Scarfy13
09-06-2013, 03:18 AM
Hi everyone. I don't really know where to start, so I guess I'll just dive right in and explain what brought me here...
I've struggled with anxiety for pretty much my whole life (I used to always put it down to just being a 'worrier'), but I first went to my GP about it in February - although at the time I didn't realize it was anxiety that had brought me there. Throughout the day I would get chest pains and feel like I couldn't breathe, so I thought there must be something physically wrong with me. After talking for a while he explained that my anxiety was causing all these symptoms, but still gave me a thorough check up to rule out anything else. It was a bad cycle to be trapped in, my anxiety caused my physical symptoms, which in turn fueled my anxiety. After I saw my GP things got a lot easier for a while - I knew there was nothing wrong with me physically, and the techniques my GP suggested were working well at keeping the anxiety at bay.
These past couple of weeks have been really difficult. My anxiety has come back worse than it ever has been before, I've been having up to 5 panic attacks a day, usually when I try to eat or if I'm by myself. When I'm with people or busy at work I seem to be able to control the attacks, it's a lot easier to keep them at bay when my mind is distracted with something else. I've also found myself drinking to help; usually one or two glasses of wine at night would be enough to calm my nerves and help me relax, although there have been nights where I've finished the whole bottle (and sometimes started another). I usually drink a lot on weekends, I'm only 24, so a lot of my social life revolves around going out for a few drinks, although usually after a night of drinking I wake up feeling a lot more anxious (even if nothing happened to make me feel that way).
My boyfriend urged me to go back to the GP this week to see what he could recommend. He's put me on an antidepressant and I'm going back to see him next week to talk about counselling. I've been taking 10mg of Loxalate (Escitalopram) for the past four days now, and I don't really know how to feel about it. The first two days were really hard, I felt really nauseous and had a lot of trouble concentrating on things, and I lost my appetite completely and didn't really eat anything (which probably didn't help the nausea). And the yawning drove me insane! Today is the first day I felt somewhat normal, but I still don't 100% feel like myself. On the plus side, I haven't had a panic attack at all since starting the meds, and whenever I have bad thoughts about things I find it really easy to just switch them off. I'm not sure if that's the meds or not though, I don't know if they have actually started working or not seeing as I'm only a few days in.
I'm a little worried about what this might mean for my social life though, the doctor has advised me not to drink, which I think is going to be a struggle. I find it hard interacting with people unless I've had a drink or two to loosen up, so I'm worried about not being interesting enough, or people not liking 'sober' me. My boyfriend has been really supportive through all of this, but none of my friends or family know how bad things have gotten, and I'm not sure if I want to tell people that I'm on antidepressants - I just don't want people to treat me differently. I'm supposed to be going to a party tomorrow night and I'm so nervous, I know people are going to ask why I'm not drinking and I just don't know what to tell them... I don't think I'm ready to share with people what I've been going through. But I know that I need to go about my normal life as much as possible, and I don't want to turn into a hermit for fear that people might not like me anymore. I feel so silly for typing this, I know that it's nothing I should be ashamed about and I'm probably just over thinking everything (like I always do). And I know that it's definitely not healthy to be so dependent on the alcohol, so I'm determined to not have anything to drink for these first few weeks at least (any advice on this would be much appreciated).
I didn't really mean this to turn into such a long intro (and I've probably included things that would be better off in their own thread), but once I got typing it was hard to stop. I look forward to meeting you all. :)
I've struggled with anxiety for pretty much my whole life (I used to always put it down to just being a 'worrier'), but I first went to my GP about it in February - although at the time I didn't realize it was anxiety that had brought me there. Throughout the day I would get chest pains and feel like I couldn't breathe, so I thought there must be something physically wrong with me. After talking for a while he explained that my anxiety was causing all these symptoms, but still gave me a thorough check up to rule out anything else. It was a bad cycle to be trapped in, my anxiety caused my physical symptoms, which in turn fueled my anxiety. After I saw my GP things got a lot easier for a while - I knew there was nothing wrong with me physically, and the techniques my GP suggested were working well at keeping the anxiety at bay.
These past couple of weeks have been really difficult. My anxiety has come back worse than it ever has been before, I've been having up to 5 panic attacks a day, usually when I try to eat or if I'm by myself. When I'm with people or busy at work I seem to be able to control the attacks, it's a lot easier to keep them at bay when my mind is distracted with something else. I've also found myself drinking to help; usually one or two glasses of wine at night would be enough to calm my nerves and help me relax, although there have been nights where I've finished the whole bottle (and sometimes started another). I usually drink a lot on weekends, I'm only 24, so a lot of my social life revolves around going out for a few drinks, although usually after a night of drinking I wake up feeling a lot more anxious (even if nothing happened to make me feel that way).
My boyfriend urged me to go back to the GP this week to see what he could recommend. He's put me on an antidepressant and I'm going back to see him next week to talk about counselling. I've been taking 10mg of Loxalate (Escitalopram) for the past four days now, and I don't really know how to feel about it. The first two days were really hard, I felt really nauseous and had a lot of trouble concentrating on things, and I lost my appetite completely and didn't really eat anything (which probably didn't help the nausea). And the yawning drove me insane! Today is the first day I felt somewhat normal, but I still don't 100% feel like myself. On the plus side, I haven't had a panic attack at all since starting the meds, and whenever I have bad thoughts about things I find it really easy to just switch them off. I'm not sure if that's the meds or not though, I don't know if they have actually started working or not seeing as I'm only a few days in.
I'm a little worried about what this might mean for my social life though, the doctor has advised me not to drink, which I think is going to be a struggle. I find it hard interacting with people unless I've had a drink or two to loosen up, so I'm worried about not being interesting enough, or people not liking 'sober' me. My boyfriend has been really supportive through all of this, but none of my friends or family know how bad things have gotten, and I'm not sure if I want to tell people that I'm on antidepressants - I just don't want people to treat me differently. I'm supposed to be going to a party tomorrow night and I'm so nervous, I know people are going to ask why I'm not drinking and I just don't know what to tell them... I don't think I'm ready to share with people what I've been going through. But I know that I need to go about my normal life as much as possible, and I don't want to turn into a hermit for fear that people might not like me anymore. I feel so silly for typing this, I know that it's nothing I should be ashamed about and I'm probably just over thinking everything (like I always do). And I know that it's definitely not healthy to be so dependent on the alcohol, so I'm determined to not have anything to drink for these first few weeks at least (any advice on this would be much appreciated).
I didn't really mean this to turn into such a long intro (and I've probably included things that would be better off in their own thread), but once I got typing it was hard to stop. I look forward to meeting you all. :)