jon mike
05-12-2011, 03:34 AM
Wow, it has name, surprisingly comforting I found in many ways.
First of all let me start by telling you that if you are reading this then I hope that you can take some comfort in knowing that all is not lost and you WILL be well again sooner than you think.
Let me begin by telling you a little bit about myself...
I am a really outgoing person, always have been always will be, very confident, very chatty and most of all I feel I am a good person, I pride myself on knowing I am good person to be around and for people to trust, this is why this experience over the last few months smothered me.
I am a believer in science, I do not believe in god, I believe in people and the way people treat each other, the people I love the most are my gods, if god existed he would not have let me suffer the way that I suffered, fact! Fuck your god I thought.
It scared me to even think these things, why would I? I'm an everyday man from England who happens to be going out of his mind, watching the people he loves the most disappear in front of him.
I'm in my thirties now, when I was 16 I smoked marijuana with so called friends from school, I walked into a shop and my world collapsed around me, my mind altered that day, I had altered my mind? Had i? Scary stuff for just a young lad, things just got worse and worse from that day forward.
When I was 18 I had a panic attack, i didn't know what was happening to me, I just couldn't control my breathing, I had noticed my breathing! So what? Everybody breathes, if I didn't breathe I would be dead, not so simple life anymore is it? The doctor came out because my mum was also panicking, bless, the doctor said I was hyperventilating, that went soon enough after 20 minutes of terror. God, how shit life was from then on, things just kept getting worse for me, I felt low all the time, experienced awful feelings and thoughts, I had sleep paralysis all the time. What a mess! From the age of 19 to 26 life was all about me and my craziness, choking in public, the feeling like I was about to hyperventilate all the time, sinking feelings, scared, crying, numbness, void of feeling, permanent dry mouth and on and on it went, i hadn't a clue what anxiety was back then, I thought anxiety was something along the lines of feeling lethargic or rundown but not this.
I'm 27 and the girl I was with for 7 years has had sex with my friend behind my back, naturally I thought this is it, this is where i leave the planet, I thought ye, bye mum.
God I could not have been more wrong, everything that been holding me down had lifted and left me like the weight of the world had left my shoulders, I was a new man.
I started to play cricket again which was previously impossible before as I would have choked to death in the field whilst fielding obviously!
Everything was back to normal, like it had all been a horrible nightmare, I had even forgotten about most things, I felt wonderful, like when I was 15 years old, I could go out for a beer with people and wake up happy, unbelievable! Beautiful, the world was my friend again, we were getting on great.
Later that year I met my future wife and met new friends, good friends, friends that are your friends because your interesting to them and vice versa, because you just are when you act kinda strange!
Apart the odd time from the age of 27 until now everything was beautiful, I still had anxiety but it seemed to be controlled, I'm still not aware I have an anxiety issue even at this time! I'm still a little mad but loving life, I can cope with not being able to stay in tesco for more than 5 minutes, some sadness, choking, occasional dread and fear, but I can't cope with everything.
On new years day this year (2011) I went out for a drink with family and friends, I drank so much that night, I mean a lot, I do enjoy a beer, Im far from alcoholic i just like socialising more than anything I think, my limit has always been 7 beers, I managed to get through a bottle of whiskey, wine, rum, beer, my god what a fucking idiot.
I woke up on Sunday morning, my wife had already left for work, I went down stairs and bang, feelings rushed into me like a dam had burst inside me and the oceans were filling me with everything that had built up inside, an ocean of fear, dread, confusion all in one hit, I couldn't control my breathing, I was thinking about it again, Oh no! Panic, pain, tears, hate for myself, ignition, take off and off i went into space all alone again.
Im trying to explain to my wife what is happening but it's no use I'm on my own, I'm back in my world of shit, Like it never left me.
I was speaking to a friend about it who i knew had experienced some problems himself, it wont be like this though i thought but I'll try to explain.
Around the same time I started to experience a different feeling, I looked up at the sky one day and I saw the clouds, they seemed huge, then I started to feel like I had only just noticed them? I can't remember them looking like this? I looked at the horizon and saw that it stopped.
I started to think a lot about the sky and why it was there, I was thinking what was behind that sky, space, Oh my god how I am goin cope with this, the universe forever expanding.
