Help me understand my anxiety

[Countrymusicgirl]

Recently my anxiety has been bad enough that every day is a struggle to get up because I don't want to face the world. I've gone from mentally numb because of medication to being so anxious I'm feeling sick to eat, I'm waking up anxious but the major thing that I'm struggling to deal with I'm not feeling numb anymore I feel empty, I've deattached myself from my emotions, I don't have any emotions. It's hard to explain it's like I'm not in my body I feel lost inside of me. I don't know who I am anymore.

Can someone make sense of this ?

[romantic_thi3f]

Hey Countrymusicgirl,

Thanks for your post.

Anxiety is a funny thing and I'm really glad that you're here to try and make sense of it. It can be really scary and uncomfortable to have all these different sensations and not know what's going on.

It sounds like what you're experiencing is dissociation. It's that feeling of being 'detached'. It's probably most known in conditions like PTSD but can happen in Depression and Anxiety. I've had it before and it's a very weird feeling. The good news is though is that it is temporary and can be managed.

Have you ever heard of the flight or fight response? Okay if not - I can explain 🙂 The other part of that is 'freeze' and this is the dissociative experience. Believe it or not it's actually a survival mechanism; but in Anxiety everything has gone haywire because it's overloaded - and you're dissociating when you don't need to be.

I hope that this helps - feel free to let me know if it doesn't and I can try and explain another way! The best way to work on this is to work with a counsellor and use things like grounding and mindfulness techniques to get back in your body.

[Countrymusicgirl]

Anxiety is a strange thing! And you cleared that up so much. But my head still can't process it. I hope it won't happen for to much longer. It's dragging me done physically

[5to3]

hey there, i have experienced exactly what you are describing. i found that my medication was/is causing the numbness and disconnected feeling in my body. i wake up feeling anxious every day too. what i do to try and help is i do either some yoga or some meditation before i get out of bed in the morning. doing yoga can sometime bring the feeling back into your brain and body. or sometimes i will put on some of my favourite music while ice getting ready in the morning to try and relax a bit. i find the easiest emotion to connect to the you are feeling numb is anger or sadness. i sometimes make and effort to make myself angry at my anxiety by doing some self talk saying things like "i hate the way I'm feeing right now! i want it to go away!!" and then i build up from there going up through the scale of emotion. after getting angry i try to be understanding with my self saying things like "ok i know its just my anxiety there is actually no reason to be anxious today" the i will star to say more positive things like "I am going to choose to have a good day today"

sometimes on a really bad day i imagine my anxiety and numbness as fuzzy monsters sitting on my shoulders, and i whenever i start to feel anxious or disconnected i brush my shoulder and say "go away. i can manage perfectly well on my own!" and then get back to whatever i was doing. usually acknowledging your anxiety is a good starting point to moving past it.

i hope you might find some of what I've said useful. I tend to ramble a bit. if you have any questions don't hesitate to ask 🙂

[Countrymusicgirl]

For me 5to3, I've been on these meds for a awhile and it's only when I started them I felt numb. This is different. Since I have nightmares and I've had a rough childhood I think recently after opening up about it I've started to feel this way. It's a different numbness to medication numbness. At first I thought it was the meds but now I don't.

What I'm trying to do it is colour and brighten up my life with bright colours and being active extremely active like going for long walks and eating heaps more fruit and rights food. Less caffeine etc.

But I'll definitely do the Yoga. I have done grounding techniques for my anxiety but it actually hasn't helped for a reason. So hopefully the Yoga and even the getting angry at my anxiety I will definitely try it! Thank you for the advice

[Hypersleep]

When my anxiety is at it's worst I often describe myself feeling like a guest in my own body. Just kind of along for the ride influencing decisions but ultimately not making them. It's not a long term solution but doing things on impulse usually helps. As soon as I think of something just going alright this is what we're doing.

Some medications I imagine take longer than others to get used to. I don't remember a particular bad-time when I began what I'm on, but I did ease into it in terms of dosage. I would assume you have too. I did try another medication before this one that made me feel just... vacant, detached. Mostly physically. I was already mentally quite drained for other reasons at the time. But it passed, and I got better. One of the most important thoughts you can know is that things WILL get better. Trust in yourself and trust in time. Not to say you shouldn't address how you feel, you do what you can to make your life easier. But all bad times pass. I'm in a pretty bad time myself lately. Been just over 2 months now. Some days are easier than others, but at the end of each day I'm still snug in my bed with a smile on my mouth. Not to say getting out of bed the next morning is ever particularly easy. But I try take things one step at a time. Getting out of bed, taking medication, meditating. Each thing is a thing I was afraid or otherwise not invested in doing but just doing thing after thing eventually it mounts up and then you're halfway through the day and you've done a bunch without knowing.

Have you ever given meditation a go? A lot of the analogies really help understand how anxiety and thoughts cloud our emotions. I can really recommend the Headspace or Smiling Mind guided meditation apps. Less than 10 minutes a day spending time with yourself. I think this may be what Romantic meant by mindfulness too. It's a nice skill to practice. I've been meditating with apps for about 50 days now. The first 30 with Smiling Mind and varying commitment, but still daily. The last 20 with Headspace when I wake up. 5-10 minutes thus far.

Hope some of this helps. I'll try check back if you respond but I'm kind of bad at navigating these forums so I might miss it. Wishing you well either way.

[criss]

I totally understand this numb feeling. I have been questioning my lack of emotion too for a long time because although I have worked on my self and come to a place if peace and calm within I still wonder why I feel so numb talking to people and for a person that was always so emotional in recent years I cant feel. I am so glad to read some of the responses to yr post about disociation. It makes sense to me and at least I can give this a name. I am always somehow detached.

I do practice mindfulness and exersize helps but yes I have come to believe we are never really cured, rather we learn to manage it. It has taken me a while to accept this notion because like you I hate feeling like this and have to constantly battle this affliction.