my problems. After another 4 months of therapy, my life began to get better. Slowly, step by painful step, I began to reclaim what I had lost. It wasn’t easy, but I endured, failed sometimes, endured some more, and kept going. I would like to say she “cured” me, but there isn’t really a cure for anxiety. Even after I stopped seeing her, while I didn’t have any more panic attacks, I was always anxious when it came to new things or places.

I decided however that since I couldn’t do things without feeling this way, I would just accept it, and do what I wanted anyway….and it worked! Well mostly…lol…I still haven’t borded a plane in 7 years. It’s just one hurdle I haven’t been able to get over. One day though…one day.

Okay…lunch time for me. I will be back to finish this in a bit.

2

I also suffer from anxiety/panic attacks.

I think it started in high school, but I was always to scared to do anything about it. After I graduated high school, it only got worse. I became very anti-social and kept to myself most of the time… people I didn’t know, being out in public, doctors, it all freaked me out.

About two years ago I finally went to the doctor… she put me on effexor, which didn’t seem to help a bit, even with an increased dosage. I stopped taking it…

Last year it was getting really bad, and my ex urged me to go to the doc… he even offered to go. I agreed, and went and saw my awful family doctor… Now this guy never used to be awful, but as he gets older it seems he’s getting bitter and rude. While telling him my problems, he looked at me like I was crazy. What a jerk. Well, he put me on zoloft, and told me to come back in a year.

After months and months of taking it, I realized it wasn’t helping… Instead of having regular freak-outs/panick attacks, I had them less frequently, but they were much much worse. So bad where it would take my current boyfriend hours to calm me down… so I stopped taking it.

I started seeing a shrink through my work’s mental health program. Awful… She didn’t help me one bit and kept on insisting I was having these problems because of the food I ate. Huh? There’s only one other shrink in the area that the program will cover, and I’m afraid to do it… and I can’t afford to just go to one on my own, it’s rather expensive.

I’m a bit better, but I still don’t like large groups, and having to talk to people I don’t know is awful for me… post office, doctor, I’m just scared…

I feel like I don’t have any other options at this point, and I know I drive my boyfriend crazy at times.

Blah.

3

Eep! I hope it didn’t seem like I was trying to hijack the thread…

I meant to add at the end of my last post that if you have any suggestions or whatnot, they’d be much appreciated… I know certain things work for some people while they won’t work for others, but I’ll take all the advice/help I can get.

4

Back.

So fast forward 7 years to today. I’m married, have a great wife, good job, health…etc. Then one day about 3 weeks ago, BAM! I’m trying to sleep and I jerk awake because I felt like I couldn’t breathe, and im in a full panic attack mode. I’m sweating, I feel hot, my heart is pounding, the whole nine yards! Well immediately all my training, my breathing, everything I know about anxiety flew out of my head, and I thought I was dieing.

After about an hour of this my body just had enough and went to sleep. It was not a good night. Now however, its like Pandora’s Box has been re-opened. Every night since that night going to sleep has been a chore for me. Once my mind associated panic with sleep, I was screwed. My day to day stuff im generally okay. No panic attacks, but a general feeling of anxiety has pretty much been with me every day.

I haven’t been able to fall asleep in my bed for 3 weeks. I sleep on the couch, with a light on and the TV going. Every time I try and sleep in my bed my mind just takes off on me, and I panic. It’s basically like the last seven years of my life was a joke. I didn’t “beat” shit, it’s still there and it’s still fucking with me.

I am now going back to my old physc. Doctor. She is back on me telling me that all this has something to do with what I went thru growing up. And this is where im at now. I hear what my doc is saying, but I just cant buy it. The freaking logical part of me insists that something that happened 25yrs ago cannot possibly bother me today. I spent the first 27 yrs of my life without a panic attack!! How the hell could it all the sudden just bother me??

I want to believe her, I truly do, I’m just not sure I can. So I am here now. Looking for others to share some of their stories with me. Explain to me how my doctor is right, or wrong, how the mind really is this strong, or its not that strong. Something anything!

Dealing with anxiety is a bitch. The people who have it don’t like to talk about it because they are afraid it might trigger a panic attack. And those who have come thru it, don’t want to be reminded of it for the same reason. So share some stories with me, I could use them.

5

IANAD, so for what it’s worth:

Have you ever had your heart checked out? There are some heart diseases that can have symptoms like what you describe. Wearing a holter monitor for a day or two to capture an episode can help focus on where the problem lies.

Vlad/Igor

6

Actually Igor yes. I wore a halter for 24hrs, had a EKG, and been to a cardiologist. Everything checks out.

