Anxiety is WINNING! :(

[NightOwl]

I recently asked for a referral to a psychologist to tackle my long term issues with anxiety, depression and complete lack of self confidence. After several sessions I don't feel that they are very helpful as my anxiety causes me to freeze up in these sessions and not speak more than one word answers and unfortunately my psych isn't a mind reader and I can feel her getting frustrated with me not opening up to her. I feel the more I 'dont talk' the less she tries and instead talks about day to day things that I SHOULD be doing to better my future wellness etc. that's all well and good but inside my head I'm screaming at her to help me overcome this anxiety, I know what I should be doing but it doesn't make it any easier. I feel like she's throwing me in a river and telling me to just learn how to swim!

Basically social anxiety rules my life. Every decision I make day to day is out of avoidance of people and social situations. Self confidence is non existent to the point where I've quit my job, I'm losing the relationship with friends because I decline invites, I'm barely leaving the house because i need to avoid any social interactions.  I've had a lot going on in the last couple of months and felt my anxiety is getting worse, not only in social situations but for no reason. I found myself getting anxious about 'getting anxious' and waking up at night with a racing heart and gasping for breath. This caused even more anxiety.

 I've asked for help and my psychologist is not helping, I dont know where else to turn. I'm constantly stressing over the next psychologist appointment because I know how terrible I am at talking, she's no longer trying to listen and is becoming frustrated with me. I feel like I'm sitting in a principals office getting a lecture and I feel defeated before I even walk in the door. Maybe if she'd ask the right questions she might get the answers she wants but instead she sits and waits until I say something.... 

[Selkie]

Hi there night owl!

your post really sounds like you need a friend instead of a psychologist to talk too. Some people have alot of difficulty speaking to psychologist and it is not always helpful. Have you tried using the beyond blue chat box? Using this service allows you to receive help from proffessionals that have equal to more experience than psychologists, without having to speak face to face with anyone. 

best of luck

[Neil_1]

Hi there night owl

Thanx so much for posting this and also, welcome to Beyond Blue.

I believe you’ve possibly got two options here, but hey, this is what I am suggesting, and I’m just a fellow sufferer, which means these two options are just my thoughts and there’s no doubt a whole host of other options/suggestions as well.  But for what it’s worth, here we go.

Option One – give this psyche another chance, but with the next appointment, do some preparation, in a similar style to what you’ve done here.  Type up a document, but possibly for ease of talking about, try and list it in dot point fashion.  Now you KNOW what issues are causing you stress and and anxiety – so list them out and type them down, and make them as many as you want.  If you feel anxious at the appointment, then try to expand a bit on the dot points while typing them, so you can read them out.  OR another way would be to let your psyche know that you’ve done this;  and print the document twice.   So your psyche has one and you have one;  she can read it and hopefully that “could” be a way of addressing this situation.

Option Two – get back to your gp and try for another referral to a different psyche.  Quite often, finding that “good psyche” can take a number of attempts and so if this IS your first psyche, then the chances are, that she may not in fact, be a good match for you.  But only you will know that and that’s usually discovered after either the first, but definitely by the 2nd visit.   I’ve experienced this many times and though you feel it a waste at the time, you just have to dig deep and try again, because it IS worth it when you find a good one.

Anyway, hope my ramblings above have helped even a little.

Neil

[NightOwl]

hi Selkie,

Thanks for replying, I did actually try the chat box thinking it might make things easier to hide behind a screen.  I didn't really find it very helpful to be honest as they really only spoke long enough to refer me on to other places via links, but I guess there's plenty of people to get through with more serious issues to deal with.

I really think I'm just not 'cut out' for the whole therapy thing, just not sure what the other options really are.

[NightOwl]

Hi Neil,

Thanks for taking the time to post a reply.  I know I really do need to try harder with this psych.  I went into my first appointment with a 3 page essay, preparing for the fact that I know I'm pretty bad at communicating verbally.  I was even relieved that after reading it she even read between the lines and said 'thats not what its really about is it?' - I thought great, someone that can see through the rubbish I even try to spin myself!  But things didn't really improve much from there.  

Unfortunately there aren't any other psychs in my area as I'm in a small rural town so services are limited.  Each time I go in there I tell myself I'm going to do better this time and make it a worthwhile appointment, but then its always the same outcome...

[Chris_B]

Hi NightOwl,

Thanks for posting, we're sorry to hear about your experience with webchat. We take feedback like this very seriously and we ensure you it will be passed on to the relevant staff that manage our Support Service.

However, to complete a thorough investigation we would appreciate if you could provide us with some more details of your experience.  Can you please get in touch with me via email and let us know (if you remember) the date you accessed web chat how you feel our Support Service could have better met your expectations. It’s really important we get this information because we want our Support Service to be the best possible place for people like yourself to get the right help at the right time.

Once again, thanks for bringing this to our attention, and I hope you'll stay with the community here to keep accessing support as you need to.

[NightOwl]

Hi Chris,

I really don't wish to send any negative feedback about the sites webchat. This is a fantastic site that offers plenty of support through both professional forms and through the members experiences. I was given a couple of helpful links via the webchat that I have visited. I think I was just surprised by the chat being cut off so abruptly after these links were given, like there was no more they could do for me so I recieved a - 'take care, bye'. 

keep up the amazing work you guys do!

[bungle]

Hi Nightowl,

 Sorry to see you are having a tough time. You mentioned looking for an alternative to your treatment, but hsd troublecspeaking with people.

 You may wish to try You Tube and searching for Buddhidt Videos in the topic of Anxiety or depression. They have a lot of information in various talks that may be of use to you. Certainly it helped me heaps.

 Best thing I learned was that there was only one thing making me anxious, and thst thing turned out to be me. It wasn't essy tu turn things around at first, but after a few attempt it DID work for me. I have not hsd problems since.

At least have a think  about it.

[Deearna]

Hi my name is deearna I experience the same things day to day but not as bad. The one thing I do experience the same is getting anxious about anxiety which than gets increasingly worse each sec I focus on it causing tightening of chest feeling like I can't  breathe and heart insanely racing and feeling like I'm going to die . One thing that helped was knowing I wasn't alone and a book called embracing the fear . Out of it I took techniques that actually work. Basically your phyc should have given you thease to use they are called CBT cognative behavioural therapy. When reading this book I thought dose it really work , are these things written just to trick my brain, I'm always going to be like this , if I keep freaking out I'm going to die. And I was just spiraling out of control. So just remember 

- your soo not alone

- your anxiety CAN only get better

- TRY not to think negative thoughts

- You CANNOT physically die from anxiety

Another thing I'd try would be printing out your post and giving it to your psychologist so they can analyse it and try to understand what's going on in your head and then begin treatment . 

Also medication DOSE help and I don't think I'd be this great without it or the CBT . 

Trust me it dose get better . If you have any other questions feel free to ask 

[cope24]

I found the same thing and mine was not chat box but a phone call and I ended up  getting links and numbers to getting more help.  No one comforted me.  They had to move on with next patient while I remained upset