Anxiety Returns after about 5 years of absence

[T-Michael]

When I was about 30 years old I started experience full on panic attacks and was diagnosed with GAD. I was put on xanax and responded well, although I was constantly tired and hungry, and demotivated from xanax, it was better than being constantly at battle with a feeling of elevated adrenaline and nervousness. When I was about 37 my anxiety began to fade away and I weened myself off the xanax to the point where I was taking a maintenance does every 3- 5 days of .25mg whenever I would feel slight anxiety creeping back in. Life was good. I thought I had beat the anxiety, at least to a point where it wasn't dominating my life.


Recently, about a month ago, I had a major panic attack on a camping trip. Since then every few days I've been experiencing a higher than average level of anxiety and for the past week now I've had anxiety pretty much every day. I've returned to my schedule .25mg dosage of xanax 4t times per day, but it makes me so sleepy and slightly dizzy.


I'm so frustrated by the idea that the anxiety is coming back and I'm depressed about the idea that it may last for another 7 years like last time.

I went back in my head and tried to figure out if there were any triggers, life changes, that may be causing my body to respond with anxiety levels of this nature and I can't think of one.

Has anyone experienced anxiety returning after a long absence? Is there anything I can do to combat this?

I'm trying to stay positive, but this sucks so hard.

[mosa369]

Mine returned after 7 years of non Anxiety Attacks - Even though my worries were still there and my character hadn't changed the Anxiety levels disappeared. Then they came back in full swing, in my experience I've just accepted that Anxiety will always be apart of my life I have just learned and adapted to new techniques to over coming an Attack. All I can suggest is that you research and try new techniques to over come your symptoms.


All the best xxx

[tailspin]

Hi T-Michael. Welcome to the site. I can definitely relate. I've had long periods - years - where my anxiety wasn't much of a problem. I've always been an anxious person, ever since early childhood. It just seems to be my nature. But it's mainly been limited to periods of chronic worrying/GAD with a couple of specific phobias. However I was still fully functional. My panic attacks didn't start until much later (late 30's/early 40's). They took my generalized anxiety to a whole new level and things got bad. I'm 49 now and anti-depressants have helped me quite a bit, though I still struggle more than I'd like. As mosa369 says, I've kind of accepted that anxiety is part of my life now to a greater or lesser extent (hopefully lesser!!) and now it's more about managing it.

Have you tried anti-depressants? I would definitely recommend talking to your doctor about that possibility. I have depression as well as anxiety and I definitely do better on medication. Personally I really try and avoid Ativan/Xanax etc because I worry about the addiction potential. But that's just me.

This site is a great resource and there's tons of helpful info and helpful people here. Hope it helps you to spend some time here!