Need time...
My results:- I AM MENTAL... WTF??
This is a serious statement now.
I have NEVER in my life felt so bad. Never have 'anxiety' symptoms seemed so real. This has scared the shit out of me to think that anxiety can do this to a person. Does part of me believe the results are wrong, yes... of course... but that is why i have started medication now. Cipralex. Started on 5mg last night. This morning i am even MORE tired.... the right side of my face feels numb and i have pains in my back and jaw. Not a good start, but i have to stick with it.
Holy shit.............................
This is a serious statement now.
I have NEVER in my life felt so bad. Never have 'anxiety' symptoms seemed so real. This has scared the shit out of me to think that anxiety can do this to a person. Does part of me believe the results are wrong, yes... of course... but that is why i have started medication now. Cipralex. Started on 5mg last night. This morning i am even MORE tired.... the right side of my face feels numb and i have pains in my back and jaw. Not a good start, but i have to stick with it.
Holy shit.............................
Comments
I wanted to post on here rather than by email so that other anxiety sufferers can read this too and know that this is WAAAAY more common than you think.
So remember when we met and I was like, maybe 85lbs? And that was after I'd pretty much recovered from my anxiety issues. But how did I get that way? Because phobias took over my brain and went ape-shit. I was afraid to eat because I was worried the food was poisoned. I would take a bite of food....wait 20/30 mins to see if I got sick (all the while FREAKING OUT, body scanning, twitching, etc...) and if I didn't die, I'd eat a little more. I maybe ate 10 small bites a day. One time I made my husband come home from work because I ate a cherrio that tasted funny, and I thought for sure I was dying. ONE cherrio. During this time, and at my weakest, I dropped down from 110lbs, to 82lbs (lowest I weighed myself, but was probably smaller)...and I was very malnourished. Because I was lacking nutrients, I had alllllll sorts of physical issues. I have had EVERY SINGLE ONE of your symptoms that you've spoken about on here. I too also thought I had some horrible deadly illness...many many times. What it really was was my body freaking out because it was starving. It truly is amazing to me that I didn't die from anorexia, but even to this day, my body still feels the effects of that time.
I didn't have anxiety issues as long as you did, but I did have them for 10 years, and in that time I was in the depths of insanity. There was one time I was sooooo stressed out that I couldn't stop repeating words. I I I couldn't couldn't stop stop stop rep rep repeating words words words. I think that was the worst of all the break downs.
There was a time period I was afraid to go to the bathroom because it was at the back of my 1000sqft house, farthest from the front door (which I wouldn't even go out of!), so every time I had to use the toilet, I would have a full on panic attack. As you can imagine, I was very stinky for awhile because I was too afraid to shower.
What you are going through, and everything you are feeling is REAL, and it IS an illness. It's just not ALS or MS or any of that. But it IS killing you - not physically - but spiritually. I know this isn't how you want to live your life. But there is a GOOD prognosis - you CAN recover. And even though you are feeling all the symptoms right now, you ARE NOT crazy. You are just really in the throws of your illness right now. You are just having a bad episode, and you will recover from it.
I wish more people who have recovered from agoraphobia/anxiety would speak up about their experiences so that you guys would know that it DOES get better. But it DOES take work. In an earlier comment/reply I likened it to weight loss...you HAVE to get up and go out, no matter how painfully hard it is. You have to tell the thoughts in your head to fuck off, and you have to find ways to distract yourself. You can't dwell on being ill, or anxious or mental. You need to stop labeling yourself with all those titles you have on your blog side. Because that isn't who YOU are. You are Sarah - you are going through a hard time but that ISN'T who you are. These things don't define you. You just have an illness you need to get well from.
And you can.
Please know that you are NOT alone. That even people who are recovered have had such severe anxiety that they too have felt the way you have, physically and emotionally. When you were getting your tests and talking about your symptoms the last few weeks - I knew that the results were going to be negative - simply because I had felt everything you have before...and years later, I'm totally fine. But you needed to get those tests anyway - and rightly so! But now that you know that you don't have the other illnesses, it's time to start recovering from the one you do know you have. And even though it may seem abnormal to people who've never had a panic attack...there are a whooooole lot of people who have gone through this before. And you CAN recover from it.
I've known people who have had agoraphobia for over 20 years who recovered. So it is never too late.
Take some time to de-stress over the trauma of the last several weeks. DO take whatever anti-depressants offered, and DISTRACT yourself from the side effects. They can be annoying. And when you feel ready - give recovery a go. There are tons of resources out there on tips and tricks to get you through. They're not written for the hell of it...they are written because they work, if you let them.
Just remember one thing: you have had thousands of panic attacks over the years. If it hasn't killed you by now, it's not going to, no matter how bad they feel. So if you start feeling panicky, tell it to fuck up, and just keep moving forward. Eventually, they won't bother coming at all.
There wasn't anything special about my recovery. I wasn't "the lucky one" or not as ill as you. I just finally had enough. I am sure you've had that feeling before too - but it hasn't clicked for you yet like it did for me. But it will. That I can promise you. But you still have to do the hard work once it does. But you can do it ;)
Looking back I don't know how I lived through it sometimes- but it does get better hon.
Sending you continued good wishes for health and healing. I hope your new med kicks in soon.
xx
life sounds awful for you right now. some good advice above. try to distract yourself if you can, anything even if only for a few hours a day. card making, knitting, crochet, you can learn on you tube. i remember you said you had chairi malformation, i only remember because people with EDS suffer from it. can you not get more help with this? its pretty unpleasant as it affects the brain stem. you know for many years i was labelled with anxiety, when in actual fact i had a physical disease. im not saying thats what you have, but my symptoms drove me mad at times, becasue i thought that i could control them with my mind, which i couldnt. take care. plenty of rest too. x
That is what helped me get over my agoraphobia. Distraction , distraction , DISTRACTION. (Everyone stil has bad days I was ment to go to Paris with my boyfriend for valentines day but couldnt do it, so we went to Edinburgh instead. It might not have been the original plan but it was something rather than nothing.)
and getting out and about. no matter how hard it is!