New user and feeling a bit terrified.

[toohighstrung]

I've had really bad panic attacks since I was about 19 years old. Maybe younger. I can remember having a real dizzy and strange sensation when I was 13 and my family had been moving to a different state. It seems I am ok when things in my life are stable. I don't feel this strange sensation like Í am falling unless I am experiencing change and uncertainty in my life. I am 32 years old now. Just had a birthday a couple of weeks ago. I have had a few really good accomplishments here and there but my life is pretty lackluster at the moment. I've had a bad life the past few years due to a spine injury that put me on hold and caused me to have to change my entire life and put it on hold. It doesn't bother me now, I have healed as much as I'm going to, but life doesn't stop for you when something like that happens. I've aged. I'm not a kid anymore. There isn't much sympathy from the world. And that is another thing that triggers terrible anxiety for me. I am always looking for reassurances and comfort from others but I get the cold shoulder. People are wicked when you are needy. Whether you really need help or not. All alone. I guess I am sensitive as well as anxiety prone. Anyways. I just moved out of the US to a country in Europe. I wanted to make some pretty big changes and I know you need to push yourself and take risks once in a while to get rewards. But my plan has really failed. I've only found misery since I've been here a week and a half. If there were a worst case scenario I could have imagined in my mind before I came here. Things turned out much worse than I could have possibly imagined. Another failure. I am so anxious ridden now that I can't really even think straight. I wish I knew some coping mechanism to get out of this terrible feeling but nothing I try holistically or mentally really helps me. Just a constant feeling of falling. Total fear. Scared to the point my teeth are chattering and my hands become shaky. I can't think straight when I am this way and that doesn't help me pragmatically of what I can do to try and better the situation. Feeling helpless. I sink so low that I consider suicide to be the best choice, in the moment, but I really don't want to die. I feel like I am searching for something, some peace, happiness, comfort from others, but I am never really allowed to have those things despite my best intentions. So the doom of anxiety and fear is always on my mind.

[toohighstrung]

I can always leave and go home but I put so much energy into coming here. I had thought about it for the last 3 years. I spent a year saving as much money as possible, working hard. But life has been ugly to me here. It makes me feel like a worthless and mediocre person. That is where a lot of my anxiety stems from. Just the way others treat me. Not given help or things in life to really even want to be alive. Feel like I want to escape myself in desperation.

[mlj86]

I get this feeling always of wanting to the escape, there's never anywhere to go unfortunately :( so I understand.

[toohighstrung]

Yeah. I can't even settle when it gets bad. I play some repetitive game on my phone to try and distract me in some primal way but I feel dizzy and strange when I try to do anything else. It feels like I'm stuck in a wind tunnel or something. It's completely different to how I am when I am feeling calm. I have had very stressful jobs before, dealing with people, doing sales, believe it or not, and did extremely well, but I get these times of uncertainty where I just feel totally screwed up in every possible way and can't even think straight. I am way too nervous.

[tailspin]

Hi toohighstrung. Welcome to the site. It's a good resource and I hope it helps you to spend some time here.

It was brave to move to a new country and I'm sorry things have got off to such a rough start. Do you speak the language? If not, can you take lessons? I've moved to foreign countries a couple of times and it definitely helps if the language isn't a barrier. Do you have any work lined up there? Or were you planning on this being more of a sabbatical type thing? Do you have any contacts there at all? I really hope you can make a go of it and that things begin falling into place. Good luck to you!