What triggered the anxiety on the day it started for you?

[Varjo]

I'm curious to how people wound up with anxiety randomly over time or all of the sudden. Do you remember what you were thinking on that day, the day before, or have you always had anxiety? Was there any dramatic changes right before the anxiety, were you using any kinds of drugs (caffiene included)? Was there a sudden panic attack or did you just wake up feeling anxious?

Lately I've thought hard through this, I realized there was two things in my mind the day I suffered the anxiety attack. One was my situation with this girl I'm seeing, she suffers from panic attacks and deppression herself and often it stresses me out because she can get so cold and shut everyone out completely, or talks about suicide. And I realize I always stress about finding out one day that she's killed herself, or decided to shut me out because I feel like she's the only person I've ever met who I can acutally connect to. On the night before the attack, I remember stressing about this girl because she was having one of her bad days again.

Another thing I remmeber stressing in the morning was that I was extreamly bored with life in this town. I had just come from holiday and had a nice time in a big city partying and having a good time and then I had to come back to the reality of being in this small town, having few close friends and having to start school again. I remember thinking that day "I have absolutely nothing to do today" and it freaked me out more then anything.

I started thinking of when I'd get to leave this town, my fear was that I'd have to be here for another two years. So I wrote out a plan to how I'd manage to get out of here by next summer instead, I felt a lot better after that. I drunk a lot of coffee, and went to watch tv. All of the sudden this strange wave of confusion hits me, first my thoughts slow down and then they speed up and I push it aside to that it's just the caffiene withdrawal hitting me again (happens quite often since I always drink too much caffiene) but then this sudden idea of "what if" hits my head and a full blown panic attacks happens. And that is where my anxiety offically started. It's been almost two months now that I've been dealing with this.


Do you know what your own trigger was?

[thissucks]

checking my blood pressure

[lunalady]

mine started when I was 7. I was traumatized by being taken out of public school (where I had a lot of friends) and transferred to a catholic school.

[tconnorbok]

Mine started just two months ago and it has been crazy for me. When I look back I think it actually started before that time but it was very mild and almost not noticable. I worry a lot about my health but I really shouldn't because I am a health person. But one day I had a inflammed prostate that my current DR couldn't treat because he was treating me for a UTI. Long story short after I did a lot of research on the internet I thought I had prostate cancer (I didn't but my mind took over) and it really scared me, so one morning I woke up and was feeling fine and then at lunch i had a panic attack which drained me and I went home. After that I was really anxious and tense all the time which causes the anxiety stick with me all day.
Also, my job is really stressful and I always think what I am going to do if i ever lost my job how would I provide for my family but now I am wondering how i am going to coupe with this thing called anxiety because it has impacted my life a lot.

[Rob1978]

The very first time I smoked pot about 15 years ago. I've been stuck in this mental haze ever since then, and while there are periods where I almost forget, it's ALWAYS there if I think about it. The few people I've discussed it with are like "lol, I wish that would happen to me.". I'm sure they would laugh if I told them marijuana ruined my life, so I keep the severity of the condition to myself.

[mhdwjw]

I think alot of people would say 'oh it came out of the blue' (myself included) but then when you do actually look back you realise that it has probably been lingering for a while.

Mine came on strong after being crook on holidays but this was after an extremely tough year raising twins! (anxiety comes from stress). I never realised but I had been having panic attacks probably the last 5 years during high stress situations but they would go away and there would be no lingering anxiety. I wouldn't think twice about them.

I definitely feel some are 'predisposed' to anxiety and depression based on their personality types, strengths, copying skills etc. I know my sister is very strong mentally and is able to manage her stress effectively but I am the opposite! But I am learning!

take care

[forwells]

Howdy all

I guess it started from stress from a very hard time in my life and also i throw back in believing that something from my past ( illness ) was coming back .

That really only caused me high stress . It was not until i was treated with the wrong benzos and became addicted to them that the anxiety and fears went into overdrive.


I definitely feel some are 'predisposed' to anxiety and depression based on their personality types, strengths, copying skills etc. I know my sister is very strong mentally and is able to manage her stress effectively but I am the opposite! But I am learning!

We are not so much predisposed to it . We are all born the same on the inside its just that we all learn different things as we grow. That is the good news . It means that if we learned it then we can also unlearn it . Never ever believe that what you are today you have to be tomorrow . People change over time and their thinking and what is important to them also changes .

I personally believe that anxiety is a blessing . My father i am pretty sure had anxiety and maybe depression . He never sorted treatment and died at 66 . Maybe he thought it was just him and he couldn't change that. Anxiety gives us a chance to look at our lives and change thing before it to late . Many dont get that chance.