Everyday I looked up and had a feeling that it was all very unrealistic, why have I not noticed it before in this way, surely it has always been there? Not in this way, not in the way i was looking at it now. Everything had changed, I'll never view the world In the same way again. The words 'the world' seemed very scary to me, I'm actually walking on the earth that is a giant piece of rock that is floating around in the middle of nowhere in space. I would watch the weather on tv that I had seen a million times before and they would show you a picture of the world and I just could not understand how everyone else could be so accepting of it!
At this time I am totally void of anything remotely resembling a normal feeling of well being, empathy, hate, anger, anything, nothing, everything was gone.
I had one feeling and feeling only, that I was alone on a planet that only I realised we were all on, that only I had the knowledge of what seemed like the matrix, I was the only one who knew.
During all this I'm holding down a gas engineering job which means I do a lot of driving, as if things could not get any worse, I started to look at my hand that was wrapped around the steering wheel, then I started to think how the hell am I moving it? These arms don't feel like they belong to me! That feeling soon escalated and progressed to my legs, I felt like a ball that had these four weird bits of bone and muscle attached to it. It wasn't long before I began to stare at colour and obsess over that, smells, memory, sounds, taste, over and over again.
Luckily for me the friend i had spoke to had been able to convince me that it was all down to anxiety, it took some believing i can tell you, I couldn't understand how anxiety could be so diverse, how it could make me feel like I was on a strange planet, my body was not my own, the places and faces I once loved had somehow altered, how everything could be so different, how I could have been through all that for years.
The word anxiety just did not sound severe enough.
I have since recognised that I just have an anxiety problem, I've started to try and relax more, ive slowed down, I read more, ive started to look at my feelings and thoughts as they are happening, I'm trying to recognise what is making me feel bad, it is really simple stuff that starts my anxiety off, recognising that it is anxiety is the key, as soon as you can relate anxiety to yourself your on your way back up. When the unearthly madness was happening I convinced myself that it was anxiety driven and now I don't need to convince myself at all because I know that's what it
I feel so much better now, the crippling thoughts have gone and so has the loneliness of it all, it's amazing how many people this happens to just around my local neighbourhood never mind in the world, unbelievable really that I used to sit there wondering if anybody else in the world was thinking the same way I was. Maybe somewhere in Africa or one person in outer Mongolia.
Ive managed to get myself back to normal through rational thinking so I'm just writing this so people no everything is not lost,
If this relates to you, I feel for you but remember what doesn't kill you only makes you stronger and anxiety and it's affects will not kill you!
First of all let me start by telling you that if you are reading this then I hope that you can take some comfort in knowing that all is not lost and you WILL be well again sooner than you think.
Let me begin by telling you a little bit about myself...
I am a really outgoing person, always have been always will be, very confident, very chatty and most of all I feel I am a good person, I pride myself on knowing I am good person to be around and for people to trust, this is why this experience over the last few months smothered me.
I am a believer in science, I do not believe in god, I believe in people and the way people treat each other, the people I love the most are my gods, if god existed he would not have let me suffer the way that I suffered, fact! Fuck your god I thought.
It scared me to even think these things, why would I? I'm an everyday man from England who happens to be going out of his mind, watching the people he loves the most disappear in front of him.
I'm in my thirties now, when I was 16 I smoked marijuana with so called friends from school, I walked into a shop and my world collapsed around me, my mind altered that day, I had altered my mind? Had i? Scary stuff for just a young lad, things just got worse and worse from that day forward.
When I was 18 I had a panic attack, i didn't know what was happening to me, I just couldn't control my breathing, I had noticed my breathing! So what? Everybody breathes, if I didn't breathe I would be dead, not so simple life anymore is it? The doctor came out because my mum was also panicking, bless, the doctor said I was hyperventilating, that went soon enough after 20 minutes of terror. God, how shit life was from then on, things just kept getting worse for me, I felt low all the time, experienced awful feelings and thoughts, I had sleep paralysis all the time. What a mess! From the age of 19 to 26 life was all about me and my craziness, choking in public, the feeling like I was about to hyperventilate all the time, sinking feelings, scared, crying, numbness, void of feeling, permanent dry mouth and on and on it went, i hadn't a clue what anxiety was back then, I thought anxiety was something along the lines of feeling lethargic or rundown but not this.
I'm 27 and the girl I was with for 7 years has had sex with my friend behind my back, naturally I thought this is it, this is where i leave the planet, I thought ye, bye mum.
God I could not have been more wrong, everything that been holding me down had lifted and left me like the weight of the world had left my shoulders, I was a new man.
I started to play cricket again which was previously impossible before as I would have choked to death in the field whilst fielding obviously!