7

Listen to your doctor. It seems like she helped you before. She knows what she is talking about. Why would you be any different than the tens of thousands of people who have been treated successfully by enduring (and believe me that is the right word) the kind of therapy she’s talking about?

Childhood trauma can create actual neurological responses, for defense, that don’t go away after you don’t need them anymore. I don’t know the science behind it. It’s something I’ve worked on with a therapist who is trained in (and teaches) Hakumi Somatic Therapy. I’ve experienced a lot of success.

It’s a tough road and it takes a lot of time and a lot of guts. See if you can examine your motives for being so stubborn. Fear is just about always hovering around the bottom line.

As well, I know that cognitive behavioral therapy, something very different than what I’ve just described, has phenomenal success with panic disorder. It’s very concrete and specific and doesn’t take that long. Kaiser has groups that work on it, and a friend who, among other things, couldn’t drive over bridges, had her life totally turned around in about six months through working in one of those groups.

Good luck. Please remember that it takes more guts to face up to the stuff and move through it than it does to turn your back to it and try to “macho” it out. You’re not alone in these troubles of yours. Trust that there are things you can do about it.

8

I am told I get panic attacks, but they are for me physalogical rather than psychological. I don’t feel panicked at all, but I get physically gittery, and need to flex my leg rapidly and sometimes make a sudden unrequired jerking movement. Anyway some SSRI’s seem to help, and they might help you.

9

I am currently working on recovery from anxiety as well. What is working for me (and you’re right about people not wanting to talk about it - I hate to say something’s working for me for fear of jinxing it) is cognitive therapy, self-help, bibliotherapy, and a self-help group that I go to every week. There are people in this group who consider themselves cured, for many years.

Three really good resources that you can look up on the net are Bronwyn Fox (she has a mindfulness approach to dealing with anxiety), Dr. Joseph Luciani (his approach is self-coaching - I really like this approach), and Lucinda Bassett.

Does your psychiatrist work with Cognitive/Behavioural Therapy, Dob? From all the reading I’ve done, that is the first line of treatment for anxiety disorders.

10

No, not really, at least not with me. Based on my past she is sure that my problem lies with stuff I havent delt with yet.

Thanks for the feedback so far. Although it is hard to talk about it does help to hear others stories!!

11

A slight hijack, but have you heard of Restless Leg Syndrome? My SO has it. He did the same thing with the leg thing, plus it kept him from sleeping well because his legs would jerk all night. His doctor put him on a mild seizure drug that he takes every evening before bedtime.

Check out this site. Restless Leg Syndrom Fact Sheet

Ever since he went on the medication his legs have stopped doing their thing and he is sleeping better than he has in 20 years (he claims). IMNAD, and I had never heard of RRS until very recently until my SO was doing some internet research into his symptoms. As a matter of fact his Doctor had never heard of it either, but did educate himself on the syndrome before helping my SO.

12

Thanks, I had heard something of the restless leg syndrome, but I guess since it has neve effected my sleeping (if it does at all I find a single Asprin cures it at night) that the Doctors hav enever considered it worth curing. Both a nurse whilst in hospital, and my Psychiatric doctor considered it a sign of an anxiety attack.

13

Dr. Luciani (whom I referenced in my earlier post) has a great take on this - he compares an anxiety disorder with smoking. He says it doesn’t matter why you started smoking in the first place, but you have the habit of insecurity now (which he believes is the cause of anxiety disorders, and I tend to agree with him), and you need to deal with your smoking habit now, not why you developed it. I’m not saying don’t deal with your past, just don’t let yourself get stuck in decades of psychoanalysis that doesn’t include Cognitive/Behavioural Therapy. There comes a point, as an adult, that you have to say good bye to all the old baggage and start living in the here and now. We’ve all been hurt in our lives; it doesn’t make us broken or victims; it just makes us human.

You know, Bippy, I get restless legs sometimes too. It might be part of the whole anxiety package. The relaxation exercises I do (meditation and consciously tightening and relaxing my muscles) help.

Dob (or anyone else with anxiety), please feel free to email me. I’ve been working on this for the last six months, and I have a lot of information that I would love to pass on.

14

I think my husband had the most drastic treatment for his panic attacks.

He had a heart attack at age 33. He kept getting chest pains afterwards, and they ran test after test after test on him, including heart caths, trying to find the problem.

Finally, they decided that perhaps he still had some living tissue in the part of his heart that had been damaged by the heart attack. And perhaps the pain was being caused by this tissue not getting enough oxygen. And perhaps bypass surgery would cure it.

So he had a double bypass. At age 34.

It didn’t cure it, of course, because what he was suffering from was anxiety, not cardiovascular. He had an operation to “cure” a psychiatric problem. It would be funny if it weren’t so awful.