I know my sister is very strong mentally So am i so i can tell you that anxiety can happen to anyone giving the right things happening at the wrong time .

cheers kev :D

[ThePhoenix]

It only really hit me when I was in my early 20s, it was mostly brought on by having too much time to myself and my thoughts. This, coupled with being a chronic worrier and an appointment with Dr Google tipped my anxiety into overdrive!

In hindsight though, I was always an anxious person, i just didnt realise it but even when I was in primary school I can remember situations that were pure anxiety.

[jj1983]

Well, mine first started when I was 22, which was 5 years ago. I was working 2 jobs fulltime..(bank and kroger) I didn't want to quit Kroger because I loved it there and had been there for several years,but I liked the bank too. It was a July 4th and I was working at Kroger, it was slammin busy. Every checkout open and about 1,000 people in the store. I about threw up, my heart started racing and I about fainted. It was very scary.

At the time I was married to a real idiot who only cared about him and was cheating on me with a girl 3 times my size. But anyway the stress of knowing that and working so much FIRST set it off.

When I got divorced it went away and it was as though a weight was lifted. Even through my crazy fear of change, (we were together 7 years) BUT it was the BEST choice I have ever made!

For a few years,I have had them ONLY in social situations where there is alot of people..but 2 months ago it started happening AGAIN. I walked into church, it was homecoming and lots of people. I about fainted and left church and went to my inlaws to lay down.

This time I think it was everything. Our daughter passing away in Feb.,our our 30 month old stopped talking when she died, we are trying to sell our home and will be moving 10 1/2 hrs where we know NO ONE (I have always lived in this town where we live now)

SO, now they are back and after getting my EKG results being abnormal they are really bad.

I wake every morning with a achy belly, can not breath good and feeling stressed. By about 2pm I feel some better(never 100%) but by bedtime I feel the same as I do in the mornings! Shaky,scared,hard to breathe.

I am 27/f/ 5'6" 128lbs,healthy non smoker, non-meat eater with a BP of 102-104 on top number!

[stuart101]

mine was a year ago, i'm overweight and i was eating a heavy meal and when i finished i felt hot and sweaty it felt as i stopped breathing my heart raced then i had a panic attack and since then i have anxiety attacks that i think all day i'm going to die even though i stopped the junk food.

[blue]

Although I always suffered it to some degree, it really began in the 3rd grade when I was transferred to a different school. I was and still am a painfully shy individual with many fears and phobias and was clumsy and unathletic as a child. I was relentlessly bullied and picked on by other kids in school to no end and was an extremely poor student with possible ADD. I was constantly being scolded by nasty teachers and most of them were mean. I grew up with tremendous anxiety and fear and never quite learned how to deal with or overcome it. By 7th grade I was sent to a cliquish parochial (catholic school) and things deteriorated even further. I was bullied by just about the entire class which was even worse than in public school. Though most of the abuse was verbal, I still dealt many punches and bruises. The teachers of course always ignored the problem citing I was the trouble maker because I was an outcast and got poor grades. By High School things seemed to improve but I still dealt social anxiety, didn't have many friends and almost flunked out of 11th grade. To this very day at 41 years of age I still suffer social and many other anxieties and as a result I cannot get an education or learn a skill because I still flunk courses at college and as a result I still work a minimum wage job.

[Robbed]

.......was an extremely poor student with possible ADD.

Have you actually been tested for a learning disability such as ADD/ADHD or dyslexia? If you haven't, you should consider it. There are effective ways of dealing with these sorts of problems. And not all of them involve the use of medications (which I believe is generally something to be avoided). On the other hand, keep in mind that conditions like depression and anxiety tend to have symptoms which mimic MANY different diseases. This is why SO many people with depression and anxiety worry about having more serious conditions. And these conditions are not limited to physical ones like heart attacks and strokes. The poor memory, inability to concentrate, and generally less fluent thinking that can result from depression/anxiety can certainly cause one to feel like they have a learning disability (such ADD or something else). However, these are actually VERY common depression/anxiety symptoms, and not a sign that you actually have a learning disability as such. Of course, the negative mental conditioning you got in school doesn't exactly foster learning, either.

In any case, dealing with this learning problem could be the key to a better life for you. I would be willing to bet that the bullying you dealt with in your childhood is no longer really a factor in your life. But you probably look at your inability to learn as a legacy of your past, which seems to be holding you back. If you can deal with this and make a better life for yourself in the 'here and now', I honestly think that it would become THAT much easier to finally put the 'ghosts in your past' to rest once and for all.

[kathique]

My story is very similar to robs. Marijuana ruined my life basically. I tried it once when I was 14 and absolutely flipped out. I had a panic disorder for two years after that. I was ok until my mid 20's when I had a lot I'd stress and i developed gad, pushed myself too hard - thought I could be superwoman and had a stress breakdown. I've had gad for two years now.