little help please....

[pronto11]

my story....about a year ago i was on my way to work (had a few drinks the night before so was a little tired)...had a cup of coffee in the morning to wake up..(dont usually drink coffee so this might have triggered this)....anyways while driving i got real "antsy" and "jittery" to the point that i felt like i was gonna pass out, went the job site and felt like i couldnt work so i started home...at one point i had to pull over to contemplate calling 911 in fear that i was gonna die!...instead i just collected myself enough just to get home...the entire drive was a nightmare, every stoplight felt like an eternity to turn green...i was convinced that i would pass out the 2nd i got home and got out of the car..(i didnt)...when i got home i layed down for an hour and felt normal again...so i wrote it off as being hungover or my blood sugar just dropped too low...

flash forward, took me awhile to get into a car again, in the fear of that happening again...until i just FORCED myself to drive again..(took a couple weeks)...then everything seemed to be fine, but slowly i started to get REAL bad anxiety for NO reason doing things i used to do EVERYDAY...i found myself unable to sit still..(haircuts, long drives, long dinners and sales meetings were the worst)...i would constantly have to be figgiting (sp?) through the entire haircut or meetings to the point i would have to get up and walk around because i felt like i was gonna pass out if i sat any longer...(im sure people think im on drugs or something!)

..i went to the doctor about 3 months after the 1st incident and they gave me xanax, and said i was just probably stressed and it would just go away...took the xanax as a "as needed basis" and they seemed to work, but only as a band-aid..(and didnt want to become addicted to them)...so i went again and this time they gave me paxil...well, after reading about all the horror stories of paxil (withdrawal, weight gain..etc..etc) i decided against taking them...and here i am now, still going nuts!!...my biggest issue is the "sitting still" part, my job consists of alot of driving and meetings and i dont know how long i can deal with all of them without feeling like a damn crackhead!! (not to mention all the stuff im supposed to be learning in the meetings but dont because im consantly trying to find an escape route)

keep in mind i am now 31 years old (male) and had the "car incident" when i was 30....and NEVER had an anxiety issue in my life till that faithful day...so, i guess my questions are...is it possible to just out of the blue, change into an anxious nut?...you think its just anxiety?...or could it be something physical?...any medication that you would recommend?...

and ive heard about all the breathing techniques, get more excercise and told going to see a shrink (done a ton of research online)...and they DONT work..(for me anyways)....

any help would be GREATLY appreciated!

[toouuyy]

If you haven't already seen a doctor to write off any possible underlying health issues, then do so.

If it isn't an underlying health issue then it is almost certainly stress and anxiety. Anxiety disorders can occur in people with no previous inclination towards them.

Have you been through an extended period of stress? Stress can damage the nerves to a point that they don't really function very well and can cause a significant change in your brain chemistry triggering anxiety regardless of your age.

Anxiety for "no reason" can often seem like the case but rarely actually is, it might even be that you just have a straight up fear of experiencing the fear you felt that day a year ago, it seems it had quite an affect on you as it took you a while to get back in the car.

The reason almost all of the time is due to faulty thinking somewhere down the line, trust me i've been there, some people get on the defensive when it comes to psychotherapy which is a damn shame because its the quickest pass to freedom from this crap.

It sounds like your problem is very specific to certain situations, those being when you know it would be a bad time for your symptoms to show up, and hey presto they do. This sounds like anxiety, a good therapist could really help you with this stuff and you could curb it in no time if you really give it a go.

As for drugs ssri's are very helpful for some people, it can take a while for them to do anything and they are no quick fix, they merely serve as a stabiliser and give your nerves a chance to get back to full health while you correct your thinking, which makes the change permanent. Theres always a load of crap under the side effects list of any drug, especially anxiety drugs as they are tested on people who experience many side effects which are a cause of the anxiety they suffer from rather than the drug itself, but they have to write it all in their booklets at the end of the day. I took an ssri called venlafaxine after trying others that did nothing, and it gave me few side effects and worked wonders and it did the same for my brother.

