Severe Anxiety

http://www.amazon.com/When-Panic-Attacks-Drug-Free-Anxiety/dp/076792083X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1347309949&sr=8-1&keywords=when+panic+attacks

never read this particular book but I dig Dr. Burns in general - you could get the kindle version and have access right away!

I studied Psychology in college and worked in social work. At first I thought I wanted to be a therapist but then I wasn't sure if I was too neurotic myself to really manage that. Still though I have the desire to try to help people sort out their psychological dilemmas. Maybe I should become a "internet" therapist

http://www.online-therapy.com/

I do have a follow up later this month. I will try and check out the panic workbook, I appreciate the advice.

panic feedback loop is pretty common. i get it all the time, end up going from 0-to-euthanasia real quick

I think I generally operate under constant low to medium level anxiety.

At the moment life in general reminds me of how I think about driving: how come other people seem to be able to relax and enjoy it. Are they delusional? At any moment I could be wiped out by an erratic driver or I could cause an accident myself. There's just so much to worry about!

But of course most worrying/anxiety is completely useless.

But it does seem to be getting worse this year. Oonce you start getting into a panic feedback loop, you can feel how bad it is for you - almost shaking yourself apart.

I guess you can think of statistic - its true that someone may wipe you out but how often does taht typically happen if you are sober well rested and not using a cell phone? If it was a frequent occurrence most people would choose not to drive. No one wants to crash. I say this not to put you down or something just to point out allot of anxiety thoughts are not very rational, and if you can see that you will not have the anxiety becuase thoughts create feelings (or so is the idea behind cognitive therapy) I also think worry allot about car accidents - indeed it is one of the main threats to our bodies in our culture but if you cant drive you ant live in our society either very well

We need to start an Anxiety & Phobia workbook group! I think there is a lot of valuable stuff in there, I just can't motivate myself to stick to my weekly practice goals.

Thanks for the props, Brony, and the other book recommendation, ytth

I was discussing countering negative self-talk with my therapist. I said, "I can come up with the rational responses, I just have very little belief in them." She said something that was really helpful: It doesn't matter if you don't believe in them now. Just generate them. Your rational mind is working against a much more primitive, compelling part of your brain, so it takes a lot of practice.

There's also this thing about not tensing up against the panic, letting it come on and riding it out. But I'll be damned if I can figure out how the fuck to do that. (My health worries are insane, and I'm always convinced I need to take immediate action or I will die. No amount of having lived through attacks seems to correct this.) Gwuh.

A good friend recommended the anxiety+phobia workbook to me after it was helpful for him (though my problem is not really clinical anxiety) but I tend to get stuck at the physical relaxation parts. Like, sometimes I can't tell if muscles are properly relaxed or just slightly less tense, or I can feel that they are tense but that I have no idea what signal my brain has to send to make them not-tense, and then I get into a loop of frustration and decide to skip those bits and end up skipping most of a chapter at once and giving up...

Anyone know what I mean or have any suggestions?

Yes! Really hard part for me. I have tried to find guided relaxations that don't squick me out. So far, no luck.

I've tried to start doing some qui gong instead. That, and this: http://www.rainymood.com/

I've gone into a fucking destructive spiral of self-doubt anxiety in the last 2 days convincing myself that my new bf has suddenly lost interest in me - I'm p sure he hasnt, logically, but I cannot shake this irrational gripping fear because this *has* happened before. I've kind of txted him a couple times asking if everythigns ok, and then admitting im the one whos sad, and he's been fine but a little more... terse than usual which is making me worse, and I feel like I am creating a problem where one wasnt there, and I went drinking with my bff last night in the hopes of distracting myself but all I've done instead is give myself such a bad hangover I now feel sick and wired up and PMSsy and HORRIBLE and I cannot shut off my brain HELP.

Like right now, all I want to be doing is be in my garden wrist deep in the soil pulling up weeds and planting lavender in the sunshine, instead I'm stuck in an office with a hangover and almost driven to tears with frustration at myself.

