I Have No Idea What's Happening to Me.

[member224]

I was diagnosed with anxiety and depression 3 years ago now, the anxiety was both hereditary and due to a disease I have called 'Graves Disease'. And my depression was because of all the limits that comes with this disease, such as: being extremely sick and not being able to walk or get out of bed, not capable to go to school for six months and see my friends,and not being able to do everything any other normal kid could, like being able to do sport without having a severe asthma attack right through the middle of a game, or not having to take medication 4 times everyday. The last time, until 2 days ago, I had an anxiety attack was 2 months ago. I thought I was doing great, I was fit, I was feeling good about myself, I just had a major surgery that would fix part of the problem of my disease. And then for no reason at all I had a terrible anxiety attack about my school sport. I haven't gone to school since, and I don't feel that I can. Sometimes I feel like I'm going crazy, or that I'm overreacting, but I can't help it. My heart starts to race, everything that could possibly go wrong runs through my mind, and I think I'm going to vomit. It all ends up with me in unexplainable tears, and my parents confused and frustrated because they don't know how to help me. This happens to me out of the blue, as a consequence makes me feel terrible because it's not just affecting me, but all the people around me.

They don't know how to help me and neither do I, because I have no idea what's going on.

Thanks for reading, any comment helps.

[BballJ]

Hi member224,

Firstly, welcome to the forums. Well done for posting and getting your story out there, you have been through a lot by what I read and I hadn't heard of that disease so quite interesting to read. Just so you know this is a safe non judgemental environment full of people who suffer or have suffered from mental health issues and we all just want to support each other.

These things you are feeling, the heart racing, the feeling nauseas and the feeling that everything could go wrong, this sounds a lot like anxiety to me (please remember I am just a fellow mental health sufferer with no medical background so my comment is purely from my experience).... I have suffered from anxiety for many years now and when my anxiety was at it's peak I had a lot of those symptoms. You said the anxiety was partly due to your condition but have you ever treated it with the help of a psychologist? Anxiety is such a mental drain and I remember waking up in the middle of the night freezing, shaking, feeling sick and feeling like everything was about to go wrong. It wasn't until I reached out for help from a psychologist did I start to understand my anxiety and learnt how to deal with it. Prior to your surgery, had you experienced any of these symptoms before?

Please remember you can call the Beyond Blue helpline on 1300 22 4636 24/7 to discuss anything you are going through.

My best for you,

Jay

[swtpotato]

Hi member224,

I feel like I have some understanding of what you are going through. Any kind of chronic illness, including graves disease, is so so hard to deal with.

I say I might understand because I have dealt with chronic fatigue, ibs and anxiety and depression which kept me basically housebound, afraid to drive or be around others in case I crashed or felt overwhelmed which all led to agoraphobia. I hope you know you are not at all weak for feeling overwhelmed. This would overwhelm anyone. Feeling weak due to an illness, is not the same as having a weak character - something I had to learn. It is very hard to accept and is a huge learning experience, but it will ease.

A mistake I made was believing that my mental symptoms were entirely due to my physical symptoms, therefore there wasn't anything I could do about it except for directly dealing with my illness. I ended up making a recovery (not fully yet) only when I saw the mental illness as separate - by going to therapy and going on medication. Even if your anxiety and depression is initially caused by your illness and circumstances, this doesn't mean medication can't help. Not at all saying you should as well, it is just my experience and it is an option if you feel like you need to give it a go.

Your mental health is just as important as your physical health right now, and you need to work on both to effectively treat the other, though even starting to do that seems like it would be very overwhelming. What activities/strategies would you say work best in lessening your anxiety?

Feel free to talk about anything here, we are here to support you.

m