Afraid to free myself of GAD.

[alaria]

I wonder if anyone else has ever felt this way...

I've been dealing with anxiety and depressive symptoms my whole life, or at least a good part of it. I had a couple of near-breakdowns in the past, and last year I finally cracked. I was diagnosed with GAD and depression, went to therapy, and got on Lexapro. As time went on things started getting better, though there are still some serious ups and downs.

My biggest fear was the love for my boyfriend. We've been together for ver 6 years at this point, but my fears about us grew so strong that we broke up for a little while last year. During my breakdown, I also stopped trying to write music (a passion of mine), took off a lot from work, stopped reading, etc.

After a great deal of struggle, things are getting back to normal. We live together, and have reconnected in such a dramatic way that it is wonderful. When I get anxiety about us (say, about caring about another person, like a friend), I am able to recover, and fall back in love all over again. We're starting to talk about marriage. :) I'm also writing music again and just having fun, letting myself be myself.

I feel like I'm on the edge of a major breakthrough. But I'm unable to shake my anxiety. We admit love to each other and inside I feel the pangs of anxiety creeping in, despite how deep and strong our love is. It's as if I can't let go of my anxiety, as hard as I try. I stop myself from finishing a piece when I'm THIS close. I make myself anxious. It's like I WANT to be anxious.

Those who've recovered - how do you do it? How do you finally get go of the fear? I'm so close, and so frustrated.

[Evilbob333]

Its an interesting question...and one that i've been pondering a little myself...being in a very similar position recovery wise to yourself.

My main thing was my last major panic attack, a fair way into my recovery period. It was one of the strongest attacks i'd ever had and i thought i'd gone right off the deep end and needed to be hospitalised. but was back at work two days later with a 'Who gives a sh*t' attitude, and a look of grim determination on my face! I kind of realised then that i didnt really have anything to fear...so i do have scary thoughts, but i know they aren't true...so whats the worse that can happen? A panic attack. And you know what no panic attack has ever hurt me, sure its frightening but i still wake up the next morning...feeling frazzled perhaps, but alive nonetheless. I've kinda gone from strength to strength since then, and even allow myself time to think these things to try and bring on an attack...just to let myself know that i can really handle them.

Another key aspect of my recovery has been not allowing myself to ruminate. OK...i've had the thought and thats fine but i'm not gonna sit here and spin a story out of it...what if...what if...what if. I keep myself occupied, i put myself into situations i'd typically avoid.

Hope this helps

[alaria]

Not ruminating is the biggest thing I need to work on. I'm a person that loves to think about the world, and I tend to be rather self-centric. When I'm not so focused on myself, I'm generally very happy and not fearful, but once I start, it's REALLY hard to stop. Any tips?

[will]

Hi all,
Evilbob, you mentioned that you feel frazzeled. when I seem to have a lot of anxiety I get this "out of it" feeling. do others experience this? it is just that I cant concentrate and I am very irritable. I also get really tired and I think I am dying or getting very sick.
I like your advice. I too try to take the "I don't give a ___" attitude and try to get on with my life. sometimes it works, others it is a bit more difficult. the what ifs are always a bad road to go down, but sometimes I do it just to get to the heart of why I am so worried. again, somtimes things get better, others they get worse.

[danstelter]

I feel like I'm on the edge of a major breakthrough. But I'm unable to shake my anxiety. We admit love to each other and inside I feel the pangs of anxiety creeping in, despite how deep and strong our love is. It's as if I can't let go of my anxiety, as hard as I try. I stop myself from finishing a piece when I'm THIS close. I make myself anxious. It's like I WANT to be anxious.

Those who've recovered - how do you do it? How do you finally get go of the fear? I'm so close, and so frustrated.

It's hard to explain, but eventually you just "get over it." Basically all I did was what the others said...simply endured it knowing that it would suck, but that it eventually would pass.

I continued to do this and over the years my anxiety continually lessened. I would experience periods of sheer "dread" and restlessness, but now the worst thing I feel is some unease. If you were to put it on a 1-100 scale, anxiety that was 80-90 (very severe) now feels like a 25-35 (much less severe).

All you can do sometimes is just hang in there and be confident that this nasty feeling will pass. And it will!