The problem with that mindset is that it's occasionally akin to 'fake it 'til you make it' but in a negative way. If you're approaching the relationship in fear and panic, it's likely to adversely affect the nature of the relationship. Particularly if you aren't communicating about the source of the panic, as he's likely to pick up on the panic but feel bewildered by its presence. I'd argue that the best thing to do would be either a) discuss your anxiety with him if you feel comfortable doing so or b) refrain as much as possible from exposing your anxiety to him until you've worked through it on your own or with the help of others. Throwing unexplained and seemingly-directionless panic into the midst of a relationship does no one any good.

Yeah, as I'm pretty sure its mostly situational anxiety (ie PMS-triggered, I suffer very badly from whats closer to... whats it called, PMDD?), I thknk yr latter points perhaps wiser. But I dont want to look like I'm avoiding him, and on top of all this my parents are visiting on the weekend which is an extra layer of UGH but, I had wanted him to meet them too :( I dont know what to do now. blergh. Try and meditate at my desk I guess.

Awww :(

Alcohol: great for anxiety. Hangover: terrible for anxiety.

Anything you can take for the PMDD? I've heard dong quai can help. I myself am trying to figure out if my anxiety maps to my menstrual cycle at all.

My GP actually recommended temporary doses of SSRIs! Which I was like... wtf, no way, how can that possibly help when it takes a week or 2 to kick in? So I declined that idea. I should go back on th'pill but I'd have to qit smoking.

Which type of pill? I've heard that progesterone has a tranquilizing, though depressing effect, and estrogen can exacerbate panic attacks (although estrogen is very complex and they don't really know what all it does.) So it would seem that someone with panic disorder might have more attacks leading up to ovulation, when the estrogens are climbing. I don't know if this is true at all or true for me. I definitely get some kind of weird body dysmorphia and serious self-hatred the week before my period, not sure about attacks.

xp

you seem to careen between ecstasy and despair (based on my reading from 10 time zones away). i kind of envy you the ecstasy, but it is worrisome.

i dunno. but i wish u the best of course

I do, rather a bit. It is effing frustrating :(

I dunno, I find that slowly inching my way into a relationship helps to temper my anxiety somewhat. That way, my trust and my expectations and my sense of my partner's feelings and my comfort with open communication all keep pace with one another. Anytime I jump into anything serious, all that shit gets out of sync and I wind up, for instance, having expectations that don't match my partner's and that neither of us are comfortable discussing because we don't fully trust one another yet. Casual -> serious needs to be a continuum for me, and a slow one at that.

"Thanks for the props, Brony," this made me lol - proud Brony

Trayce "you're not sick you're just in love"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMHS6D8tFvE

to plug David Burns again - he has some great chapters in The Feeling Good Handbook about successful communication in relationships that has helped me allot

The A&P workbook by Bourne has a good chapter on assertive communication as well. Having to genuinely assess my communication style was...elucidating.

Also, yes, limerence is a state of mild-though thankfully transitory-insanity.

Dropping in here to ask for advice. My new roommate is extremely upset (crying for hours, shouting) over one of her grad school courses (she dropped it then wished she hadn't and can't get back on it), and told me she's reacting to an anxiety med adjustment. She's under a lot of stress as she's never lived this far from home before, plus the whole starting grad school thing. I hardly know her yet as we both just moved in, so I haven't pressed her for details of what the medication is. The earliest doc appointment she can get is next week - I urged her to try to get an emergency one earlier. If she can't, is there anything that might help her get through the next week? She should probably go see the drop-in counsellors, I think. Realize that this is kind of an impossible question without more details about her, probably...

i got anxiety attacks when i moved to a new city and started grad school. the school counselor wasn't much use as a therapist, but she sorted me out with a referral to a psychiatrist. i wish i hadn't waited until just before finals to seek counseling, but it did help get me through the rest of school.

i would urge your roommate to call back the psychiatrist and get an emergency appointment, and if that's not possible, find another doctor who can see her right away.

Ugh. That sounds like more than an anxiety med adjustment. I guess not really knowing her the best you can do is make it obvious you are available to help her without pressing too hard, unless it seems like she is going to hurt herself. xpost

She said anxiety yesterday but it's not; she's bipolar, she told me this morning. Trying to contact emergency doctors.

e, I don't think she'll hurt herself but of course I hardly know her :-(

Shit, man. I feel bad for your roommate but also for you - that's a lot to have to deal with in a new roommate but esp someone you don't even know. Hope you're OK.

