help iv relapsed

[richy1991]

hey all
i have been dealing with anxiety for just under a year
i had been doing well on recovering, i got to a point where i could live a normal life
but since sunday night my anxiety has shoot back up, and im starting to get symptoms again

my anxiety started when my girlfriend went home after we had spent along period of time together, i dunno why but i just had a panic attack and then developed anxiety

i see my girlfriend every day and i take her home at 11pm and she stays over friday and saturdays, we have done this ever since my anxiety started
i had got better and got use to this however last sunday when taking her home my anxiety just came back :S

i was trying to see what has changed in my lifestyle the last few weeks and the only thing i can think off is lack of sleep and lack of food due to an addiction to a new game that recently came out

can anyone offer me some advice please, i could really do with some cus i dont wanna relapse too bad

thanks
richy

[jessed03]

Hey rich,

I find this is something that I deal with on occassion now. After completing the therapies, changing my lifestyle, and being discharged from various doctors or specialists I was seeing, I reached a point where I had undergone prolonged time without any real symptoms. Sure I got a little nervous on occassion, maybe my muscles were carrying a little extra stress than 'normal' peoples, but there were no signs of anxiety.
I've found though, that there are still those occassions; you know the ones where it feels like you've gone back 6 months, and in your head you sort of just curse, because you thought you were getting better. I've found those just come. There will be days when you just feel pretty off. Maybe theres no reason you could control. Sometimes these come in periods. Low periods, stressful periods, anxious periods.
Due to the amount of work, and suffering people like us have gone through to get back to normality, we have a lot to lose. We may see through anxiety now, and maybe we no longer fear our impending doom, or fear bizarre symptoms, but one thing we do fear is relapse. That terrifies us. I can see in every sentence of your post how strong this fear is (and rightly so), but it is nonetheless no different to the person fearing symptoms of their heart racing. Treat it as you treated your other symptoms in the past. . Don't attach the label "relapse" to it, as this is now your trigger. Your anxiety has found something to cling onto again, don't let it. Accept the feelings for what they are. Then just leave them alone. Let them pass on their own. As with anxiety in the pass, don't give it the credibility of saying it could be a relapse, simply accept it as a bad period, like all recoverers of all illnesses have.

As for what started them, it's a very very real possibility that bad sleep and no food brought them on. One thing I've noticed in all anxiety sufferers, is that even though on the surface the body and mind seem calm, the brain and body are very aware of what we've just been through, and any changes can bring on these feelings of anxiety again.
It's just stimulation within the body. It doesn't necassarily have any reason, for instance I've had the worst month of my life, loss of loved ones, health issues etc, and although I've been down, I haven't had a single panic attack. Compare that with 3 months ago. I had time off work, no stresses, I was eating junk food, not sleeping, doing what I wanted, and suddenly found myself in a prolonged period of heightened anxiety.

Be gentle with your body. Don't take recovery for granted, as it's something that will continue to happen below the surface for the next decade. That's not to say you'll be sensitive, but your body needs to heal those wounds far far below that we never see. It's still on MEDIUM alert, we've just managed to take it down from MAXIMUM, various changes to diet, sleep habits, mental habits etc can cause the body to experience those feelings of unfamiliarity, which it mistakes for anxiety and panic attacks.

Treat yourself well, get some good meals, some good rest, breathe properly, laugh and smile, slow the pace, check in with your body to see if it's giving you any signals of what it doesn't like. Hopefully that will allow the stimulation to go down, as well as the cognitive methods preventing anxiety from escalating.

I'm at that year stage too now, I'm still getting used to what my body does, and doesn't want at the moment.

What's the game by the way? Modern Warfare? :)

[richy1991]

Thanks jessed for your advice, i have took it all in

i think it dosnt help that im coming up to a year cus i was hoping that id be fully recovered by now, and it gets to me that im not

iv decided to make changes to my life, which are eating the right amount of food, getting enought water etc, i know i wont get it all right to start of with but i hope to get there

yeah good guess thats the game

[jessed03]

Thanks jessed for your advice, i have took it all in

i think it dosnt help that im coming up to a year cus i was hoping that id be fully recovered by now, and it gets to me that im not

iv decided to make changes to my life, which are eating the right amount of food, getting enought water etc, i know i wont get it all right to start of with but i hope to get there

yeah good guess thats the game

Hopefully that should be it, a few times I've had bad periods of anxiety when I've neglected certain things like sleep and proper nutrition, over exercising used to make me terribly anxious too. I read that when you're tired, and hungry, your blood sugar drops, which increases the tireness, meaning your body has to pump adrenaline around in order to give you the boost to get through. The body often mistakes this for what it's previously known as anxiety.

I remember when it come up to a year for me, I actually had a terrible 7-10 days. Really low, really stressed and panicky... felt like I'd gone back in time a year, I was so disheartened. Everything just seemed to bring back memories. The smells, the temperature, the tv shows, all of it. Thankfully I just managed to hold tight, and ride it out, and it seemed to just go without a fuss. I think it's bad for me as I do suffer seasonly, so when it gets dark at 3pm i feel a little lower for a while anyway. Hopefully it'll all just flatten out for you.

