LeifH
10-18-2011, 05:25 PM
Hello everyone. I have been struggling with anxiety in various forms for a long time, probably my whole life. It was however not until three years ago that I started actively to work with making it better. Since then it has become considerably better. But there still remains work to do, and I figured it might help to discuss this with other people who has had similar experiences. Plus I think it will feel good to share my experience with others, as I have not really talked about this with anyone. So for those of you interested, here is my story:
(This turned out to be very much longer than intended, as I really enjoyed writing down and putting in perspective my own experiences. Read if you have time and patience)
I belive my first encounter with anxiety was in the form of social anxiety. I have tourettes syndrome, which obviously presented me with a few extra challenges during my childhood. I think the tics started when I was about 8, and reached a peak in severity when I was about 12. At this age I had a quite hard time. I was constantly worried about how noticable my tics was, and if they were going to get worse. This led me to avoid a lot of social situations. My parents never talked to me about my condition, so I knew very little about it, which probably made the whole thing more scary.
Luckily, from that age on, the tics started to get reduced in severity and quantity and I gained some confidence. I learned to pressure myself into going to social situations I would normally fear. I got new friends, and eventually started enjoying the social situations I normally dreaded. I would still get nervous when walking in the city, but it became more managable.
A few years later my social life had become very good. I had, and still have, many close friends. But my performance at school was suffering more and more. I had trouble concentrating, and my grades was way below my potential. At the same time, I started noticing a lot of weird "symptoms". My heart felt like it was out of rythm, I had weird dizziness, and other stuff I later learned was common anxiety symptoms. But at the time I really had no idea what anxiety was, although I had already experienced it in various forms without knowing it was anxiety. I regularly went to the doctor to get things checked out, and all was fine.
This continued to be my life situation up until I finished high school: I had a good social life and I met an amazing girl who became my girlfriend right before I finished school. But I was very unhappy with my grades, and was increasingly experiencing these weird symptoms which made me uneasy.
Then suddenly one day, 3 years ago, I experienced something which completely changed the direction of my life. I was sitting in the couch watching tv, and all of the sudden got struck by an extremely intense feeling that something was extremely wrong. That is the best way I can describe it. I had no idea what to do, I went to the bathroom to try to throw up, in case I had gotten some sort of acute allergic reaction or something. When that didn't help I considered calling the emergency phone, but stopped when I realized I had no idea what to tell them. "I am feeling an overwhelming sense that something is extremely wrong" was not something I thought would be taken seriously, so I did not call. It eventually passed by itself, but during the following days and weeks the feeling came back multiple times, although with less intensity than the first time. It was a horrible time. I was sure I was going completely mad, so I dared not speak to anyone about it. Unfortunatly this happended right before I started studying at the university. The first few months of my time at the university was by far the worst time I've ever experienced, it was completely awful. I had no idea what these horrible feelings were, and I felt completely certain that very soon I was going to either die or get insane.
Then, after these first months, I sent an anonymous e-mail to a doctor, and described in detail the things I was experiencing. I felt a great relief when he wrote back that I was definitly not going insane or dying: I was having something called panic attacks. I finally, after these horrible months, saw some light in the end of the tunnel. I started researching anxiety and panic attacks on the internet, and learned a great deal.
From then, I started implementing a lot of things I read would be helpful to reduce anxiety. The first thing I did was to quit tobacco and quit drinking coffee. Then I started a systematic exercise routine, involving strength and conditioning. I changed my diet to healthier food, and tried to wake up at the same time every morning. I believe these things helped a great deal. And they helped me keep motivated to fight this anxiety thing. The next step was to learn techniques to help coping with anxiety and panic attacks when they arouse. This part was harder. What I have managed to implement to a quite good extent, is to focus on reason over emotion. When I noticed an anxiety attack was brewing, I said to myself calmly that I had rationally decided that these feelings were not dangerous, and that my present emotions were irrational. I decided that when my current emotions were in conflict with rational reasoning, reason should always have the veto. This took a long time to master, but with practice it became easier. Many times I intentionally put my self in situations I knew could induce a panic attack, and then endure it. After a while the panic attacks became less frightening, and it felt great each time I won them over. I did not try to distract myself when the feelings arose, I rather felt them, while reminding myself that they are just irrational emotions, and let them pass. Now I dont fear panic attacks anymore, and the time between each gets longer and longer. Now it is at least six months since my last panic attack, and I don't fear the next one.
Allthough I no longer see panic attacks as a big problem, anxiety in other forms is still an issue, even if it has become considerably better. This is why I joined this forum today, to read other peoples experiences to learn ways reduce the anxiety even more. I think the next step for me now is to focus more on living my life in accordance with my goals, by working harder at studies, training and other areas.
