Anxiety distorted my reality

[TL1994]

20 year old student here! I've been suffering from an anxiety disorder since August last year (a bit over 8 months ago) - it started when I was getting panic attacks out of the blue for no reason and I didn't know what they were! My life revolved around being terrified of panic attacks, so every single thing I did in my day was in light of them. The panic attacks started to be less frequent after the first 3 months but that's because general anxiety was really overshadowing them. It was that omnipresent feeling of uncomfortableness that I just could assign any reason to. I was receiving treatment from a psychologist - mostly counselling and relaxation techniques, touching on cbt principles - which helped but it wasn't really enough.

In January (3 and a bit months ago) my mood was really low and I was feeling very hopeless about my recovery so my GP suggested that I go on antidepressants for a while. That was when things got even worse. I had a severe reaction to the medication from the first week. I was aware that it's always bad when first starting, but I was getting crazy intrusive thoughts about suicide, anxiety was through the roof, I lost my appetite completely, and I honestly just thought I was going insane. I told my GP about it (after only a week of taking them) and he sort of urged me to stop taking them because I was having a dangerous reaction, which obviously didn't make me feel better. 

Since that time I've been feeling so hopeless about my recovery. I feel like the old version of me is gone and I'll never experience life like I once did. People say that you can live a full life when going through anxiety (which i know is true) but i just know that I'll never be content with anxiety being there. The past month I've been feeling insane - like I find I'm really cynical and skeptical about things. I even get anxious when the weather is cloudy now because it reminds me of depression. I can't even think about a movie I watched because my brain associates it with anxiety and depression somehow. I'm very confused and weary of my thoughts and I just want to go back to normality. I find when I'm having good days the feeling is still there so I go back into having a streak of bad days. The thing that gets me is that I don't actually worry about anything other than my mental health - everything tells me to control my worries but I don't really have any worries. I'm doing ACT with another psychologist now but I feel like that's not helping also 

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[Angel87]

Hi,

Im so sorry to hear of your struggles.

So you're not really sure what is causing your anxiety? Do you think it might be your studies?

What kind of things make you happy & you enjoy doing? Would perhaps going on a holiday help?

Have you considered trying something like St John's Wort?

[TL1994]

Hi Angel87

I want to keep off any supplements/medication because I do believe that I have the power somewhere to get back to normal! It gets really hard to think about what is causing my anxiety at the moment, but I have come to some sort of realisation.

I think, with me, panic attacks were the only issue. I remember that everything was looking up until I started getting panic attacks last year and I just hoped everyday for them to stop happening. Now they have, I haven't had one since December! So it's like... what's the issue? And I'm realising that everything is crazy now because i've adopted this mindset that I'm mentally unwell, and that's what is keeping it alive.

The only difference between my old self and this self (not including having anxiety) is that I'm very obsessive about my mental health and recovery and it has made me overly weary of my thoughts/behaviours to the point where I just can't think. I'm going to try (perhaps like an experiment) to just stop looking for information on mental health and recovery, because there is really nothing else to learn for me. I feel like if I just went 8 months without constantly looking for help and researching and trying to change every aspect of my life, my mind would just naturally filter out the thoughts and my 'base feeling' of anxiety will reduce. And when that reduces then that'll perpetuate more normality until I can just function again and continue to care about the things I used to care about. In the meantime I'll just coexist with anxiety here and try my best to recognise what mindsets are actually just anxiety talking.

In short, I think I need to just let everything be and my brain chemistry will get back to normal and things. I'll continue exercising, eating my best and doing nice things for myself anyway because it's obviously the better option than not doing anything at all.