Dream World

[whatifgirl]

Hi. I am glad to have found a forum with people like me. I am 27 years old. Married with no kids.

Everyday feels like I am in a dream. Like I know that it is real but things feel dreamy. I went off Lexapro on Nov 4th after tapering off for several months. My anxiety got bad again so my psychiatrist put me on Klonopin .125 twice per day. (I only take it once a day. - need it for work) I hate it though. Well, I like it, but I hate it. It makes my anxiety feelings go away, like when I am on the brink of a panic attack, it brings me back down to normal. However, I feel like a robot. I don't get excited about anything anymore. I want to be how I was a few years ago. I was always positive and happy and not anxious. Now I am down in the dumps, always scared of having anxiety feelings and constantly in my head. It effects everything too. My husband gets tired of hearing about me complain about feeling like a dream (sounds bad but he is very understanding). When will I wake up and not think about my anxiety and depression? When will I just go about my life like I use to? Does anyone feel this way? Has anyone gotten better and not dwelled on "Am I ok today?" I feel helpless. Should I go back on my antidepressant? I don't know what to do. I don't want to be on medication anymore. The side effects of coming off Lexapro SUCKED. I am seeing a therpist once a week which helps. My therpist thinks part of these feelings are because I am in a job I don't like, I moved to Orlando from Atlanta (leaving all my friends and family) and I am having a hard time adjusting. We moved 2 years ago. We are moving back to Atlanta in August, so I should be fine right? Will I get back to normal if I just tough it out until August? Thanks for listening. I know there is a light at the end of the tunnel, but how much farther do I need to walk to get there? :(

[Robbed]

One thing you have to remember about anxiety disorder is that it is not the result of an event in your life. Moving to Orlando from Atlanta and having a job you don't like did not CAUSE you to have anxiety. At least not in the way that touching a hot burner on a stove burns your hand. Rather, STRESS causes anxiety disorder. And your move and your job simply caused you the stress that drove you into anxiety disorder. But one of the consequences of anxiety disorder is that it creates its own stress and worry - often FAR out of line in magnitude compared to your original stressors. All this means that even if you move back to Atlanta, it is not just simply going to go away. But, on the other hand, you don't have to wait until you move back to Atlanta before seeing improvements in your condition.

The reason why anxiety disorder is so tough to overcome is that it tells you to do the things that are completely opposite of what is required to overcome it. Specifically, it tells you to worry about the disorder and use every ounce of your strength to fight it. Even your therapist might tell you to fight it as hard as you can (therapists often know VERY little about anxiety disorder, from my experience). And I am sure you have heard people (your husband, perhaps?) tell you that you have to be STRONG to get through this thing. Well guess what? You are NOT strong enough to fight anxiety disorder! THAT'S RIGHT, you AREN'T! And neither am I, nor anyone else on this planet. Luckily, though, strength is not everything.

So how do you deal with a stronger adversary? You don't do what it tells you to do. Rather than worrying about every little symptom, bad feeling, or obsessive thought, you just accept it as a part of having anxiety disorder. You accept that you have anxiety disorder, and that there WILL be times you feel bad, even REALLY bad. You also accept that recovery takes time, and possibly a long time (possibly several months to a few years). You might not be back to being yourself even by August. And you accept that even after getting better for a while, setbacks can happen for no apparent reason that make you feel dreadful again for a while. Acceptance will not necessarily come quickly. You might be able to only accept a little bit at first. But this is normal. You will become more accepting with time, especially as you start to feel better.

Of course, you also want to try to reduce stress in other aspects of your life as well. I'm not sure how bad your job or life in Orlando is. It might not be as bad as you think. If you can find something positive about it, try to focus on that. Otherwise, think about starting oer again in Atlanta. This alone might reduce MUCH stress.

[Giz]

Hey..