Everything was back to normal, like it had all been a horrible nightmare, I had even forgotten about most things, I felt wonderful, like when I was 15 years old, I could go out for a beer with people and wake up happy, unbelievable! Beautiful, the world was my friend again, we were getting on great.
Later that year I met my future wife and met new friends, good friends, friends that are your friends because your interesting to them and vice versa, because you just are when you act kinda strange!
Apart the odd time from the age of 27 until now everything was beautiful, I still had anxiety but it seemed to be controlled, I'm still not aware I have an anxiety issue even at this time! I'm still a little mad but loving life, I can cope with not being able to stay in tesco for more than 5 minutes, some sadness, choking, occasional dread and fear, but I can't cope with everything.
On new years day this year (2011) I went out for a drink with family and friends, I drank so much that night, I mean a lot, I do enjoy a beer, Im far from alcoholic i just like socialising more than anything I think, my limit has always been 7 beers, I managed to get through a bottle of whiskey, wine, rum, beer, my god what a fucking idiot.
I woke up on Sunday morning, my wife had already left for work, I went down stairs and bang, feelings rushed into me like a dam had burst inside me and the oceans were filling me with everything that had built up inside, an ocean of fear, dread, confusion all in one hit, I couldn't control my breathing, I was thinking about it again, Oh no! Panic, pain, tears, hate for myself, ignition, take off and off i went into space all alone again.
Im trying to explain to my wife what is happening but it's no use I'm on my own, I'm back in my world of shit, Like it never left me.
I was speaking to a friend about it who i knew had experienced some problems himself, it wont be like this though i thought but I'll try to explain.
Around the same time I started to experience a different feeling, I looked up at the sky one day and I saw the clouds, they seemed huge, then I started to feel like I had only just noticed them? I can't remember them looking like this? I looked at the horizon and saw that it stopped.
I started to think a lot about the sky and why it was there, I was thinking what was behind that sky, space, Oh my god how I am goin cope with this, the universe forever expanding.
Everyday I looked up and had a feeling that it was all very unrealistic, why have I not noticed it before in this way, surely it has always been there? Not in this way, not in the way i was looking at it now. Everything had changed, I'll never view the world In the same way again. The words 'the world' seemed very scary to me, I'm actually walking on the earth that is a giant piece of rock that is floating around in the middle of nowhere in space. I would watch the weather on tv that I had seen a million times before and they would show you a picture of the world and I just could not understand how everyone else could be so accepting of it!
At this time I am totally void of anything remotely resembling a normal feeling of well being, empathy, hate, anger, anything, nothing, everything was gone.
I had one feeling and feeling only, that I was alone on a planet that only I realised we were all on, that only I had the knowledge of what seemed like the matrix, I was the only one who knew.
During all this I'm holding down a gas engineering job which means I do a lot of driving, as if things could not get any worse, I started to look at my hand that was wrapped around the steering wheel, then I started to think how the hell am I moving it? These arms don't feel like they belong to me! That feeling soon escalated and progressed to my legs, I felt like a ball that had these four weird bits of bone and muscle attached to it. It wasn't long before I began to stare at colour and obsess over that, smells, memory, sounds, taste, over and over again.
Luckily for me the friend i had spoke to had been able to convince me that it was all down to anxiety, it took some believing i can tell you, I couldn't understand how anxiety could be so diverse, how it could make me feel like I was on a strange planet, my body was not my own, the places and faces I once loved had somehow altered, how everything could be so different, how I could have been through all that for years.
The word anxiety just did not sound severe enough.
I have since recognised that I just have an anxiety problem, I've started to try and relax more, ive slowed down, I read more, ive started to look at my feelings and thoughts as they are happening, I'm trying to recognise what is making me feel bad, it is really simple stuff that starts my anxiety off, recognising that it is anxiety is the key, as soon as you can relate anxiety to yourself your on your way back up. When the unearthly madness was happening I convinced myself that it was anxiety driven and now I don't need to convince myself at all because I know that's what it
I feel so much better now, the crippling thoughts have gone and so has the loneliness of it all, it's amazing how many people this happens to just around my local neighbourhood never mind in the world, unbelievable really that I used to sit there wondering if anybody else in the world was thinking the same way I was. Maybe somewhere in Africa or one person in outer Mongolia.
Ive managed to get myself back to normal through rational thinking so I'm just writing this so people no everything is not lost,
If this relates to you, I feel for you but remember what doesn't kill you only makes you stronger and anxiety and it's affects will not kill you!