My anxiety story

[Wild_Rover]

Hello,

Im 30 married and have a 6 month old son.

I have had anxiety as long as I can remember, it most likely started as seperation anxiety when it came time for kinder and school.

it went away for quite some time then reared it’s ugul face when it came time for work!

i think my first Panic attack happened after I had been working for some time.

so my doctor put me on medication and with some CBT it settled and went away... after a while I came off the tablets.

things would happen over the ne t few years that would see me back on them, work stress, family stress a few deaths in the family a break up.... sometimes only on the medication for a month or 2 sometimes on it for months at a time, the most obvious physical symptom was a gag/dry reach.
after a relationship break up 5 years ago I went back on them, eventually came off them as i substituted them for walking 9k per day.
Medication helps me, it levels me and I can generally function at an extremely high level, holding down a job, travelling, large crowds ect of course with the panic attacks here and there and a few crashes where I could no longer fight the anxiety.
I met my now wife about 12 months after the breakup Then my anxiety started to kick in with her extremely needy mother.

There was also work stress and financial stress compounding the situation.
So back for some CBT, personally for me I don’t think it does anything, talking to a psych, again personally don’t think it did anything and back on medication that settled me and allowed me to function fully again.
Since I turned 30 I feel my anxiety is worse. I now have more physical symptoms such as head pressure, tension headaches, dizziness, feeling of electronic pulses, gag, feeling of something on my throat, panic attacks worse and takes me longer to get over even on medication, there are more physical symptoms I just can’t remember them now.
It’s unfair and I wish I could change it, I know it’s anxiety but the littlest side effect and I think dying, right now the centre of my chest is sore, I had a crap day anxiety wise and had 2 panic attacks, I think heat attack but I know it’s just anxiety, doesn’t make it any easier.
The thing that scares me most is dying probably more since my son has been born as I want to be here to see him grow up, so I always have my health under a spot light.


Any tips on how to beat it or anyone have similar symptoms to mine and can tell me how to control them?

[geoff]

hello Wild Rover, I'm pleased you have joined the forum, but can I say that sometimes posts get pushed over to page 2 or 3 quickly and the reason this happens is because the site is extraordinarily busy, but now after I reply it will go back to page 1.
Can I please say without any blame or harm towards you, that's not my intention to ever do, but it does concern me taking medication for a few weeks/months then stopping, but starting once again and to keep doing this, the medication will not have a decent chance to build up any resilience to how you are feeling.
You can't and I'm not a doctor by any means, and probably have no right to say this, but to me you can't decide when and where you want to take this medication.
I wanted to send this off to you before the other issues are addressed, and hope to hear back from you. Geoff.

[romantic_thi3f]

Hi Wild Rover,

Welcome to the forums and thanks for joining us.

Sounds like you've definitely had your fair share of anxiety over the years! I understand that you've had a huge number of different things (previously and currently) that have contributed.

So you've tried CBT - with what seems like a little effect at the start but now you feel like it's not working, tablets - which seem to help, and went to a psych who you don't think did anything.

Can I ask what happened when you saw the psych? Was that still a CBT approach?

As you probably know from having it a lot of years, even though anxiety is common what works for one person doesn't work for another. So I'm really wary about echoing anything that you've already tried or what your psych has said; as that would just be frustrating. CBT certainly is one way of anxiety - but it sounds like a lot of your anxiety comes out in a lot more physical ways. You haven't really mentioned many of the thought processes other than feeling like you're dying. Is that something you try to challenge when you're in that moment?

The other thing I'm wondering is if there's anything that triggers all these feelings? You've described a lot - (head pressure, tension headaches, dizziness, feeling of electronic pulses, gag, feeling of something on my throat, panic attacks) but yet somehow you've managed to stabilise them enough so that you can still hold down a job. This makes me think that maybe they fluctuate throughout the day based on whatever seems to be causing you more anxiety at that time. This could be really helpful to track.

Hope this helps,

[Nad]

Hi Wild Rover,

wow, what you've described "head pressure, tension headaches, dizziness, feeling of electronic pulses, gag, feeling of something on my throat, panic attacks" is mirror to what i get. especially the electronic pulses (i call them shock to the face). i tried to explain this to my Dr and Psychiatrist in which his advised usually you get this when you have discontinuation of medication however i haven't stopped any medication. apart from that they don't know what it is which is fairly frustrating.

unfortunately the only way i usually get rid of it is to sleep it off which isn't really practical if you're at work or if you have a kid that you need to attend to. another really interesting thing that another Psychiatrist taught me is to "park my tongue". its like poking your tongue out but then relaxing it so it sticks out. i didn't believe him at first but it then slowly comforted me a bit. It made me feel calmer but didn't get rid of everything (a bit is at least something). i have bipolar disorder type 2 so currently medication is kind of keeping me to ground however i have massive relapse here and there which makes everything else more difficult. i know a lot of people are against medication but i ran out of options so i went for it which helped a bit as well