It felt truly great to write all of this down. These three last years have been very special. It started absolutely horrible, more horrible than I could imagine. But it got better and better from there. There are still periods in which the anxiety is very bothersome. But it is much better than it was before, and now that I know how to fight it, I am optimistic about the future. Life is mostly quite good now. And that is not bad considering I was completely sure I was dying or going insane three years ago.
(This turned out to be very much longer than intended, as I really enjoyed writing down and putting in perspective my own experiences. Read if you have time and patience)
I belive my first encounter with anxiety was in the form of social anxiety. I have tourettes syndrome, which obviously presented me with a few extra challenges during my childhood. I think the tics started when I was about 8, and reached a peak in severity when I was about 12. At this age I had a quite hard time. I was constantly worried about how noticable my tics was, and if they were going to get worse. This led me to avoid a lot of social situations. My parents never talked to me about my condition, so I knew very little about it, which probably made the whole thing more scary.
Luckily, from that age on, the tics started to get reduced in severity and quantity and I gained some confidence. I learned to pressure myself into going to social situations I would normally fear. I got new friends, and eventually started enjoying the social situations I normally dreaded. I would still get nervous when walking in the city, but it became more managable.
A few years later my social life had become very good. I had, and still have, many close friends. But my performance at school was suffering more and more. I had trouble concentrating, and my grades was way below my potential. At the same time, I started noticing a lot of weird "symptoms". My heart felt like it was out of rythm, I had weird dizziness, and other stuff I later learned was common anxiety symptoms. But at the time I really had no idea what anxiety was, although I had already experienced it in various forms without knowing it was anxiety. I regularly went to the doctor to get things checked out, and all was fine.
This continued to be my life situation up until I finished high school: I had a good social life and I met an amazing girl who became my girlfriend right before I finished school. But I was very unhappy with my grades, and was increasingly experiencing these weird symptoms which made me uneasy.
Then suddenly one day, 3 years ago, I experienced something which completely changed the direction of my life. I was sitting in the couch watching tv, and all of the sudden got struck by an extremely intense feeling that something was extremely wrong. That is the best way I can describe it. I had no idea what to do, I went to the bathroom to try to throw up, in case I had gotten some sort of acute allergic reaction or something. When that didn't help I considered calling the emergency phone, but stopped when I realized I had no idea what to tell them. "I am feeling an overwhelming sense that something is extremely wrong" was not something I thought would be taken seriously, so I did not call. It eventually passed by itself, but during the following days and weeks the feeling came back multiple times, although with less intensity than the first time. It was a horrible time. I was sure I was going completely mad, so I dared not speak to anyone about it. Unfortunatly this happended right before I started studying at the university. The first few months of my time at the university was by far the worst time I've ever experienced, it was completely awful. I had no idea what these horrible feelings were, and I felt completely certain that very soon I was going to either die or get insane.
Then, after these first months, I sent an anonymous e-mail to a doctor, and described in detail the things I was experiencing. I felt a great relief when he wrote back that I was definitly not going insane or dying: I was having something called panic attacks. I finally, after these horrible months, saw some light in the end of the tunnel. I started researching anxiety and panic attacks on the internet, and learned a great deal.
From then, I started implementing a lot of things I read would be helpful to reduce anxiety. The first thing I did was to quit tobacco and quit drinking coffee. Then I started a systematic exercise routine, involving strength and conditioning. I changed my diet to healthier food, and tried to wake up at the same time every morning. I believe these things helped a great deal. And they helped me keep motivated to fight this anxiety thing. The next step was to learn techniques to help coping with anxiety and panic attacks when they arouse. This part was harder. What I have managed to implement to a quite good extent, is to focus on reason over emotion. When I noticed an anxiety attack was brewing, I said to myself calmly that I had rationally decided that these feelings were not dangerous, and that my present emotions were irrational. I decided that when my current emotions were in conflict with rational reasoning, reason should always have the veto. This took a long time to master, but with practice it became easier. Many times I intentionally put my self in situations I knew could induce a panic attack, and then endure it. After a while the panic attacks became less frightening, and it felt great each time I won them over. I did not try to distract myself when the feelings arose, I rather felt them, while reminding myself that they are just irrational emotions, and let them pass. Now I dont fear panic attacks anymore, and the time between each gets longer and longer. Now it is at least six months since my last panic attack, and I don't fear the next one.
Allthough I no longer see panic attacks as a big problem, anxiety in other forms is still an issue, even if it has become considerably better. This is why I joined this forum today, to read other peoples experiences to learn ways reduce the anxiety even more. I think the next step for me now is to focus more on living my life in accordance with my goals, by working harder at studies, training and other areas.
It felt truly great to write all of this down. These three last years have been very special. It started absolutely horrible, more horrible than I could imagine. But it got better and better from there. There are still periods in which the anxiety is very bothersome. But it is much better than it was before, and now that I know how to fight it, I am optimistic about the future. Life is mostly quite good now. And that is not bad considering I was completely sure I was dying or going insane three years ago.