When i talk about therapy i mean cognitive behavioural therapy, not psychoanalysis (which IMO is pointless crap). You seem like a smart person who can kick this to curb read up on cognitive behavioural therapy.

[pronto11]

khhh

[pronto11]

thanks for the reply!...its not that im against therapy, im sure it works wonders for others...im just not one to sit on a couch and express my feelings to anyone..besides, they are a business, and like any other business they are out to make money just like everyone else...i just dont have the time,money or effort to stick into some shrink that is gonna put me through endless sessions of trying to talk about my childhood or my feelings......like i said, im sure it works well for others, just not me...and if it turns out to be anxiety, then i just want a medication to block that ungodly crackhead feeling that ive been experiencing...knowing is half the battle, if i knew it was just anxiety, i would have alot easier time dealing w/it...

im just having problems finding the right doctor, they dont want to do any other "check-ups" on me to find out if it may be serious...they are just quick to say its anxiety and throw me on some meds...which i find extremely uncomfortable...but again, i KNOW my body, and i know something aint right...you would think they would take a little more time to listen...i just dont know what else could be the problem, thyroid issues?...etc..etc...who knows?!....but one would think a doctor would eliminate all other possibilities before throwing someone on addictive medication

[toouuyy]

That's the way with most doctors i'm afraid, they see so many people, but they are pretty deft at spotting anxiety disorders, problem is they a lot of the time they lack the empathy to explain it to the person and just wack em on drugs.

Quick fix drugs will do nothing to solve the problem, drugs like valium etc, they will just block the receptors related to anxiety, they will do nothing to rewire your brain. SSRI's can actually help to strengthen your nerves but they have little effect for up to a possible 3 months at which point they may start working, or you may need to try another ssri. Still ssri's are not the answer for life, eventually you are going to have to identify the flaw in your thinking that leads to this happening or it will occur again and again.

A huge problem for a lot of people is that they think cognitive behavioural therapy is anything like psychoanalysis, a shrink is a psychoanalyst which was developed by Freud and is quite frankly, an enormous pile of crap.

Cognitive behavioural therapy is not focusing on your past, your past is almost irrelevant, there will be very little talking necessary before your therapist figures out the chink in your thinking that has developed and helps you straighten it out and if you really follow what they say you really shouldn't need many sessions. 6 years i had full blown generalised anxiety disorder, the methods outlined in cognitive behavioural therapy saved me.

I'm not discounting that there could be a health issue and i trust that you know your body, after all how couldn't you? but at the end of the day anxious feelings only cause us anxiety because they are foreign and unknown.

the amount of crap i've experienced that can be attributed to any number of serious health issues verges on the absurd, i had a trickling water feeling down the back of my brain for a long period of time which can be associated with all kinds of crap, but it was just anxiety, a body with too much adrenaline can experience an absurd range of effects trust me.

And honestly this reads like classic anxiety, its situational, it's subject to you being in a position in which you do not WANT to feel this way, therefore you may worry about the situation hours beforehand subconsciously while the adrenaline builds and builds, you enter the situation, say a haircut, and your body goes into what is known as "fight or flight" mode, a huge amount of adrenaline builds up because the natural human reaction to a problem they don't like is to either fight it or run the hell away, you can do neither in your situation and so the adrenaline pumps round your body, you get more scared, your body gives you more adrenaline and the horrible cycle continues until you start to feel all sorts of weird and horrible crap.

I'm not a therapist but i honestly urge you to give it a shot, psychoanalysis and shrinks are a waste of time, cbt is for straightforward rational people who want to cut this stuff out of their lives, its more powerful than any drug and actually stops the problem from recurring again unlike drugs if you really try at it.

[pronto11]

i really do appreciate the response, maybe i will look into what your talking about...my 1st step is to eliminate any and all physical problems it may be...then go from there...thanks again!