Is this normal behavior for your roomate? a pattern?

benzos are satan's smarties

Latham, she's been hyper ever since arriving, but not upset/fixated as she is now. I've only known her 10 days, so hard to say, but she says this is the worst she's been in a long time.

yeah not having many details or a history of her past behavior its really hard to say. Your best bet would be to contact a professional. People often go to the ER for crisis, or call a crisis hotline.

Yeah, I tried to persuade her to go to the ER to get her meds upped again to the proper dose. I don't fully understand why her dosage came down in the first place - she tried to explain but wasn't very coherent. She wasn't having any of it though, because she was focused completely on getting back onto this course and not falling behind with other work. She did commit to going to the counsellor to ask for an emergency doc appointment. If I come home and find she did that and they didn't get her an emergency appointment, I'll see if she'll consider the ER again or try to find a hotline.

She's considering just titrating herself up to the full dose without the say-so of a doctor here or her doc back home. I don't know whether that's a bad idea or not given she's just had a few weeks well below that dose?

In my experience, little that I have, meds are usually only about 30% of the cure. The rest is talking, working things out

I could not get her off going over and over the issue with this course. I did discover it's related to her bff's expertise/fear of being outdone in some way. I hope the counselling people sat and talked to her this morning.

Its hard to be the therapist in your situation. the most you can probably do is listen and show empathy. and hope this is not the start of a 4 year ordeal for you

Yipes. that's so hard to navigate with someone who's practically a stranger - hope you're holding up okay! Maybe get her to help you prepare a meal or something kinda hands on (housework? gardening?) to try to get her off the course-obsession? I dunno. Other than just letting her offload and just being there, there's probably not a whole lot you can do for right now.

Doing med adjustments herself when she's in crisis does NOT sound like a good idea. It's tricky, because you don't want to go over her head or violate her privacy, but it sounds like an untenable situation. Are there people closer to her who know what's going on? Seems like the boyfriend should be helping out. Let us know how it goes. :(

I 'met' the boyfriend on Skype last night when my roommate was walking the house with her laptop with him connected. He was nice, and patient, in that he talked to her for hours until she went to sleep, but also kind of nonplussed (knew about the meds, but seemed amazed by her reaction). I think he might be a relatively new boyfriend. And he's in a city 5 hours away. Thanks for the meds advice - it seems so simple, just go back to the previous dose, but I know it probably isn't :/

Veg, when she's upset she cannot do anything else at all, but she seems to be able to 'hold it in' temporarily - when I left this morning she was talking normally to the woman who is the 'renter' of the shared house. 5 min earlier she'd been in little bits sobbing on the floor of my room.

I'll update when I see her. Thanks for the advice - I know there's not much I can really do.

:( Hope there's a light at the end of her tunnel soon. (And yours)

Thank you for using "nonplussed" correctly.

I didn't realize there had been an issue with 'nonplussed' - had to Google it to find the problem!

The counsellor saw her and has started bringing her back up to her normal dosage, which is good but will take weeks. But she's still inconsolable over the course. There's a possible resolution of the course issue ('auditing' it - I guess that means 'observing it' - new Candianism to me) but she won't know whether that's possible till tomorrow. Once she does, and she reacts, it'll be easier to tell how things are going to go.

I read "nonplussed" used incorrectly in Newsweek just last night!

At least she has some professional guidance with the meds.

Going through some form of this right now. Had the same thing happen 20+ years ago when I was in teacher's college. It made sense then--I was almost 30 and back in the classroom for the first time in five years, doing something I never expected to be doing. I can't figure out what's going on now. But every day my mind's racing, and I've felt absolutely clueless at work since school let back in. Today I couldn't remember the word for "pylon." Very disconcerting--I will just plow through and wait for it to pass.

might be a good idea to go for a check-up with GP, just to make sure nothing else is going on?

Thanks. I'll give it a little time, but will keep that in mind.

"Meaning perplexed or bewildered, nonplussed is very often thought to mean just the opposite—calm, unruffled, cool-as-a-cucumber."

WTF? I have never heard of this confusion, wow.