Can I get ME back?!

[FrightenedDaisy]

hi. I've been dealing with GAD with panic disorder for years. Fairly well I think. I've gone on mess a few times during bad periods but for the most part I've just dealt with it as its come. Lorazepam has been my most faithful crutch. Generally just knowing its in my purse would help me through a panic attack.

So.. I don't know what happened. Or maybe just too much happened. I don't know. What I do know is that over the last say year but especially the last five months I've gone off a cliff.

I now have a minimum of several panic attacks a day. They don't even need a tigger anymore. I have bouts of rage (best I can describe based on others descriptions), driving is causing attacks. I can't leave my home without my fiancée going with me. I've been disowned by my family. And I'm pretty sure the only reason I'm still engaged is so he isn't "that guy" that leaves a crazy girl.

I'm going to my counsellor. I'm meeting a psychiatrist for the first time next month. Off meds until then since the last ones my doc prescribed made me super suicidal (like with my life I need medication to make that sound better haha) but I'm terrified.

What if I'm never me again?

[gypsylee]

Hi Daisy :)

You're still you, just with a nervous illness. Hang in there.

Gypsy x

[NixonRulz]

hi. I've been dealing with GAD with panic disorder for years. Fairly well I think. I've gone on mess a few times during bad periods but for the most part I've just dealt with it as its come. Lorazepam has been my most faithful crutch. Generally just knowing its in my purse would help me through a panic attack.

So.. I don't know what happened. Or maybe just too much happened. I don't know. What I do know is that over the last say year but especially the last five months I've gone off a cliff.

I now have a minimum of several panic attacks a day. They don't even need a tigger anymore. I have bouts of rage (best I can describe based on others descriptions), driving is causing attacks. I can't leave my home without my fiancée going with me. I've been disowned by my family. And I'm pretty sure the only reason I'm still engaged is so he isn't "that guy" that leaves a crazy girl.

I'm going to my counsellor. I'm meeting a psychiatrist for the first time next month. Off meds until then since the last ones my doc prescribed made me super suicidal (like with my life I need medication to make that sound better haha) but I'm terrified.

What if I'm never me again?

All the things you believe have and will keep coming true. Have a few attacks while you drive and you will associate driving with panic and your mind has been trained to view driving as a reason to cause fear. So you panic. Just as you believed would happen.

Same with going out alone. Think that being out alone will cause you to panic. You certainly will and you have given the anxiety even more power to further control you

It makes no difference what is a trigger, or expect to panic for no reason at all, that is what you have allowed anxiety to do to you. Everyone has their own personal story how anxiety and panic continued to escalate in their lives and consciously or unconsciously, have chosen the triggers that will cause it

Once you believe that the panic isn't harmful, they tend to slow down or stop since once the fear is eliminated, panic can't occur

You need to stop focusing on the things that cause you to panic and focus on retraining your mind to not react to those triggers

[esto9]

I used to panic while driving or even leaving the house (agoraphobia?). That was about the darkest point of my bout with anxiety; very debilitating. Doing a lot better now.

It does get better! TRUST ME!