Anxiety getting me down

[Kasee]

Hi folks, 

I am very new to this site. Sorry to say not new to my anxiety symptoms. 

Ive always been the strong one the family member who always took care of things....5 years ago we lost my Dad to Ca, hubby survived a heart attack all the time caring for very young boys. 

Work I thought triggered my symptoms including 2 x trips in an ambulance truly believing at the time I was having a heart attack!  These were boiled down to be panic attacks, never had experienced them before..,,, how awful.....

first time visits to a counsellor and the fight to be commenced on medication saw anxiety levels slow down.

4 weeks ago again chest pain, symptoms so like a heart attack saw me again visit the emergency felt twice again, so far cardiac results clear, off for a stress test next week. I had slowly weaned myself off my meds as I was feeling 'in another world' and felt great.  A stressful couple of days with work seemed to bring me undone!!  Constant worry about am I dying? Is my family ok in the car? Why are they 10 minutes late? Worry over things that I shouldn't need to!!  I'm presently recovering from surgery which all is ok but now finding being home, heaps of time to rest I am constantly on line looking up why l'm having these symptoms.... Many I know can be related to recovery such as heavy chest, pain in shoulders, shortness of breath...I am not being sensible, I'm fighting with my 'practical' me..........

i truly have nothing 'major' to worry about, I'm very fortunate in many ways.... Why then do I feel I am losing grip??!!! Anyone else feel like this?? 

Thanks for reading this long winded post. 

[Raven666]

hey kasee, I feel your pain. Anxiety is never easy and hardly ever leaves us alone. We think we're getting better, finally kicking it in the butt and then it comes giggling along like ya best friend, jumps out and says SURPRISE!! My symptoms of anxiety aren't that severe of cardiac problems. If i'm remembering my Psychology right the anxiety gets its reactions from our primal brains of fight and flight. or in my case freeze. the body reacts by sending adrenaline to the muscles of the body to prepare it for fighting. The symptoms of anxiety are never pleasant i know. and i'm sorry if this isn't helping. We always feel as if we're losing our grip on our minds and our lives when something comes along and trips us up. All we can do is go back into "fight back" mode and try and get back on track. Not easy i know. I'm really sorry

[Neil_1]

Hi there Kasee

Welcome to Beyond Blue and I hope by posting, firstly this has kind of helped you a bit – just by getting thoughts down can be a big and helpful steps.  And secondly for being brave enough to share your post and your thoughts/issues.

I can let you know that you are not alone and that what you’re experiencing and have experienced is not new to this place – a number of people have had to battle through this also.

I had a similar kind of ‘turn’ about 18 months ago when I was at work – at a place which was horrible and one thing led to another, severe chest pains, chronic pain, led me to being ambulanced away.  And after sometime and a good dose of painkillers, things seemed to subside.  Later on Tests were done and revealed no abnormalities – so it was put down to excessive stress and pressure at work.  And by reading yours you suggested that work could have contributed to yours also.

Has anything changed for you now with regard to your work?   Are you still there or in a different job?

I do hope to hear back from you.

Kind regards

Neil

[geoff]

dear Kasee, hello and thanks for letting us reply to your comment.

You say 'I truly have nothing 'major' to worry about', this is far from truth, it doesn't matter what type of depression which does include stress you have, it's worry and it will affect your lifestyle, so that is a big problem for yourself.

There is always a common denominator here, such as, when people start on antidepressants (AD) they may have an euphoria, a psychological feeling that they instantly feel so much better, and the same applies to when you wean yourself off these AD's, it's a psychological feeling that now you have stopped you do feel better, but after awhile reality hits you, and fall back to how you were before you started taking AD's, stressed and worried, which means that you are not ready to withdraw from taking these AD's.

We are not able to decide ourselves if we are better to stop taking them, you have to remember we feel better ONLY because we are taking a medication, so I would suggest that you start taking them again.

I will have to be on AD's for the rest of my life, I don't need to tell anybody, and does it matter when you feel better. Geoff.

[Kasee]

Hi Everyone, 

 I apologise for my late reply. I really do appreciate your posts. 

Well funny I should go on here tonight, those pesky chest pains/tightness are with me again today but probably doesn't help on the end of a bout of bronchitis! Yep it's been a shocker of a few weeks! Anyhow, have had the echocardiogram & stress test -and  wonderful reassurance from the cardiologist.  So having that in the back of my mind am trying to keep at bay the 'anxiety'. 

Still off my antidepressant medication and happy for it. I've never been diagnosed as depressed but have with anxiety. Some people are surprised that l'm on that for anxiety?

i have dropped off my work load and feel all the better for it. 

I seem to have the chest, tingly face, arms etc even when I believe l'm not stressed or in a state of anxiety. Does this mean that it is generalised anxiety ??? I think that's what sets me off sometimes, that I can be in the garden or sitting having brekky, chatting to my kids and all of a sudden there are the symptoms.... There goes the worry?? 

Anyhow, I realise I should be posting this elsewhere..... 

Thankyou all again