Anyway, good luck to anyone fighting this dastardly condition. My husband has basically learned to recognize the panic attacks as panic attacks, so he can cope with them. He also has a sedative prescribed in case he gets a bad one, or has trouble sleeping.

He’s under the care of a psychiatrist, a psychiatric nurse practitioner, and a therapist. I can’t say these things are helping yet, but please if anyone isn’t seeking help, do so. There may be help out there for you.

15

I hope this isn’t a dumb question, but what do you think about during a panic attack?
Are you able to force yourself to think of something, or is it out of your control?

16

I have panic attacks and they’ve been hitting a lot lately. Even though I know they’re panic attacks, and that they will go away, and that I’m not actually dying/having a heart attack/going insane, it doesn’t stop them. I just have to ride it out, telling myself the entire time that it will be OK. Doesn’t stop them from being thisclose to intolerable.

17

Dob, for me it was pretty obvious that the anxiety was related to my childhood.

The first panic attack I remember having, I was home from work one day, a lazy day:reading, daydreaming, started thinking about Mr Sam and I having kids. Thinking that it was nice my parents were close by, and not working, they could spend a lot of time with their grandkids.

Instantly, I thought I was going to die. It was that bad. I couldn’t even make it to the phone to call Mr Sam.

It has worked for me to delve into my past. I won’t beat around the bush; it was a few years of extremely hard work, with a lot of support from a few key people. But it has absolutely been worth it. I very rarely feel anxiety now, and when I do, I know the drill. I can get to the bottom of it and resolve whatever issue is there, fairly quickly.

I’ve just been through one of those really difficult years in life: new baby who doesn’t sleep, losing the company Mr Sam and I had spent 10 years building, failing health of a parent. Without anxiety. Without even needing that anti-anxiety prescription tucked away just in case. The therapy was definitely worth it :smiley:

18

Hi Dob, I have a story to share, but for the sake of those involved, I am not comfortable posting it to the public record. E-mail me if you are interested.

19

I have been getting them for the past ten years. After the initial terror of not knowing what they were, for the first couple of years, I’ve learned to recognise the symptoms, and to alleviate them.

I find that diversionary approaches help. Like, if I get one when lying in bed, I get up and read a book or turn on the TV, or if I really need to sleep, I listen to the radio. I have to really concentrate on these activities, and eventually the attack just goes away. I still feel gross for about five minutes but not in that “oh my God I’m going mad I can’t breathe my heart’s going to stop my head’s going to explode I might shit myself” way! :wink:

20

Hey, Dob. This feels like a support group, and that’s fine with me.

I was a completely normal guy my whole life - perfect health, perfect mental health, great childhood, great relationships with family and friends.

When I was 21, my stepmother suddenly dropped dead - literally - in a supermarket two days after Thanksgiving. She was 51, and in normal health. To say that this shocked me is an understatement - I hadn’t ever had to deal with the death of a family member at all - even my great-grandmother was still alive, in her 90’s! This just knocked me on my ass, emotionally - while we weren’t even close, the whole concept that I had just been talking to her the day before just blew my mind (and still does).

Something about that kicked it off - a week later, I had my first anxiety attack. I was in bed, drifting off to sleep, when WHAM, it hit me (as you know!). I couldn’t breathe, my heart was pouding, I felt like I was choking, and my chest felt tight. My whole body went numb, and I started shaking so hard it was like I was having a convulsion. I called 9-11, convinced that I was dying.

After a few more of these episodes, I was diagnosed, and prescribed Xanax, to take when the attacks happen. It’s done a good job of shutting them down in most cases, but I have to wait until they hit, which sucks, and sometimes it seems as ineffective as if I had taken nothing.

Now, three years later, my attacks have dwindled to one every six months or so. But much worse than having spontaneous attacks has been the gradual shift in the entire way I live my life. I’ve become a complete hypochondriac - in the past six months alone, I’ve been convinced that I have an undetectable heart problem that won’t be discovered until it makes me drop dead (gee, I wonder where that one came from?), multiple sclerosis, diabetes, schizophrenia, epilepsy, Lou Gehrig’s disease, Parkinson’s, OCD, Mad Cow disease, a detached retoma, a brain tumor, skin cancer, sleep apnea, and a multitude of others. I wish I were joking, but I’ve been genuinely convinced that I have those things, even while simultaneously knowing that at age 24, in perfect health (have had a complete physicals, EKGs, and an MRI in the past year due to this hypochondria), I must be nuts to be thinking that.

I think I’d rather go back to having the attacks but living an otherwise normal life instead of living with this constant anxiety and worry - it’s like living in a permanent anxiety attack.