Jhum
06-05-2012, 01:31 PM
Hello
What I'm about to write might sound very weird and inconsistent. I'm just going to write down what I think about at the moment. I just feel like I need to write stuff down and get an opinion.
Already since elementary school I'm suffering from agoraphobia, I discovered it only a couple years back from reading stuff on the internet (I'm 22 now). When I had to go on the bus, sit in the classroom, in the canteen of our school I always felt my throat like closing itself (I don't know very well how to explain it) but physically you could see my adam's apple going up all the time like I'm about to gag. Sometimes my uvula is like twisted against my palate. Then when I went to uni it still happened but after like two other years it almost disappeared completely. Now, during highschool and my first year of Uni I smoked weed and took shrooms a few times (ended in a bad trip the last time I did it) I smoked weed for a short period after and that's when my first panick attack happened: I remember I was standing out on my balcony smoking and all of a sudden I just felt becoming weird and just started panicking (it was like I was scared my thoughts would stop or something). I think after that I smoked again at a party (and drank) and I had a panic attack after. I never smoked weed again after, which is now about three years ago. I remember in the first months that I had bad days, that I was just lying in the couch and just thinking (I can't say about what, but I just couldn't focus on the television) and then I had days that I completely felt "normal" and then I could even think about smoking weed again. When I feel "normal" it feels like I can't really remember how I was feeling when I felt bad and that it will never come back. I also didn't understand why I start feeling bad again. Over the past years my life passed relatively normal, just had one other panick attack and I was sometimes wondering if I still had effects from the bad trip (if it damaged my brain if that's possible).
Now, I went on erasmus a few months ago and this is were my problems really started. The first week I didn't have any problems at all. But then I had to leave after a week to another place. My room was just a cube with white walls and TL-lights. This is when I started to feel bad. during my erasmus period I almost never felt well in my room alone. Just thoughts racing about myself, my person, guilt feelings, feelings about social situations. Sometimes I almost didn't eat anything for a few days or slept. It could be that I maybe slept for an hour, not even sure. I just went to bed, my thoughts were racing, I couldn't even tell if I was conscious or not then. I had the same thing with my throat going again when I felt bad and I even had to gag, happened even in public once which I never ever had in class or on the bus in my whole life.
I also met my current girlfriend over there. At the beginning when she was with me I always felt good. After she was a while with me and went back away, I thought I could handle it myself and just be alone or so but after a while, could be the next day I started feeling bad again. I also never could occupy myself when I was in my room alone. Maybe I have problems with indepence. my parents came over and I also went a week abroad then. After I came back, I only had four weeks left to leave home and the first week I felt ok, no problem at all. then we went to a trip during the weekend and the day we were coming back and had dinner at some place all of a sudden I started to feel bad again. I didn't really yet, but I know something had changed. I really had troubles eating my meal and when I went back home and ordered pizza I couldn't eat a piece of it. I just don't know what it caused why I all of a sudden started feeling bad. Now I'm back home and I even have the agoraphobic feeling at home (which I never ever had before). I sometimes just random have to start gagging and I feel my throat sometimes all day long. I just feel weird. I feel like I'm scared to get a disorder. Just by reading stuff on the internet and hearing things and I know it exists I'm afraid to get it. When I can't eat I can get scared never to be able to eat anymore. I never had fear of getting on an airplane. but I know it exists, that there are people who get agoraphobic on these. When I went on the plane last time I took a Xanax and felt anxious in the airport because I was thinking I could get a panic attack on the airplane. I know what self-fulfilling prophecy is and I know it exists, so because I'm thinking that people get attacks on airplanes and that it also could happen to me I think because of self-fulfilling prophecy it will also happen to me, weird huh? In the end I didn't have an attack at all. I went to a doctor on erasmus who prescribed my xanax and he said that a lot of people have anxiety, that it also could be a biochemical thing and that relaxed me for a while because I had an answer for my problem, I felt relief. two days later I started feeling bad again because I feel like I don't have trust in the medical world due to things you read in articles like people having to go to several doctors who can't find anything and after years and years of consultation they find what disease they have. My grandmother had an accident a year ago. The injury she had was standard, they had to replace her hip, which normally is an easy thing. But the treatment in the hospital she was first, was completely different than the hospital she moved to and I'm living in a western european country with a high standard in medical care, wtf? How can you trust the medical world if something like this happens? How can we even trust psychiatrists while we almost don't know anything about the human brain? All these misdiagnoses, the things I read on this forum like pills not working, treatments not working. This is just one of the things I'm thinking about. When I take xanax I'm always telling myself that it's not going to work. it's just an obsessive thought in my brain which I can't stop. I'm scared of my thoughts, I'm scared that I'm gonna hurt my girlfriend emotionally in the future or if I 'd continue with her in the future I think about problems which can happen. Sometimes when I'm really worrying, it's like I hear a thought and then it feels like I get a small shock in my brain which feels like the bad things I'm thinking are really going to happen. Then I have an associative thought and I feel a shock again and it continues to escalate. It then feels like I never had any hapiness in my life, everything was fake and I'm a bad person. When my girlfriend was with me at that moment I told her nothing felt real, she then told me that we were real. I told her that that was true but immediatly after I have the thought that I'm always going to be like this and that she won't be able to take it anymore in the end and is going to leave me. Then I told her that I loved her but immediatly after I felt like I was lying to myself, that I was just saying this to comfort her or something, don't even know the reason. I can't trust my own thoughts. I don't trust my own thoughts and I'm scared of my thoughts.
At the moment I feel like I'm just living with emptyness. I do things but why would it all matter? I'm scared to be scared and I feel like I don't even know what is causing my anxiety or my feeling. I feel like I'm going crazy and I just want to stop this.
