Anyone else with anxiety/ocd issues such as myself on here? any really good coping methods that are not of the standard variety/textbook/psychiatrist that they can share to help myself and possibly others. Just looking for other points of view.
Cheers!
[Moderating]
“Looking for points of view” belongs in our forum titled IMHO. I’ll move this over there for you.
I’ve noticed benefits from taking beta blockers and theanine each day. Also I listen to an alpha binaural beats meditation CD while doing deep breathing almost every day.
I’ve suffered from anxiety attacks my whole life. For the last 35-ish years, the most reliable help is .25 mg of xanax. I never take any more than that, but it does the trick. I only take it as needed and rarely take it more than two days in a row (one .25 mg. dose per day). I’ve tried deep breathing, walking, hot baths, everything I can think of, but xanax is the only thing that works for me, predictably, reliably, every single time. It takes 30-45 minutes to kick in.
This thread is timely, because I woke up at 3 am this morning in a panic attack. I try to talk myself out of it, but a therapist I went to for years said I should take the xanax as soon as I recognize the signs coming on. Like when you feel a headache coming on, take whatever you take right then. Don’t wait for it to get so bad that the medication can’t catch up with it. So I took the pill (half a pill) and got up and walked around and around my house in circles until I felt it take hold. It is such a royal fucking nuisance to have that happen… but at least I have a solution.
For me the panic attacks take the form of me being afraid something bad is happening or going to happen to me. It’s not rational, so reasoning with myself, self-talk, logic, etc., cannot touch it. I feel something in my body… some slight change, twinge, pain, anything really… and my mind just runs away with it. What the xanax does is shut down the mental chatter and acrobatics, and it may also help with whatever physical “symptoms” I was feeling. The main thing is to dial down the runaway thoughts.
In my own personal timeline there have been periods where I’ve had more panic attacks than at other times. I can remember incidents when I was a kid, and looking back, I know they were panic attacks, but I didn’t have the label then. I’ve gone long periods without them, and then other periods where I get them often. But I always follow my own protocol: never more than .25 mg/day, and rarely more than two days in a row (**never **more than three days).
It’s hard to explain to people what they’re like if they’ve never had them.
I’m more of a generalized anxiety/social anxiety guy myself. Mindfulness meditation helps me. Just remembering the word “pause” and associating it in my mind with elevated stress or feeling that flight or fight (I’m more of a fighter) helps me to pause, detach from the situation and take a thousand foot view, and then make adjustments.
That doesn’t work all of the time, as nothing does. It does help me to realize that I am not my thoughts, and I don’t have to give weight to them. I can pause them and redirect at times. Getting adequate sleep is HUGE for me, as a lack of sleep exacerbates every issue in my life.
Oh yeah, and live a life that is authentic. I tried to fit into a mold that I was brought up in that I didn’t feel right with and letting go of all of that (religion, in my case) really lessened all of my anxiety so much. The freedom to be oneself is the opposite of anxiety.
Anybody here on buspirone? I was prescribed it and have been taking it for about a month now. I’m not really sure if it’s doing anything or not. From what I’ve read, it doesn’t work on everybody.
Would you share the name of that CD?
I listen to a recording by Andrew Johnson to help me fall asleep. He has a lot if them on Amazon. Very cheap to download-- couple of bucks. Cute Scottish accent. Like having Sean Connery lull you to dreamland. I don’t use headphones, although it’s recommended, because I usually fall sleep while it’s running.
Wow, a lot of replies. Thanks! It really does help sometimes to see that I am not the only one that suffers with it. I was first diagnosed at age 15 (almost 29 now) after a couple ambulance rides, thinking I was having a heart attack/stroke combo. Prescribed Sertraline (Zoloft) and it does the job, about 85% of it, and I occasionally use Clonazepam, but since the addiction potential is so high and my family has a high rate of alcoholism (alcohol/benzodiazepines work on same area of brain) I’d rather not take that risk by taking them all the time. Mainly my anxiety consists of tension, where I feel it all over my body and always have a sense that something bad is going to happen (usually does, not to myself but to people I care about), not to mention my strange OCD behaviors, like checking plugs daily to see if they are inserted into the outlet full (not hanging out half way) , its a compulsive akin to needing water when parched, but I fight it. I actually posted some questions in the GQ section of the forum about electricity/fires lol! I have tried binaural beats before but it didn’t have an immediate effect, does it take time? Best of luck to everyone, I know anxiety disorders are a creature that knows no bounds. I look forward to hearing more!
