My story - need help coping

[supersized]

Hi everyone,

Though I've been dealing with terrible anxiety now for about 6 months, I'm finally taking definitive steps in helping to address it. Here's my story, wonder if anyone can relate. I had an anxiety or panic attack (not sure about the difference between the two still) after taking 102 mg of Concerta to help me study. Terrible, naive decision, I know. If I could go back and not take it, I would, but I also wonder if it just brought out inner anxieties that I always had but chose not to address. I also believe that my anxiety hasn't been overly prohibitive, and that I can return to my "normal" levels within a few years.

Anyways, shortly after taking the Concerta, I was having ridiculous head rushes and an elevated heart rate and thought I might have been having a stroke. For the next 3 or 4 months, I had non-stop lightheadedness, prolonged tingling in my scalp/head, as well as random stints where I felt my heart racing, almost as though I was having a heart attack. Because of this, I have had extensive head and heart tests done and everything has come back fine. No brain damage, heart damage, or stroke. The neurologist I saw was only able to recommend small doses of Lexapro, which I took it for a while but felt no real difference while on, so I stopped taking it. Fast forward to today, and the lightheaded sensation has mostly gone, except during the night, when I often get a hypnic jerk and am unable to sleep for hours. The days after I have trouble sleeping, I usually have a mild headache and a little bit of lightheadedness.

Instead, I now experience terrible anxiety, guilt, and fear. So often it is from stuff that I know for fact I would have not worried about just a year ago. I am always feeling as though I need to "resolve" these problem somehow or convince myself that it is not a problem, and this can become an obsession. Here is a list of some, but not all of the things that give me this anxiety...

-A reckless driving charge I got simply for speeding in a draconian state gives me anxiety because:

-I worry that I might be unable to find a job I want or get into a desirable law school, even though I have read from multiple places this charge won't affect anything

-I worry that I am somehow driving on a suspended license even though I already took a defensive driving course after the charge

-I worry that if my housemates throw a party at my house next year, I will get a noise violation and that will further harm my chances at anything
-Not having work this summer because of the lost motivation to apply to jobs:

-I feel like I am super behind in the rat race to find employment

-My parents are pissed/disappointment and not really sympathetic to my circumstances
-Forgetting to pay rent on time and losing my housing or getting served papers or something... idk
-Random small things like having my house get robbed while I'm not there
-That I won't be able to achieve my life ambitions, including somehow ending up loveless and alone
-My loved ones' health and well-being will terrorize me. Even if someone has cough, my mind jumps to seriously dark conclusions


Okay, that's all I can think of right now that's bothering me, and I'm not sure what the point of this post is, but I definitely needed to get all this information in one place and have it read. Writing this post itself was therapeutic, probably in realizing that there is more-or-less an end to the list of things that haunts me. I've also realized that I mostly have anxiety about things that COULD go wrong, not things that have gone wrong. This to me is the worst, because if something does go wrong, I can never know how terribly wrong it will go.

Going to start reading through this forum and figuring out what I can do, but I really needed to post this. Hope you all understand.

[supersized]

Another thing, idk if this might help in people pointing me in the right direction, is that I often feel 100% normal in the morning, but as the day progresses my head begins to feel weak, I get headaches, episodes of lightheadedness, etc.

[Wills]

Hi Supersized

Let me start by saying that you are not alone in the way you are feeling. I too have had those feeling, the lightheadedness, the tingling head, fast heart rate. I also had brain fog where i could not concentrate and also panic attacks.

Reading your story it was probably not the Concerta per se that caused your anxiety but the side effects brought on worry and thoughts of your own mortality. I had a mild heath scare and although it turned out to be ok, it was around that time that my anxiety started. I believe it is that when you get worried about your health you start to think about where you are in life, what you have achieved, have you done enough, despite being only 29 when it started i started to feel panicked that i was running out of time or should be further along than where i should be (all those things seem crazy to me now but at the time it was an intense sense of dread about it).

This also made me scared and worried about losing the things i already had in my life, my job, my family, my friends etc and instead of being thankful for those things and the very things i should have been using to overcome my anxiety and fears, i let the fear of loss fuel my anxiety and worry.

I know you probably dont feel this way at the moment but those things you are worrying about are irrational fears and thoughts. The key thing is you are identifying those thoughts however what you need to do now is to look at them and label them. Take a step back and even write them on a piece of paper and then label the thought as unhelpful. These things are not the truth and are not accurate visions of the future. A useful process once you have identified these thoughts it to look at them and imagine that a friend came to you with that worry or thought, then think about your the response that you would give your friend, looking at the issue from another angle and perspective can help you realize that they are irrational and to not worry about them. Its a tough process to get into but if you keep trying at it, it really will help.

My own personal experience with anxiety another thing that i found to be a massive help and that i credit as the major thing that got my our of my anxiety state was and still is exercise. I found that exercise is a great release, it clears your mind of thoughts and acts almost as a reset button. The concentration of exercising and working out takes your mind off these thoughts and gives you a well deserved break. Another great thing about exercise is it also releases endorphins in the body which act as naturally anti depressant and mood lifter which again makes you less anxious. There are also the benefits of losing weight, gaining tone and that increases confidence which again all helps towards conquering anxiety. Finally being physically tired will also help you get a better nights sleep which stops the long nights of not being able to sleep worrying about anything and everything, after a better nights sleep you will be fresher and in a better place to tackle your anxiety.

Using the methods i have mentioned i have now pretty much got my anxiety down to minor levels, i tend only to only get into the dark anxiety state when i am hungover after drinking too much, so try to avoid drinking too much as although the release can be good short term the day of heightened anxiety the next day is often not worth it.

I hope you find some of that useful and manage to over come the anxiety demon, it is something your can beat and i am living proof of this and i am now in a good place so there is light at the end of that tunnel.

If you need to message somebody please feel free to send me a message. That is the reason i just joined the forum as now i am in a good place, i want to help others as i know how it feels and just having someone or somewhere to vent your fears can help you beat them.

[Socks]

I'm sorry you feel so anxious, especially of the future, because it can drain into everything else. I know how it steals your peace and comfort of your present, which can rob you of the energy and motivation that you want right now. Are you generally an anxious person and now it has gotten worse, or is this uncharacteristic of you?