Ive never taken knopolin, or lexapro. But when I was on cipramil I had those weird feelings-the best way I could describe it was that it was like I was sitting on the bridge of the starship enterprise, watching the outside world on screen. It was like I was sitting at the controls inside my head, operating this big body that wasnt real.
I got some very funny ideas in my head while I was on cipramil.. And they were not good-like that perhaps this wasnt reality and for me to get into reality I had to leave here.. (Like in the Others where Nicole Kidman thinks shes going on as normal but something is not right..)

Turns out that this is apparently a reaction to anti depressants that signifies that you shouldnt be on them.

So, Ill tell you what ended up working for me-Im not saying its going to be your answer, but you can do what I did and if you find it helps, then you can ditch the meds as you said you wanted to..

With me, my blood sugar was a huge problem. I ate too much refined carbohydrates. This means "white" foods, like breads, pastas, rice, cakes, biscuits, chocolate etc.. I also got too much stimulants (which the sugar acts like too) and I had a caffeine intolerance that ended up with every time I had a caffeinated drink I would have an anxiety attack..
I was also using up more B vitamins than I was consuming.

Did you know that feeling unreal, hearing your own thoughts, seeing or hearing things abnormally, feeling tired and depressed and anxious can all be symptoms of you not having enough B vitamins in your system?
Sadly this is not something considered by many doctors. (did you know that in the US the amount of nutritional training received by a doctor in their whole time in college amounts to less than 3 hours?) and you can see how taking the drug is not going to help with this particular problem.
Sure-it may mask the symptoms, by dumbing you down and making you feel emotionless (I found by the time I decided to quit my second set of meds-effexor, that I only seemed to be able to have 2 feelings, anger and sadness)

So..
Take a look at your diet. Are you in danger of blood sugar imbalance? do you find you get dizzy or irritable when you havent eaten in a few hours? Do you get drowsy after a heavy meal?
If so, you need to make sure that you switch to the "brown" or Whole grain" equivalent of everything in your diet. Or perhaps even trying to cut out certain grains-like wheat, rye and spelt in favour of buckwheat, quinoa, and brown rice.
Get most of your nourishment from vegetables. As lightly cooked as possible-perhaps even raw. If they arent organic, then scrub them well before you eat them, but of course-organic is better.
Try to avoid food wrapped in plastic (there are chemicals in the soft plastics that wreak havoc on your hormones) same with milk that is not specifically Bovine Growth Hormone free(they use this stuff in the cows in the states-to make them produce extra milk-but it also messes with your hormones) So avoid beef that is not organic!!
Get lots of water and fresh air-to keep yourself hydrated and oxygenated.
And get a good quality, food sourced multivitamin. How to check that your supplement is worth the price tag is to check the type of vitamin E used. If it says in the ingredients that the vitamin E is anything but d-alpha-tocopherol then do not buy it.
Vitamin E is very hard to source-it costs a lot of money. An inferior supplement will use synthetic vitamin E, so it may say "dl-alpha-tocopherol", or "vitamin E as prep", these types arent just not real vitamin E-some actually interfere with real vitamin E absorption. So if the vitamin E is not right-then leave it on the shelf!
Youll want a supplement that gives you between 50-100mg of the B vitamins B3-niacin and B6-pyridoxine, 100mcg of B12 or cyanocobalamin and 1,000mg of folate-or folic acid.

And try to find some room in your day for meditation, or something relaxing. Deep breathing is also very helpful.

And hang around here-theres lots of people who should be able to offer you plenty of advice on methods for dealing with those anxious pitfalls :)

Youve had a lot of stress lately, you have every right to feel all over the place. I do hope the move home will help you out immensely, having a support network is also a really important thing when you are dealing with these problems.

For now, lets get you out of this slump!
:console:

[whatifgirl]

Thanks for the replies. I definitely do need to accept my anxiety instead of fighting it or masking it. I have a hard time confronting it.

I never thought about my diet as contributing but that makes sense. Thanks for letting me know.