I’ve been dealing with an anxiety flare-up and working on recovery for the last three months, and let me assure any of you who are wondering, anxiety sucks. Part of recovery is accepting anxiety - I’m still working on that.
Anybody else recovered from anxiety?
I will be, whenever the doc and I can get my medications sorted out. Stupid body builds up a tolerance to the stuff in no time. Right as I get to feeling good and am able to function normally, it conks out on me, and I’m back where I started. I’m going crazy, and no doubt driving all my friends crazy in the process. “Suck” doesn’t begin to describe the shit.
Are you doing any cognitive thought-restructuring therapy in addition to the meds? That’s what I’m doing now, after 13 years of meds only, and I am really starting to see an improvement. I go to a self-help group once a week now, and there are people there who are completely recovered from anxiety and on no medication. My doctors giving me my prescriptions certainly never mentioned any of that to me.
Never heard of it, and my insurance doesn’t cover psychiatric care, so I’m SOL. When the meds do work, they work great. A friend who’s known me for almost twenty years said that when the current batch was working, I was the best he’d ever seen me.
I don’t think that the therapy would do much good until I get the med situation sorted out. I tend to fluxuate pretty badly when the meds don’t work, and there’s a good chance that I’ll have to institutionalize myself if I don’t get things clamped down fairly soon.
Boy, I could not agree more. Severe anxiety has been my frequent companion for three years or so. Drugs and therapy have been little to no help. But, I have to admit I didn’t give the therapy too much of chance. That’ll be my next route likely.
{{featherlou }} and everyone else who has anxiety. I have it too, and I know it’s no fun at all 
I’m on medications that help a lot. I wish I had known about 10 years ago that there were medications for it… :smack:
Shit, you’ve gotta be kidding me. What exactly has gone wrong with the meds? When mine conk out, I can barely take care of my basic needs (you know, feeding myself, that kind of stuff). There’s a couple of things that might help me that I can’t try as of yet, but if they don’t work, and the meds don’t work, then I have to check into the old “rubber room” or I’ll be a goner.
Tucker (and Revtim), get the book “From Panic to Power” by Lucinda Bassett. It’s not the ultimate solution or anything, but it is written by someone who recovered from severe anxiety and knows exactly what we’re going through. After I bought it, I took it home and pretty much devoured it.
Have you heard of bibliotherapy? It’s the idea of using self-help books to, well, help yourself, and I find that in combination with the free group that I go to (look into a local chapter of the Freedom from Fear Society - they’re all around North America, apparently), it works really well for me. I don’t have any money for expensive therapy either.
Lucinda Bassett also has a self-help audio program that is available called “Attacking Anxiety” - it’s quite expensive, but I was able to get it for free through my local hospital library, and you might be able to find something similar at a library or something. You can also order the program and try it for 30 days. I’m on the eighth week of the 15 week program, and I am learning to live with anxiety and reduce its effects on me. I’m the one who creates my own anxiety, and I’m learning to be the one who stops it. I just attended a seminar on anxiety and depression, and the psychologist running the seminar approved the Attacking Anxiety program.
There’s so much you can do to reduce your anxiety and feel better right away, with or without medication - meditation, relaxation, exercise, eating healthy, reducing caffeine and sugar, learning to think more positively and not scare yourself, learning to breathe properly. Nobody with anxiety has to suffer so much. Not when there’s so much more we can do than just medicate.
Please, feel free to email me. I have been doing so much research on anxiety in the last three months that I’m just spilling over with ideas about what to do with it.
Hmm, maybe there aren’t Freedom from Fear groups everywhere. This site, however, has listings for anxiety self-help groups around the U.S. I highly recommend anyone with anxiety go to one - I was extremely skeptical at first (and anxious about going, of course), but now I look forward to the meetings and come home feeling very reassured.
I’ll look into finding that book, Lou, but most reading is beyond my capability at this point. Yeah, I know I still post here, but generally, I have to spend a great deal of time curled up in the fetal posistion before and after I post. Sometimes I have to stop during my posts, the anxiety gets so bad. When the meds are working, I’m able to deal with the shit that my anxiety throws at me, but when they crap out, I have a hard time dong anything at all. Most of the time I can’t even call a friend and have them “talk me down” I’m so far gone. Even just talking about this right now is torture for me.
Oh, and it looks like the folks you mentioned don’t have dick in this area.
Well, there’s nothing around me list on that site, either.
Can you move to Knoxville? Kidding! Just kidding! Humour is good for anxiety, you know.
Okay, no self-help group for you. The book is only $13.95, and it’s very easy to read - read it while you’re all curled up if you can. It sounds like the tapes would work better for you, though.
Do you believe me when I say you’re not going to feel like this forever? Because honestly, truly, you can start to feel better again. We have people in our group who were housebound for 10 years who are recovering. Anxiety is just an emotion - we lucky folks just have too much of it.
Well, use-as-needed meds like Xanax help, but one-a-day stuff like Paxil and Effexor didn’t seem to do anything. But, one can’t (or shouldn’t) take Xanax every day, so I had a lot of bad days. The life sitautions that caused me anxiety have recently improved, so I felt better from that.
featherlou, thanks, I’ll maybe try to check some of that out.
I’ve looked for a support group around here, but haven’t found one. I’m definitely going to hit therapy as soon as my wedding is over - I’ve realized that my anxiety just seems to be getting worse and worse, and I need to do something about it. When I can’t sleep at night because I’m panicking, and my Xanax prescription has expired, I really have just lost it. I’m getting married in a week and a half, and the last thing I need is for my Xanax prescription to run out.
I would love to be able to deal with this without medication, but it just doesn’t seem possible at the moment. I can’t live with this gnawing fear in my stomach 24 hours a day.
I’ll have to pick up that book, featherlou. It sounds like something I could use.
Ava
When you see a therapist, try to find one that uses Cognitive/Behavioural therapy - this is what works for anxiety. It’s not that the things we’re afraid of are so scary - it’s that we don’t believe in ourselves and our ability to handle things.
Another good book for bibliotherapy (this was also recommended by the psychologist running the seminar I took) is David Burns’ “The Feeling Good Handbook”. Another great resource is Edmund Bourne’s “Coping With Anxiety” and his “Anxiety and Phobia Workbook”. “Coping With Anxiety” has methods of instantly reducing your anxiety that I found really helpful.
I actually wake up feeling nervous. It sucks. I take Serzone, but it doesn’t seem to be helping much, and Seroquel makes it impossible for me to wake up in the mornings.
I need to go to the doc, I guess.
Thank you for the recommendations - I may hit Borders tonight, actually. I’ve been a mess for two week and I honestly don’t know how much longer I can stand it. I was in my bed last week one night crying for two hours over nothing in particular. And I can’t do that anymore.
I hate anxiety. I really wish it would just go away.
Ava
Some days the thought of recovery is too far away for me to grasp. Couple that with an immediate supervisor who has all the makings of a lobotomized fucktard, but not enough intelligence and I’m lucky to make it through the day. I think I’ve even managed to damage a close friendship, but I’m not sure. Anyway, I did manage to find a listing of support groups in my area, and as I soon as I can pull myself together, I’ll give 'em a call. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go curl up in a ball for a while.
I used to have panic attacks rather predictably. I was able to modify my behaviour via basic research into congnitive/behaviour therapy so that now if I get that awful feeling, I can talk myself out of it. It also helps me if I’m never late for anything (that used to be a huge trigger for me).
Anyhow - I never had generalized anxiety and I can’t imagine how much that must suck. It has been a huge relief to get the panic attacks under control tho…
good luck guys. 