exhausted with constantly having to manage overwhelming anxiety

[RachelV25]

I've had severe anxiety since early childhood. In fact, I can't remember a time I didn't have a crippling feeling of impending doom. I spent my life thinking that something terrible was about to happen and torturing myself with 'what if' scenarios. What if my parents died in a car crash? What if I lost my job? What if everyone hates me? I was born in the 1970s when recognising and treating anxiety, particularly in kids, was not really a thing. Mostly everyone thought that I was a bit sensitive and that I'd grow out of it. For me, anxiety manifested as severe infantile eczema, so my legs were covered in a painfully itchy rash for years. I used to have to wear gloves to bed at night to limit the scratching and try to go to sleep with my legs smothered in eczema cream.When I was 14, I was misdiagnosed with a terminal genetic disorder which only increased my sense that the world was going to come crashing down on me at any moment. I grew up knowing that I would probably die before I was 30, would have a weak heart or go into heart failure and more than likely, I would go blind. I'd also never be able to have kids because it would probably kill me. At 18, the doctors said "Oops, our bad. You don't have it after all." In my 20s, both of these situations passed, but I never lost the feeling of overwhelming doom and fear. If I hear a police siren in the distance I'm sure they're coming to arrest me even though I haven't committed any crimes. If one of my colleagues isn't as friendly as normal, I assume that I've done something to annoy them even when, logically, I know that I haven't. I work long hours in a professional role yet every day I carry around a heavy, sick feeling in my stomach waiting for everyone to realise that I'm terrible at my job. That I'm useless. That they should get rid of me. And I don't know how to make it stop!

I take my medications, I see my counselor , I do all the recommended breathing/mindfulness exercises, I do yoga. I do everything I'm supposed to just to try to reduce these awful feelings and sometimes I just get so sick of it because nothing works, or, if it does it only works for short periods of time and then the anxiety is back. I'm so angry that I have this. Sometimes I just get so frustrated that I have to do all of this just to function.

Does anyone else feel like this or am I the only one??

[Tay100]

Hi RachelV25,

Thanks for posting- we recognise it can daunting sometimes.

Firstly, I'd like to say that what you feel is valid, and you aren't alone in your feelings/experiences. That includes both your struggles and your frustration with having to manage your struggles. It's great to hear you do so much to manage it, but I can see how it would be draining to have them only bring you temporary relief before the anxiety comes back. You say you see a counsellor- maybe a second professional opinion would help? They could provide you with therapies that look at your life in context, and the possible cause of your feelings. This may help more than more general strategies like yoga. Let us know what you think.

Lastly, so you feel less alone, you could check out this thread https://www.beyondblue.org.au/get-support/online-forums/anxiety, where people with similar experiences post- some of what has been said may resonate with you or be useful to you.

Sending kindness,
Tay100

[Not_so_hot]

Hi Rachel,

I have those feelings also, in particular the examples with the police siren and the workplace. Only when reading your post did I realise that at some point recently I seem to have shifted focus away from stopping the feelings, over to trying to respond to them as they arise with some small grain of truth. I don't propose this as any kind of solution, just sharing my experience with you.

I seem to think I can't stop the feelings from arising just yet, but I can centre them in reality, in the physical world. If the police siren is for me (I'm serious, they freak me out also) what will I need to do next to prepare? If it's the middle of the night, do I need to get up and get dressed? That kind of thing. It doesn't matter to me for what reason they might be coming to get me because whatever "wrong" thing I did is already in the past and cannot be undone now.

Essentially the result is that the feeling subsides quicker or with less sustained effort, in that moment. My aim seems to be around spending less time (and less intensity) in fight/flight/freeze mode. Doubt, futurising past the next few minutes, etc. are the types of thought patterns that tend to exacerbate and extend my initial fear response. So I try not to give myself a hard time when it happens. Rather, to trust myself to be able to respond at some point so that the fear can subside.

In my professional career I have a demonstrated history of successful responses to crises, even though I also have the same anxieties and deep feelings of dread that you describe about my "incompetence". But I have this history in writing (ie. CV, emails and other types of documentary evidence) so it also fails the physical reality test and seems to send the signal to myself that the imminent attack will not manifest this time.

In short, I don't trust authority or people who like to wield any kind of "official" power over me because I have a history of receiving abuse from those exact same sources. I have a tendency to expect them to be unreasonable and act in ways that have a negative effect on my health and wellbeing.

It seems to me you are making excellent progress in a lot of areas, but I did read an old post where it took the guy 25 years to fully get the anxiety under control. That was really helpful to me to understand that it's a long long long job because I would prefer it to be over much faster than that - but reality...

It's my first time writing anything in this forum. If I create any problems with this response, please don't hesitate to let me know.

Warm hugs
NSH