Hoping someone understand this?

[Chance]

Does anyone have like... Chronic Anxiety sometimes. It's been a couple of days with not a lot of relief. It goes away and the next thing I know there's that heat... my throat gets tight, my chest has that dull ache...

This has happened before and it's usually in the transition from fall to winter. I'm always tired it seems (since I was born)... But it's worse when this sets in for a visit.

It always makes my head start thinking crazy stuff and I get worried and I KNOW that makes all of it worse... It's sort of like I feel like I am dying and it scares me... If I have a choice I'm not through living just yet, and I truly don't like living like this, or even talking about it...

However I'm not here to whine or be coddled or whatever. That's never how I have been. I'm just looking for assurance I guess and maybe a good mind trick to try to throw this back where it belongs...

Fridge tells me to juggle (jump thoughts) It's cool when he or someone else does this, but I can't seem to do it myself and that only makes me angry with myself. Just living in some stressful poop right now, but this can't be good for anyone. I keep fearing its gonna turn into a heart attack cause I go off the deep end and start freaking out.

I hate to admit it but when I get like this I think I'm a bit of a freak and or a hypochondriac.
Maybe the formal word is on top of anxiety... I have health anxiety I'm guessing.

So throw in ASD and SPD and my head gets pretty toxic really fast as I start pumping out the very chemicals that I tell everyone that makes it worse...

Maybe scream at me for being a hypocrite... it sucks when you KNOW what to do, but your head wont let you, or at least you think it won't... I'm freakn hopeless sometimes.

I have a monster Board meeting in the morning and this needs to find an exit really fast.

If anyone understands me, that would be great, and if you have a cool hack that can throw me out of this I would like to try it.

I have been trying so hard to "meditate" but my mind just wont shut the hell up, but I do know it can and will at some point.

I'm trying to find stuff to get my mind off of it... geez

I have stuff to do. I hate "being down in the well" as I call it. I can't say that I'm not depressed because I am pissed and depressed at my family but I got to move past it... This has been haunting me since Thanksgiving.

The holidays suck... sometimes, but I know they can be great also.

 

[Jana Delaney]

Try a book called 'Letting Go: The Pathway To Surrender' by David Hawkins; it describes a process of personal emotional validation which, by regular standards is pretty radical. It is a practice which requires persistence, but it can also be fairly transformative.

 

[Streetwise]

Does anyone have like... Chronic Anxiety sometimes. It's been a couple of days with not a lot of relief. It goes away and the next thing I know there's that heat... my throat gets tight, my chest has that dull ache...

This has happened before and it's usually in the transition from fall to winter. I'm always tired it seems (since I was born)... But it's worse when this sets in for a visit.

It always makes my head start thinking crazy stuff and I get worried and I KNOW that makes all of it worse... It's sort of like I feel like I am dying and it scares me... If I have a choice I'm not through living just yet, and I truly don't like living like this, or even talking about it...

However I'm not here to whine or be coddled or whatever. That's never how I have been. I'm just looking for assurance I guess and maybe a good mind trick to try to throw this back where it belongs...

Fridge tells me to juggle (jump thoughts) It's cool when he or someone else does this, but I can't seem to do it myself and that only makes me angry with myself. Just living in some stressful poop right now, but this can't be good for anyone. I keep fearing its gonna turn into a heart attack cause I go off the deep end and start freaking out.

I hate to admit it but when I get like this I think I'm a bit of a freak and or a hypochondriac.
Maybe the formal word is on top of anxiety... I have health anxiety I'm guessing.

So throw in ASD and SPD and my head gets pretty toxic really fast as I start pumping out the very chemicals that I tell everyone that makes it worse...

Maybe scream at me for being a hypocrite... it sucks when you KNOW what to do, but your head wont let you, or at least you think it won't... I'm freakn hopeless sometimes.

I have a monster Board meeting in the morning and this needs to find an exit really fast.

If anyone understands me, that would be great, and if you have a cool hack that can throw me out of this I would like to try it.

I have been trying so hard to "meditate" but my mind just wont shut the hell up, but I do know it can and will at some point.

I'm trying to find stuff to get my mind off of it... geez

I have stuff to do. I hate "being down in the well" as I call it. I can't say that I'm not depressed because I am pissed and depressed at my family but I got to move past it... This has been haunting me since Thanksgiving.

The holidays suck... sometimes, but I know they can be great also.

I'm doing that at the moment stimming by rocking I know I've got to do it because a lot of pressure is built up I don't like doing it but I know it will stop it

 

[Sabrina]

The only solution that has worked for me is to get out of the house and walk a lot, for hours.

 

[Tom]

Have you seen a doctor about it?

 

[Chance]

Have you seen a doctor about it?

Yes, same answer as always meds, and more meds to help the side effects from the other meds that are at times maybe worse. Its ebb and flow, I know it will get all back to my "normal" at some point. Its just some really bad timing right now.

I think my brain doesn't like this body sometimes...

 

[Sid Delicious]

I used to get that before I started doing yoga every night. Changing my diet also helped. But mostly the yoga.

 

[Warmheart]

What has helped me: tai chi, <—- big improvement
Zen sitting meditation, changing my diet to exclude most processed foods (huge help),
very much walking to improVe fluidity of thought.

 

[Judge]

Nothing has diminished my social anxiety so much as becoming self employed and dependent exclusively on my own resources. Personal freedom attained by no longer depending on much of anyone. Though it didn't necessarily diminish anxiety over basic survival, TBH. But I've always considered social anxiety to be my greatest hurdle in life. Taking risks is just something I'm accustomed to professionally or otherwise.

Though in my case I didn't have a choice. I either harness my own resources or drown. A personal revelation that took years to truly understand.

Whether that is something "exportable" I have no idea.

 

[LucyPurrs]

It's common for someone having a panic attack to feel like they're having a heart attack and are going to die. If your hyperventilating, hold a paper bag over your mouth and breath into it (and out) until your breathing slows down. If you are not hyperventilating, try focusing on long slow breathing in to a slow count of 5 then out for 5 (you can use the image of waves washing up a beach in slow motion). If you can slow your breathing down it will decrease your anxiety.

Sounds like your thought process is directly feeding into your anxiety reaction- can you try to stop that by using a distraction technique that will hold your focus like a video game or reading a book? Exercise might also help. Ya got to change those negative tapes in your head- they're not true anyway.

 

[Sabrina]

Yes, same answer as always meds, and more meds to help the side effects from the other meds that are at times maybe worse. Its ebb and flow, I know it will get all back to my "normal" at some point. Its just some really bad timing right now.

I think my brain doesn't like this body sometimes...

Did you see Forrest Gump? Sometimes I feel like when he just wanted to run and not stop. I don’t run because I have some knees issues, that’s why I walk. Sometimes what’s inside it’s too much and needs to find a physical escape.

 

[kay]

Get out of the house, get some frozen custard, hot chocolate, a chai latte, go out somewhere dark, and then go somewhere dark and just sit outside and look at the sky. Or, if daylight, a forest or a big, huge expanse of land. Or maybe a lake or river.

 

[OkRad]

Winter sucks. I panic. Snow makes it so I can't go outside. You cannot even drive in it. Trapped in the house. Yes, that brings panic. And gas furnaces. I react to them and they spew out stuff and my skin bleeds from them. I have MCS.

Winter makes me crazy, pure and simple. Or it could be the medications they are finding in the water, too.........

Lots of stuff to make us nuts............

I find nothing really works. That is my honest answer.

 

[Gritches]

I have a sort of hack/mind trick I use when I'm having chronic anxiety episodes. It may or may not be transferable, or it might just be my own brand of crazy that lets it work. Let me start from the beginning:

Anxiety is the fear over future events. I find that with anxiety, there's always a scenario - like a tape playing, and in that scenario the worst possible outcomes happen (or at least negative outcomes). Realize that what's happening there is that the anxiety is predicting the future, which causes more anxiety, creating a self-perpetuating cycle.

However, the future that your anxiety predicts for you isn't the only plausible future. The future is uncertain, and anxiety is sort of a maladaptive tool used to make some of the possible outcomes seem likely enough to rely upon. However, just as anxiety creates scenarios in which everything goes wrong, you can directly fight the anxiety head-on with a little bit of role-playing/fantasy.

What I'm suggesting is that just how anxiety creates one scenario in which future events turn out poorly, you can go in the opposite direction with it and dream up your own fantasy scenario of these future events in which things go right. If you really commit to that fantasy, work out every detail, and run the thing over and over in your head, it just might replace the anxiety.

I'm doing this right now. I just got a new job today, and earlier all I could think of is how bad things will happen and I'll lose the job and all the negative consequences for that and just ugh. I was on the verge of a panic attack, then I remembered this technique. Now I'm fantasizing about my first day, and how nice everyone will be, and how good my lunch will be, and all the friends I'll make, and how I'll impress my boss, and so on, and I'm imagining these things in vivid and gratuitous detail.

My pills failed, but with this technique, my anxiety went from 100 to 0 in fifteen minutes. I hope that an help in your situation. Good luck, Chance, you're good people.

 

[Chance]

EXTREMELY GOOD NEWS I THINK???

I think I just found the problem... Its not me this time.
I cant tell you till in the morning but I took the Bactrim... Its antibiotic for respiratory infection.
I took it about an hour before I wrote this post...

This morning when I took it... It made me feel really sick and nauseous but even water can sometimes make me nauseous in the morning... and then the anxiety - basically rolling panic attacks started and went till about 4ish.

I contemplated about 4 times today going to ER, but thats 40 miles away, so I just battled it out so far.

I was so scared because it wasn't feeling like my "normal" anxiety or panic attacks... So I looked up Bactrim and wow... there are tons of post saying this stuff freaks people out! I didn't even think an antibiotic could do that... but its basically poison I'm swallowing anyway. So whats happening is a chemical panic attack I cant control - which now makes sense...

I got to thinking... Yes, my throat and stuff feels better but my body feels worse... My body no likey Bactrim is my guess because I'm off my meds fighting like a mad man with this... I'm actually kind of scared to take anything... Me and meds just not good relationship.

For now that tripped the whole process "somewhat"... I KNOW (or think I know) what it is, so my mind settled down a bunch.

I thank all of you...

Please still post tricks or stuff that helps you... I like to learn different ways to deal with stuff.
I pray my optimism doesn't bust me in the face, but this feels right inside.

 

[LucyPurrs]

I have a sort of hack/mind trick I use when I'm having chronic anxiety episodes. It may or may not be transferable, or it might just be my own brand of crazy that lets it work. Let me start from the beginning:

Anxiety is the fear over future events. I find that with anxiety, there's always a scenario - like a tape playing, and in that scenario the worst possible outcomes happen (or at least negative outcomes). Realize that what's happening there is that the anxiety is predicting the future, which causes more anxiety, creating a self-perpetuating cycle.

However, the future that your anxiety predicts for you isn't the only plausible future. The future is uncertain, and anxiety is sort of a maladaptive tool used to make some of the possible outcomes seem likely enough to rely upon. However, just as anxiety creates scenarios in which everything goes wrong, you can directly fight the anxiety head-on with a little bit of role-playing/fantasy.

What I'm suggesting is that just how anxiety creates one scenario in which future events turn out poorly, you can go in the opposite direction with it and dream up your own fantasy scenario of these future events in which things go right. If you really commit to that fantasy, work out every detail, and run the thing over and over in your head, it just might replace the anxiety.

I'm doing this right now. I just got a new job today, and earlier all I could think of is how bad things will happen and I'll lose the job and all the negative consequences for that and just ugh. I was on the verge of a panic attack, then I remembered this technique. Now I'm fantasizing about my first day, and how nice everyone will be, and how good my lunch will be, and all the friends I'll make, and how I'll impress my boss, and so on, and I'm imagining these things in vivid and gratuitous detail.

My pills failed, but with this technique, my anxiety went from 100 to 0 in fifteen minutes. I hope that an help in your situation. Good luck, Chance, you're good people.

Great technique Gritches! AND, reality is that catastrophes rarely happen , neither do fairytale endings, reality is somewhere in between. But when we start getting anxious and catastrophizing we are only seeing a tiny part of the continuum of reality so our view is totally skewed and therefore not based on reality. If catastrophes are number one on a scale of 1-10 and fairytales are number 10, reality is somewhere in the middle, but if you only focus on number one you can't see reality. Hope that Chance will try your technique to rerecord those negative tapes playing right now. Looking up at the stars on a dark night can also help with regaining proper perspective.
Oh and hope your new job works out well for you Gritches!

 

[Chance]

I have a sort of hack/mind trick I use when I'm having chronic anxiety episodes. It may or may not be transferable, or it might just be my own brand of crazy that lets it work. Let me start from the beginning:

Anxiety is the fear over future events. I find that with anxiety, there's always a scenario - like a tape playing, and in that scenario the worst possible outcomes happen (or at least negative outcomes). Realize that what's happening there is that the anxiety is predicting the future, which causes more anxiety, creating a self-perpetuating cycle.

However, the future that your anxiety predicts for you isn't the only plausible future. The future is uncertain, and anxiety is sort of a maladaptive tool used to make some of the possible outcomes seem likely enough to rely upon. However, just as anxiety creates scenarios in which everything goes wrong, you can directly fight the anxiety head-on with a little bit of role-playing/fantasy.

What I'm suggesting is that just how anxiety creates one scenario in which future events turn out poorly, you can go in the opposite direction with it and dream up your own fantasy scenario of these future events in which things go right. If you really commit to that fantasy, work out every detail, and run the thing over and over in your head, it just might replace the anxiety.

I'm doing this right now. I just got a new job today, and earlier all I could think of is how bad things will happen and I'll lose the job and all the negative consequences for that and just ugh. I was on the verge of a panic attack, then I remembered this technique. Now I'm fantasizing about my first day, and how nice everyone will be, and how good my lunch will be, and all the friends I'll make, and how I'll impress my boss, and so on, and I'm imagining these things in vivid and gratuitous detail.

My pills failed, but with this technique, my anxiety went from 100 to 0 in fifteen minutes. I hope that an help in your situation. Good luck, Chance, you're good people.

I will try this brand of crazy sounds reasonable to me... : )

 

[LucyPurrs]

EXTREMELY GOOD NEWS I THINK???

I think I just found the problem... Its not me this time.
I cant tell you till in the morning but I took the Bactrim... Its antibiotic for respiratory infection.
I took it about an hour before I wrote this post...

This morning when I took it... It made me feel really sick and nauseous but even water can sometimes make me nauseous in the morning... and then the anxiety - basically rolling panic attacks started and went till about 4ish.

I contemplated about 4 times today going to ER, but thats 40 miles away, so I just battled it out so far.

I was so scared because it wasn't feeling like my "normal" anxiety or panic attacks... So I looked up Bactrim and wow... there are tons of post saying this stuff freaks people out! I didn't even think an antibiotic could do that... but its basically poison I'm swallowing anyway. So whats happening is a chemical panic attack I cant control - which now makes sense...

I got to thinking... Yes, my throat and stuff feels better but my body feels worse... My body no likey Bactrim is my guess because I'm off my meds fighting like a mad man with this... I'm actually kind of scared to take anything... Me and meds just not good relationship.

For now that tripped the whole process "somewhat"... I KNOW (or think I know) what it is, so my mind settled down a bunch.

I thank all of you...

Please still post tricks or stuff that helps you... I like to learn different ways to deal with stuff.
I pray my optimism doesn't bust me in the face, but this feels right inside.

Chance if you are having an allergic reaction you really should get to a medical facility or at least call one for advice. I got hives all over my body last time I took Bactrim. It's a sulphur based antibiotic and some people are allergic to sulphur based drugs.

 

[Judge]

EXTREMELY GOOD NEWS I THINK???

I think I just found the problem... Its not me this time.
I cant tell you till in the morning but I took the Bactrim... Its antibiotic for respiratory infection.
I took it about an hour before I wrote this post...

This morning when I took it... It made me feel really sick and nauseous but even water can sometimes make me nauseous in the morning... and then the anxiety - basically rolling panic attacks started and went till about 4ish.

I contemplated about 4 times today going to ER, but thats 40 miles away, so I just battled it out so far.

I was so scared because it wasn't feeling like my "normal" anxiety or panic attacks... So I looked up Bactrim and wow... there are tons of post saying this stuff freaks people out! I didn't even think an antibiotic could do that... but its basically poison I'm swallowing anyway. So whats happening is a chemical panic attack I cant control - which now makes sense...

I got to thinking... Yes, my throat and stuff feels better but my body feels worse... My body no likey Bactrim is my guess because I'm off my meds fighting like a mad man with this... I'm actually kind of scared to take anything... Me and meds just not good relationship.

For now that tripped the whole process "somewhat"... I KNOW (or think I know) what it is, so my mind settled down a bunch.

I thank all of you...

Please still post tricks or stuff that helps you... I like to learn different ways to deal with stuff.
I pray my optimism doesn't bust me in the face, but this feels right inside.

I once went through hell taking a new medication called Tofranil. It magnified my anxiety something fierce! The more I tried to consciously relax, the more uptight I got. It was scary.

Yeah, if you can pinpoint any medication that may do that, toss it. In my own case taking new meds is an absolute crapshoot, let alone try to ponder the possible synergistic effects of other substances one is taking at the same time.

 

[Chance]

I once went through hell taking a new medication called Tofranil. It magnified my anxiety something fierce! The more I tried to consciously relax, the more uptight I got. It was scary.

Yeah, if you can pinpoint any medication that may do that, toss it. In my own case taking new meds is an absolute crapshoot, let alone try to ponder the possible synergistic effects of other substances one is taking at the same time.

It is scary... so you know what I am feeling, no more of this stuff.