What I'm about to write might sound very weird and inconsistent. I'm just going to write down what I think about at the moment. I just feel like I need to write stuff down and get an opinion.
Already since elementary school I'm suffering from agoraphobia, I discovered it only a couple years back from reading stuff on the internet (I'm 22 now). When I had to go on the bus, sit in the classroom, in the canteen of our school I always felt my throat like closing itself (I don't know very well how to explain it) but physically you could see my adam's apple going up all the time like I'm about to gag. Sometimes my uvula is like twisted against my palate. Then when I went to uni it still happened but after like two other years it almost disappeared completely. Now, during highschool and my first year of Uni I smoked weed and took shrooms a few times (ended in a bad trip the last time I did it) I smoked weed for a short period after and that's when my first panick attack happened: I remember I was standing out on my balcony smoking and all of a sudden I just felt becoming weird and just started panicking (it was like I was scared my thoughts would stop or something). I think after that I smoked again at a party (and drank) and I had a panic attack after. I never smoked weed again after, which is now about three years ago. I remember in the first months that I had bad days, that I was just lying in the couch and just thinking (I can't say about what, but I just couldn't focus on the television) and then I had days that I completely felt "normal" and then I could even think about smoking weed again. When I feel "normal" it feels like I can't really remember how I was feeling when I felt bad and that it will never come back. I also didn't understand why I start feeling bad again. Over the past years my life passed relatively normal, just had one other panick attack and I was sometimes wondering if I still had effects from the bad trip (if it damaged my brain if that's possible).
Now, I went on erasmus a few months ago and this is were my problems really started. The first week I didn't have any problems at all. But then I had to leave after a week to another place. My room was just a cube with white walls and TL-lights. This is when I started to feel bad. during my erasmus period I almost never felt well in my room alone. Just thoughts racing about myself, my person, guilt feelings, feelings about social situations. Sometimes I almost didn't eat anything for a few days or slept. It could be that I maybe slept for an hour, not even sure. I just went to bed, my thoughts were racing, I couldn't even tell if I was conscious or not then. I had the same thing with my throat going again when I felt bad and I even had to gag, happened even in public once which I never ever had in class or on the bus in my whole life.
I also met my current girlfriend over there. At the beginning when she was with me I always felt good. After she was a while with me and went back away, I thought I could handle it myself and just be alone or so but after a while, could be the next day I started feeling bad again. I also never could occupy myself when I was in my room alone. Maybe I have problems with indepence. my parents came over and I also went a week abroad then. After I came back, I only had four weeks left to leave home and the first week I felt ok, no problem at all. then we went to a trip during the weekend and the day we were coming back and had dinner at some place all of a sudden I started to feel bad again. I didn't really yet, but I know something had changed. I really had troubles eating my meal and when I went back home and ordered pizza I couldn't eat a piece of it. I just don't know what it caused why I all of a sudden started feeling bad. Now I'm back home and I even have the agoraphobic feeling at home (which I never ever had before). I sometimes just random have to start gagging and I feel my throat sometimes all day long. I just feel weird. I feel like I'm scared to get a disorder. Just by reading stuff on the internet and hearing things and I know it exists I'm afraid to get it. When I can't eat I can get scared never to be able to eat anymore. I never had fear of getting on an airplane. but I know it exists, that there are people who get agoraphobic on these. When I went on the plane last time I took a Xanax and felt anxious in the airport because I was thinking I could get a panic attack on the airplane. I know what self-fulfilling prophecy is and I know it exists, so because I'm thinking that people get attacks on airplanes and that it also could happen to me I think because of self-fulfilling prophecy it will also happen to me, weird huh? In the end I didn't have an attack at all. I went to a doctor on erasmus who prescribed my xanax and he said that a lot of people have anxiety, that it also could be a biochemical thing and that relaxed me for a while because I had an answer for my problem, I felt relief. two days later I started feeling bad again because I feel like I don't have trust in the medical world due to things you read in articles like people having to go to several doctors who can't find anything and after years and years of consultation they find what disease they have. My grandmother had an accident a year ago. The injury she had was standard, they had to replace her hip, which normally is an easy thing. But the treatment in the hospital she was first, was completely different than the hospital she moved to and I'm living in a western european country with a high standard in medical care, wtf? How can you trust the medical world if something like this happens? How can we even trust psychiatrists while we almost don't know anything about the human brain? All these misdiagnoses, the things I read on this forum like pills not working, treatments not working. This is just one of the things I'm thinking about. When I take xanax I'm always telling myself that it's not going to work. it's just an obsessive thought in my brain which I can't stop. I'm scared of my thoughts, I'm scared that I'm gonna hurt my girlfriend emotionally in the future or if I 'd continue with her in the future I think about problems which can happen. Sometimes when I'm really worrying, it's like I hear a thought and then it feels like I get a small shock in my brain which feels like the bad things I'm thinking are really going to happen. Then I have an associative thought and I feel a shock again and it continues to escalate. It then feels like I never had any hapiness in my life, everything was fake and I'm a bad person. When my girlfriend was with me at that moment I told her nothing felt real, she then told me that we were real. I told her that that was true but immediatly after I have the thought that I'm always going to be like this and that she won't be able to take it anymore in the end and is going to leave me. Then I told her that I loved her but immediatly after I felt like I was lying to myself, that I was just saying this to comfort her or something, don't even know the reason. I can't trust my own thoughts. I don't trust my own thoughts and I'm scared of my thoughts.
At the moment I feel like I'm just living with emptyness. I do things but why would it all matter? I'm scared to be scared and I feel like I don't even know what is causing my anxiety or my feeling. I feel like I'm going crazy and I just want to stop this.