And the best thing to do is what you are doing - talk about it with others, including your significant other.

Hope this helps. It sounds like you are doing well, just hang in there!

[Evilbob333]

By Frazzled i mean that for a day or two i tend to feel that i've had a huge electric shock sent through my nervous system...headache, tiredness, detached. I find that getting straight back on to the horse and getting on with things, along with plenty of milk and vitamin B soon gets me back on my feet!!!

[(HAWK)]

Its an interesting question...and one that i've been pondering a little myself...being in a very similar position recovery wise to yourself.

My main thing was my last major panic attack, a fair way into my recovery period. It was one of the strongest attacks i'd ever had and i thought i'd gone right off the deep end and needed to be hospitalised. but was back at work two days later with a 'Who gives a sh*t' attitude, and a look of grim determination on my face! I kind of realised then that i didnt really have anything to fear...so i do have scary thoughts, but i know they aren't true...so whats the worse that can happen? A panic attack. And you know what no panic attack has ever hurt me, sure its frightening but i still wake up the next morning...feeling frazzled perhaps, but alive nonetheless. I've kinda gone from strength to strength since then, and even allow myself time to think these things to try and bring on an attack...just to let myself know that i can really handle them.

Another key aspect of my recovery has been not allowing myself to ruminate. OK...i've had the thought and thats fine but i'm not gonna sit here and spin a story out of it...what if...what if...what if. I keep myself occupied, i put myself into situations i'd typically avoid.

Hope this helpsEvery thing you just said is AWESOME,I did and still do everything you just said,I had a bad attack last week and ever since then I just tell my self F*** IT! :D

[Evilbob333]

Alaria,

Learning not to ruminate has been central to my ongoing recovery but its taken time and practice. The hardest thing is to catch yourself doing it...or to remember that you're not supposed to be doing it. Like you i've always enjoyed sitting and thinking, musing on lots of different things...so trying not to is like changing a life time habit...and like all habits it takes a lot of time and effort to change, but like all habits and behaviours it can eventually be overcome and left behind.

I don't have tips, per se, to stop ruminating other than keep practicing. Don't be hard on yourself for doing it, rather congratulate yourself for realising that youv've been doing it at all and start again...overtime you'll get to a point where you'll think 'Man, i havent thought about that all day' and at that point you know you're getting to a good place.

For those who are interested the theory behind rumination and its links to anxiety and depression is that the more you think about something, the more your brain recognises it as being important and so the more it brings it to mind and tries to examine it. I suppose it's like when you get a new girlfriend or byfriend, or have kids...you cant stop thinking about them...like when anything exciting or important happens in life. Unfortunatley, when these are anxiety provoking thoughts you don't really want your mind to dwell on them all day, everyday! So in that view its a matter of training your brain to recognise that these thoughts are not important, and that means not allowing yourself to dwell on them. Like i said earlier, allow the original thoughts...dont try and rid yourself of them completely, that will also mark them as being very important to the brain (its the pink elephant effect) but dont let yourself sit there for hours (like i used to do) trying to reason out the what ifs. hopes this helps some...

[northstar]

alaria evilbob has given great advice here :)

i personally found therapy to be very helpful for dealing with the worries, and i've also found that as i've gotten better the worries grew less and less. so dealing with your anxiety in general also seems to be helpful for the irrational thoughts. does that make sense?

anyway, i found distraction really helped if i felt some irrational type worries coming on, not allowing myself to be still and think the horrible thoughts, but to move on and do something nice that distracted me happily. so for example, i found the mornings quite difficult, but instead of letting it get on top of me i just put on my favourite music really loudly and danced my way through my morning routine, not allowing the scary thoughts to crowd in. sounds silly, but it actually really helped me lol.

so you might like to find ways of distracting yourself when you feel the same way :) as long as it's good distraction, don't dip into a tub of icecream every time for example lol.

there is another post you can read on all the things you can do to help with your anxiety: http://www.anxietyforum.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4087 i hope you find it helpful :)

[xxbluebirdxx]

i have the same problem with my significant other. my anxiety and fears about our relationship became a real problem. i didn't address them till it started to kill me. now we're taking a break, and i can't stop thinking about it. do you have any advice on how to counter act this? it sucks :(