I had severe anxiety for years (and still have it mildly but it is controllable). I had a roller-coaster of a ride with many doctors that almost ended up killing me very literally. They put me on every drug under the sun and almost all of them made things much worse. I kept telling them that it was a physical problem but they kept prescribing things like anti-seizure drugs, anti-depressants and benzodiazapines along with therapy and meditation.
None of it worked and some of it had disastrous results. I wasn’t unhappy about anything except for the fact that I kept having panic reactions for no reason and there was no talk therapy in the world that was strong enough to keep my knees from buckling and my vision from fading out during stressful situations.
To make a long story short, the only doctor that I trust now, my primary care physician, finally asked me what I thought I needed and I told him that I wanted a beta-blocker (propranolol) and he agreed that I was a good candidate for it. He also recommended a magnesium supplements and a multi-vitamin.
That was all it took. The anxiety was mostly gone within hours and almost completely within a few days. That put me back in the normal range and I can use strategies like exercise, stretching and meditation if I am having a hard week. Massage helps too but none of that worked when my body was reacting abnormally to stress hormones.
I am glad someone finally listened enough to recognize and address the root problem but I am mad that it took so many doctors so long. Beta blockers like Propranolol are old news and don’t cost much but they are very effective. Instead, they went for the newest exotic drugs that made things much worse in my case. The benzodiazepines were a disaster especially when it came time to go off of them.
I wish you well on your struggle but you are going to have to be assertive when it comes to your own treatment and recognize that many doctors have little idea how to effectively treat anxiety for a given person. The root cause could be anything from PTSD, a phobia to a true physical problem and all of those require very different strategies.
I am rather amazed to say this, but you have described my own personal experience in every detail. I, too, had my first attacks as a youngster and I also waited years before I knew enough about what it was I was experiencing that I could describe it to a doctor and get some help. I take the same dose of the same drug you use and also find my attacks occur 2 or 3 consecutive days and then go away, sometimes for extended periods.
If an attack comes on and I don’t have my medication for some reason, I also use some self-hypnosis techniques, including repeating a mantra to attempt to center my thoughts.
Panic attacks ARE awful, and frightening when you don’t know what they are. I have never been able to pin mine to any one causal factor, but do find that if I am short of sleep for too many days in a row, that often precedes an attack.
I check the cords and plugs for being too hot. Just a touch with my fingertips to check temperature. Mostly on things that pull at least a couple of amps.
Same here. I know now what I was experiencing as a kid, but our family wasn’t one that would seek help for that kind of issue. I tried to handle it myself when they got really bad when I was an adult and finally sought help. I’m on a low dose of Lexapro and that helps take the edge off and let me realize it’s not going to kill me. And I have Ativan as a safety net when they get out of control (very rare with the Lexapro maintenance).
I keep having to remind myself that I need to act as if I have a prescription for good sleep hygiene, and that I need to treat it exactly as if it were an anxiety medication I was taking.
Today has been a rough day with anxiety, and it’s only just now that I’m remembering that I stayed up too late last night, against all sense, and that’s probably a large percentage of the cause.
The other thing that really worked for was some of the techniques in Learned Optimism. I came up with my own modifications that worked for me, but basically it’s a way of talking myself down that actually impacts the physical effects of anxiety. It takes some discipline to stop in the middle of an attack and start thinking through a series of questions, but if I’m willing to do it, it really can stop the physical reactions.
Thank you. 
Soulmate!!
I took it dutifully for at least a year, maybe longer. During which time anxiety and panic attacks continued unabated. Xanax was bliss, but my dr. wouldn’t prescribe it for longer than two weeks. Ativan was pretty good, but I didn’t realize how loopy it made me until the cop pulled me over for erratic driving. I just thought that all the other cars were slamming on their brakes without warning. :smack: