Severe Anxiety

huh. I've never had memory probs with Effexor but it's an SNRI so maybe that's why? I have a ridiculously detailed memory and would seriosuly freak out if something started fucking with it so I get why that must have been freaky. I don't have OCD at all but part of my anxiety would sometimes (ok often) manifest itself in obsessive thought so maybe that does have to do with the memory after all.

oh wait, i looked at my script its 40mg's i forgot (great memory ha!) that i went down last time i saw the dr.

my ocd manifested one day and i asked my wife questions for 16 hours straight...16 hours.

effexor made me a lot less panicky — haven't really noticed bad side-effects apart from the awful awful withdrawal when I ran out one time

yeah the withdrawal fucking sucks the longer I'm on it the faster I get withdrawal symptoms too which is sort of concerning. I take it am and pm because my insurance doesn't cover extended release and if I'm late by a couple hours I'll start feeling it. When I first started it I could skip a day or two before that would happen.

I misstated -- I still have memory of it, but I don't feel the compulsion to replay the whole thing.

I mean, other than the time I accidentally drank too much this past year when I was still recovering from broken bones. I went from tipsy to falling down drunk in no time.

i had some serious tunnel vision this past weekend because i didn't take my meds thursday - sunday as i was taking care of a kid with the flu and myself who couldn't keep water down. My head was spinning and a rush of thoughts popped in, is this withdrawal from my celexa.

My depression and anxiety (but not, thank God, the hypomania) comes back after a few days of skipped and irregular doses of my meds.

i just wrote this big long four-paragraph freak-out trying to stave off an anxiety attack by trying to explain it while in it, and then somehow had the wherewithal to call my mom and broke down on the phone with her. but she knows what to do, i mean, this happens to me about once a year, though i think actually less often really, but since i was very young. but i've never called it anxiety or anything until sometime last year when a book abt anxiety (kind of an autobiography and a history of anxiety at the same time) came across my desk and basically read like my life, which was surprising and weird and revelatory to me. because my anxiety isn't a constant thing - or it is but i don't acknowledge it as such and go about my life non-neurotically etc etc though with this underlying level of what? vaguely anxious buzz with no pin-pointable cause? but there's been a lot of change lately in my life and a lot of feelings/thoughts stirred up and so anxieties have been building to a point of me being overwhelmed and not being able to deal at the moment.

i guess i'm just saying i feel pretty alone in this feeling and hardly even have words to express it tbh (check these awesomely constructed sentences here lol...), or do have words but they're causing a kind of eerie distancing, so i came to this thread to say hi and try to be clear about the fact that other people get this too and it's not a horrible thing that will halt my life as i know it and cause irreparable damage and etc etc. and i can wake up tmrw and do all the work i need to do if i focus on that and nothing else perhaps.

breathing.

but then i'm like, ohgod there's so much more important stuff going on in the world and wtf is my problem and how can i be so self-involved when i am so lucky really
it hurts my palpitating heart

when i was having panic attacks a lot i found reading the ilx threads on anxiety really helped get me outside my own head enough that i cld calm down, remember to breathe, forget i felt like dying &c &c

i guess its not this thread but i posted a little about it - maybe going through some similar things - had made a fairly drastic life/career change & was beset w/ anxiety had i done the right thing, fear of failure, terrible uncertainty, lack of confidence, i felt like a foreigner in my own life, like everything was slightly unreal. i still feel this way a little.

it was/is hard to describe & the anxiety meant i spent so much time in own head just thinking about it that it all becomes garbled & tangled & barbed idk i guess this is not helping. you arent alone, is my point. but for me it helped to stop 2nd/3rd/4th guessing myself, layering all these uncertainties on one another...

i have that meta-anxiety about my "regular" anxiety too

Thanks so much. yes, the layering is so the wrong direction but that's what happens. I'm trying really hard to stay aware of that, use the skills/tools I have to get through - it just gets so tunnel-vision on these rare occasions of breakdown. Like even writing this, it's as if a dif part of my mind is writing while other parts keep reeling. At least I'm a decent sleeper. going to try that. tomorrow is a different day.

xp - yep, geez...

It's not a horrible thing, it won't ruin your life or, I would venture, even make the slightest dent, and I'm pretty sure it's way more normal than you think, lovey. Your whole built-up life has been shaken like a snowglobe lately and some former pillars of security are gone now and the unknown is p fucking scary, let me tell you, and you don't have to have life-long concerns about your anxiety level to feel like that. No meta. Just feel the feelings, open all the doors, you don't have to contain everything, you can let it flow in and right back out. Look at me, I'm not even making any sense!

hey rrrobyn, you may already know this and i think i've already posted it in this thread or the panic attacks thread, but make sure the deep breathing you're doing is through your diaphragm - you should feel/see your stomach inflating, not your chest, otherwise it can worsen the physical symptoms.

also: write write write; this is shown to be super helpful, and is pretty much the #1 thing that has helped jordan with panic/anxiety attacks (flying). he showed me some of the stuff he wrote and i tried really hard not to lol (but then i lol'd anyway) bc it's some corny-ass stuff, but apparently it is much more effective then just thinking the posi thoughts. so really analyze what you're feeling and thinking and write it all out. no guarantees, obv, but worth trying.

yes writing talking saying stuff out loud is so key (for me) (and i would think for a lot of other people). getting words and concepts out of your brain (where they fold over on themselves millions of times and make everything worse) and into the air can do so much to deflate the worst of it

xp laurel is totally otm - i've experienced a handful of severe anxiety attacks, and the worst part for me was feeling like it would ~literally~ never end. like, that is how i would feel forever. but it never does. just like things in your life changed so tumultuously, they will change again, for the better. it is the ~circle of life, man~. you know all this already, but never hurts to be reminded of it by an outside perspective.

it just gets so tunnel-vision on these rare occasions of breakdown

yah my thoughts become really obsessive when im panicked, both narrow & hyperaware, & theres something almost seductive about this kind of keen analysis just getting as detailed as possible in feeling terrible & helpless

theres nothing ive found that really help breaks this but stubbornness just continually trying to force yourself out of it this is exhausting obv & it sucks & im sorry your here, feeling this...

xps: justine i ordered that book your recommeneded! have high hopes for it

lol i was just about to repost the details! here they are again:

http://www.amazon.com/End-Panic-Breakthrough-Techniques-Overcoming/dp/1572241136/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpi_1

an end to panic: breakthrough techniques for overcoming panic disorder
by elke zuercher-white

i am a total stan for this book, make sure you post about how it goes, lamp!

thanks so much, all. breathing and writing and reading your responses really helped. and sleeping! still not subsided this morning but i'm just focusing on the work i need to do right now, which is helping. i'll take a look at that book, j. i also just need to get off fb and not read/listen to the news right now, as much as that might sound like sacrilege for someone who's supposed to be 'informed' re my work and all. but there's just so much filler/bs clogging up my works - again, adding extra layers of anxiety i don't need. what a world. just going to focus on what i need to at the moment. <3

That's interesting, because I become more nervous when I detach myself from the outside world; I need, need, need that contact with the collective mass of humanity in order to stay sane. I'm not talking about having a bunch of friends, I'm talking about being surrounded by people doing their own thing and following their own lives. If I'm isolated--living out in the country with no Internet access and only two or three people for company, forex--I fold up after a few weeks. I wish things were different.

Why the hell can't science invent an anxiolytic that works for the long term? Fucking science. Always with the radar and microprocessors and shit, never the magic pills that will let me have a fucking life.

this is fucking with my shit again

been a stressful couple of weeks though, i suppose that doesn't help

came up for me again today and i was like noooooo. exacerbated by not enough sleep, physically exhausted body, a coffee i didn't need, and too much to get done over the next few days (or so my stressy brain thinks). consequently got hardly any work done today! and i was going along so well! it will be okay again

I'm just coming out of a few weeks long depressive episode, which always makes my underlying anxiety even worse. Ugh, now I'm two weeks behind in classwork... adding even more stress and anxiety. Keep getting too nervous to leave the house lately... been waking up with panic attacks in the morning...

