SleeplessInPA
09-02-2013, 08:17 AM
Good morning,
I hope everyone is having a nice weekend/holiday. I joined this group a few weeks ago but I've been quiet most of that time. I am trying to figure out if this is the right place for me. While I can relate and sympathies with how most of you are feeling, it seems like my anxiety has taken a different turn over the last few years.
I still remember my very first anxiety/panic attack. I was 22 at the time (I am now 40) and was coming home from a party with my boyfriend. While we were driving I started to feel very strange, I felt like I couldn't breath, my legs were shaking, heart racing, sweating. I swore I was having a heart attack, my boyfriend immediately took me to the emergency room, and that is when I first heard the words "anxiety" and "panic attacks". While this was my first incident, it definitely wasn't my last. Fortunately for me, my mother has experience with anxiety and at one point in her life suffered from severe agoraphobia. Fast forwarding to the age of 27, I was in a mentally abusive relationship and needless to say my anxiety came back with a vengeance. Without getting into all the details, I will tell you that what was happening to my in that relationship is referred to as "Gaslighting". I had the typical anxiety symptoms, but this time I also wasn't able to eat or sleep...and I started to develop an element of paranoia. Thankfully I was able to get my head together and get out of that relationship. I immediately went into therapy, seeing a psychiatrist and psychologist several times a week (my primary care doc was also involved) and I move out of my BFs place and moved in with my parents. In the midst of this I still managed to make it to work everyday, thanks to my mother who would literally pull me out of bed. Eventually I got better, was feeling good, got a new job, moved out, and started back to my normal life. Since than I have struggled with anxiety on and off, but nothing like what I went through at the age of 27.
Fast forward to today and over the last year or so my anxiety has been pretty bad, but it seems to have take on a different form. I still get some of the breathing/lack of sleeping/heart racing stuff but I seem to be able to control it. My anxiety now seems to come more in the form of constant worry, obsessive thoughts, and anticipation of something bad happening. Some days I wish I could just turn my brain off because the racing thoughts just don't stop. Is there anyone else out there who is experiencing the same type of feelings?
I hope everyone is having a nice weekend/holiday. I joined this group a few weeks ago but I've been quiet most of that time. I am trying to figure out if this is the right place for me. While I can relate and sympathies with how most of you are feeling, it seems like my anxiety has taken a different turn over the last few years.
I still remember my very first anxiety/panic attack. I was 22 at the time (I am now 40) and was coming home from a party with my boyfriend. While we were driving I started to feel very strange, I felt like I couldn't breath, my legs were shaking, heart racing, sweating. I swore I was having a heart attack, my boyfriend immediately took me to the emergency room, and that is when I first heard the words "anxiety" and "panic attacks". While this was my first incident, it definitely wasn't my last. Fortunately for me, my mother has experience with anxiety and at one point in her life suffered from severe agoraphobia. Fast forwarding to the age of 27, I was in a mentally abusive relationship and needless to say my anxiety came back with a vengeance. Without getting into all the details, I will tell you that what was happening to my in that relationship is referred to as "Gaslighting". I had the typical anxiety symptoms, but this time I also wasn't able to eat or sleep...and I started to develop an element of paranoia. Thankfully I was able to get my head together and get out of that relationship. I immediately went into therapy, seeing a psychiatrist and psychologist several times a week (my primary care doc was also involved) and I move out of my BFs place and moved in with my parents. In the midst of this I still managed to make it to work everyday, thanks to my mother who would literally pull me out of bed. Eventually I got better, was feeling good, got a new job, moved out, and started back to my normal life. Since than I have struggled with anxiety on and off, but nothing like what I went through at the age of 27.
Fast forward to today and over the last year or so my anxiety has been pretty bad, but it seems to have take on a different form. I still get some of the breathing/lack of sleeping/heart racing stuff but I seem to be able to control it. My anxiety now seems to come more in the form of constant worry, obsessive thoughts, and anticipation of something bad happening. Some days I wish I could just turn my brain off because the racing thoughts just don't stop. Is there anyone else out there who is experiencing the same type of feelings?