So that MW must be something if you're depriving yourself of sleep and meals lol. I haven't checked it out, but if people are willing to skip a week of work to camp on the street, theres gotta be something good about it!!

[jon mike]

Call of duty in moderation! It sets my anxiety off to! Good game in small doses! :-)

[richy1991]

ahh i see so if i reduce the adrenaline then my anxiety may decrease?

my symptoms atm are just deep sadness and feeling anxious
a few physical symptoms but nothing of concern

yeah as for cod mw3, i have stopped playing it beacuse it just shoots my anger and stress levels up
so i have started to play more relaxed games like online rpgs, hopefully that will help

finally i have alot of other problems in my life, are these playing a factor in my anxiety?
they are:
-mild anger problem
-medium social anxiety problem (tbh this one dosnt bother me)
-im a big worrier
-finally i have a mild eating disorder

would it be worth working on these to help my anxiety?

cheers
richy

[jessed03]

If you reduce the adrenaline your anxiety will definetly reduce to some extent. This isn't always possible though, and isn't always the right thing to do, as adrenaline is useful to us, it keeps us focused when tired, motivates us, protects us. It's just we've learnt to create too much of it, and use whatever we do have to direct it towards counterproductive thoughts (for example the anxiety sufferer who spends all night awake worrying about a burglar, instead of up all night finishing a project for the next important day at work.)

Like forewells said, it comes down to over-stimulation. I really found this out the hard way. After eating spicy foods, over exercising, kissing a pretty girl, watching crime shows, missing out and sleep and water, spending too much time alone, I noticed huge peaks in my anxiety and had that disappointed feeling that I had gone backwards. I sort of learned to work with it, and accept my body is pretty tired, and doesn't like getting over worked. I still have those odd days like you've both described, but they're very drawn out and managable now.

I've found over time these things bother me less and less. The body can misunderstand tiredness or hunger, or excitement for anxiety. I remember some of the worst anxiety feelings I would have were when leaving my girlfriends place, simply because being in her company was actually stimulating my heart rate, my physiology and my mind so much that it was confusing my body. I only found that out pretty recently. Now I take more slow breaths, and step back occassionally. I've read it regularly on this forum, people come on and say they get panic attacks when excited, or happy (pretty unfair right!). The over stimulation can then be worsened by the thoughts that go with it, of failure, of relapse of disappointment, now the mind and body are over stimulated, and we're back to a feeling very similar to before. Thankfully if good care is taken for a while, it does often reduce significantly, and most people get back to normal. It's all a game of trial and error! Finding a balance that works, thats challenging, but not overly so.

As for the other issues, I'm working on something very similar myself. By all means analyse them, and see if you can work on them, maybe introducing some cbt strategies can ease them. For me I've found the more I reduce the baseline anxiety (with the obvious things, relaxation, good habits), the more these problems are failing to bother me. They still need work, but they seem far weaker when the root issues are being dealt with, than they would be alone, trying to tackle one issue separately.

You can tell I've spent way too much time reading the books lol. This is what happens when you can't kiss pretty girls, man! Thankfully the solution came to me eventually!

I remember some of the rage fits I had playing multiplayer Xbox. I didn't know I was capable of such things lol. I think the best thing that happened to me was the red ring of death!! Gave my body a chance to rest up, those games can get seriously addictive! Albeit fun...

[richy1991]

i see, so can i ask what you guys do when your feeling anxious, like what you guys do to ease the feeling
also what do you guys do when your feeling really down?

because tbh i feel like in the past i have just struggled through rather than learn to cope,
the reason i say that is because my anxiety has returned i feel like i have no idea what to do

cheers
richy

[richy1991]

im sorry to hear your on meds, thats one thing i have restrained myself from

but thats the thing though, i dont feel i understand it at all because it has been so confusing for me as everything that happened was so random for me

i try and work out why it happens to me, i sometimes think this is all happening when my gf leaves, but then when im with her i still feel bad
then i think maybe its cus im always with her, but then when i have a long day at work or she has a long day at uni, i still feel bad
i'v thought maybe its my diet but when i was feeling fine for the last few months my diet was the same as always
i'v thought maybe im not getting enough sleep, but again when i was feeling fine i wasnt sleeping much either, but yet i was still fine

so as you can see its all been very random for me and iv had no direct answers, which is why i dont feel i understand it

iv been trying to do things that helped me through anxiety he first time, but i get scared to do them now because i feel if i do them then im addmitting that im bad again

so yeah im just as confused now as i was 12 months ago

cheers and same to you
richy

[alankay]

Richy, I distract myself(various ways), practice progressive relaxation, deep breathing, get some aerobic exercise. Anything stimulating can increase anxiety(gaming, violent movies, super load music, etc). The adrenaline is what increases heart rate, makes you feel warm, makes you feel fear, etc, and it's at the core(physically) of the flight or fight(anxiety response). One thing I've learned is that part of that response is the tightening of the muscles in the head, jaw and shoulders. If you practice progressive relaxation(google it) part of that will be to consciously relax those body parts/muscles. This can basically interrupt/impede the flight or flight response. It won't always do the trick though but to answer your question, it's one of the things I do. Message me anytime.