Ugh I'm already up to ~3mg of klonopin a day now, and I've been on it for like 4 years now. Its the only thing that keeps my life from spinning out of control and my doctors continually want to take me off of it. Don't know what to do but cling to them with dear life and risk the eventual liver failure.

What else are you on?

I had a mixed bipolar episode a few weeks ago--all of the jitteriness of hypomania and the constant unearned guilt feelings of depression, ick. I extend my sympathy to all of you who have posted in this thread lately.

*&%*&%(*%&*

want to stab out brain with fork

Having been a passenger recently in cars on mountain roads and in heavy traffic (I always forget how west coast driving is fundamentally more crazy in an idiosyncratic way vs eastern crazy's very fast predictable way), I've been getting in a fair amount of practice re consciously decreasing anxiety levels so as to feel ok and even good. Also I am going to get my drivers license asap. (mostly bc I really want a cute little truck. but also to further help me chill.)

Driving always calms me.

i am/used to be a good driver and enjoyed it -- i could get in this zone where i kind of knew where everything was and time was passing and music was playing and it was like zen or something

lately, though, it is no good. maybe due to driving mostly in nyc, or not driving much in general, or getting old, but i don't have the awareness of everything that i used to have. it is disturbing and unpleasant.

sorry electricsound. maybe go listen to the live version of galaxie's 'summertime'?

i feel like my head is going to fall off this week. very bad. should cut out the coffee probably and sleep more.

tbh everyone should listen to the live version of galaxie's 'summertime'

^

bahhhhhhhh. anytime i try to enter a relationship i always psyche myself out and give myself mini-panic attacks over it.

why can't I be normal :(

seriously this like ruins entire days for me. i have a show opening tonight and all i can think about is how i am convinced i screwed everything up last night and every neuron in me is firing and it stopped me from sleeping and this happens everytime and it's like no wonder i stay a bachelor for so long cuz it's EASY.

happy pills need to start working overtime.

bahhhhhhhh. anytime i try to enter a relationship i always psyche myself out and give myself mini-panic attacks over it.

why can't I be normal :(

lol i was going to say "this sounds perfectly normal to me!", but then again, i've got the "Severe Anxiety" thread bookmarked, so...

^^

thing that worries me is this is really the first time since I've started taking Effexor that it's been unable to contain most of these jitters. part of me wonders if the main reason I've been chill the last two years is not the pills but just circumstance.

but then I realize without these pills I'd probably be having daily freakouts again so it's probably doingi ts job

Yeah they don't get rid of all anxious feelings! TBH I'd be worried if a pill took away twitterpation.

oh yea I know they don't get rid of em all, but like....they've taken the edge off to where I can take a step back and analyze things better. which isn't happening atm. but I suppose romance or even potential romance tends to scramble all circuitry.

Yeah just like if you were taking it as an antidepressant and your best friend died, you would still be sad.

fucking really upset tonight, with myself, and other people...i just seriously want to cry things out tonight and can't....these pills just make it like a festering wound inside me that eats at me and makes me feel shitty, anxious, and disoriented, but I can't do anything to flush it out. it's just there still fucking gnawing at me.

This is why I retreat from everything in my life, cuz it's the only way it goes away :(

oh dude...I dunno what to say to make it better...but it bums me out to see you like this <3

thx. just think when this project is over, maybe it's time to go back to in-person therapy....fortunately it's covered under my insurance.

That sounds like a good move. Get the festering out in the light of day, so it cant eat away at you like it is now

thanks for your support VegGirl. i managed to cry it out a bit after I posted and I felt a little better. feeling a little better this morning, though the fact remains that I still need to address this.

(hugs) it'll get better, with a little help.

Yall take Magnesium supplements? That'll help

My social anxiety sucks but I've gotten used to it. However, it was kind of sad how I went to a club-like place the other night and I just couldn't approach anyone. I can dance around strangers but the next move always escapes me. Plus I always have absolutely nothing to say when I meet new people. My dating life is nonexistent and that alone can be depressing when I think about it.

One girl gave me a friendly glance over and another girl purposely brushed up against me and I still couldn't connect. Oh yeah, and me and another girl started to dance but my balls retracted and I had to move on