Confused :S

[Gennalouise]

Hi all,
New to this site so ill say a little about me. After having my son very young (15) i had postnatel depression but with the help of my mum and tablets I over came this. Since then i have been left with anxiety. I can normally cope with this and I only get it from time to time. My question is though can anxiety be caused by one thing? For me the i get panic attacks/anxiety about the end of the world, wars and things like that on great scale that i cant control. I have two kids 10 and 3 and get into a great state about how im going to save them ect. Around three years ago it got so bad about climate change! my rational side says one thing but my panic attacks wont let me breathe let alone think raional.

Now here comes my new problem. 2012 and all the end of the world crap that goes with it. Now ive taken the time to educate myself on this subjct and i know its rubbish but then ill over here some one, read the wrong article ect and my anxiety takes over. Ive come on here after having a panic attack after reading some thing about a meteor. I couldnt breathe i was shaking i felt like i was going to burst. I phoned my mum and she talked to me for about 45 mins and a few l-theanine later its gone. I now feel exhausted :(

My main way to cope has to been reading up on the topics that scares me but i think i may be going about this wrong and wonder whether i should be concentrating on the anxiety itself? any thoughts or ideas would be gratefully recived.

Thanks in advance Genna

any thoughts and ideas would be very helpfull

[alankay]

Genna, you hit the nail on the head. Treat every new "concern" as just another fearful symptom of anxiety. There's no such thing as man made global warming and you are not the first person to get anxious about that.
Anyway your mind is anxious and it will what as I say "make up or take up" something to vent anxious energy.
Yes, one thing can make you anxious but that's for a psychologist to sort out. It usually involves abuse/trauma/psychological conflicts, etc. Often one is predisposed to it. I am.
Have you seen a doctor on this?? If not I recommend doing so. But you can try a counselor as well. PM me any time. Alankay.

[alankay]

Kev, yeah. Global Warming my a%$!:) Acid rain,.... hole in the ozone? What will they think of next???. Alankay

[Clueless]

Hello Genna! Awful thing to be afraid of, I hope you overcome it. A frightning year indeed. Though I wasn't afraid of the same thing as yourself, I had a similar fear that led me to panic- I'm over this now and wonder if it could help you too. I used to think someone was always watching me, I even created this being in my mind and it certainly wasn't human, I believed a demon was out to get me. It's funny when I think about it now, how bonkers, but it terrified me at the time!- So, to get over it, I filled my ipod and most of my time listening to skeptical talks on the matter, and convinced myself this can't be real at all and is just my mind playing tricks on me. What I suggest doing- is searching podcasts, radios, you tube is great for it on people whom are speaking about 2012 being aload of bull, take in what they say and I hope you become convinced.

[Gennalouise]

Well I went to the docs who just looked liked had lost the plot! He has given me beta blockers and I'm only trying to take them when I start to feel panicky as they make me so so sleepy. He said he didn't wan to put me on anti ds just yet! I'm wondering if there was any other vitamins ect that I could take too! I'm taking theanine (sp) at the start of the panicky stage but it's not strong enough and I end up taking the beta any way. Again thanks for all your replies x

[jessed03]

Didn't those pastor's or prophet's recently say that they misread the situation, and the world won't infact end in 2012, due the planet's not being aligned like they had first believed.

Thank goodness for that! (I say in jest) :)

You said in your first post that reading things make you worse. Sometimes not reading things can be half the answer. It doesn't cure anxiety that easily, but in my case especially it reduced it by 75%. I had terrible agoraphobia due to a bad street attack, and I had terrible OCD related to being a psychopath in disguise. I'd read the newspapers and I'd read the biographies on these criminals. I actually always had fuel for the anxiety. I thought it was helping me. I thought that by educating myself, and furthering my curiosity, I was satisfying my worry. They say knowledge is power, but we all know that too much power corrupts. That's what happens in our mind, we know too much, and our anxiety uses it against us. I wanna put this in bold, because it's one of the best things I've ever done in my life. Stop reading. Stop going to these places that hurt you. It's an addiction. Adrenaline is addictive. Allow the fire to burn out. Make a decision to read one last thing to plant rationality in your head, then leave it there. If I didn't do this, I'd still, to this day, be on Wikipedia or the news sites, or google, and having panic attacks due to fuelling my fears. Your situation is exactly like mine, just with a different topic. Make a promise to go 3 months without doing any kind of reading or research on the subject. Let us know how you feel afterwards. :)

How long have you been taking the Beta blockers anyway Genna?

[Gennalouise]

This makes sense completely, I'm consently telling myself one more site then that'll be enough. Thing is I'm a rational person and I understand these thoughts are not my real ones. I know that no one can predict these things and when I'm feeling calm ect it almost makes me laugh but when the I'm anxious and the adrenaline hits in I can't get the thoughts to calm down and my mind races.

I'm going to these sites when I'm feeling anxious and for some reason I presumed they were helping but maybe they weren't and are just fuel.

I was given the beta blockers last tuesday but I'm not takin them daily just when the anxiety hits, I've had four since last week!

[jessed03]

Yeah, it was the same for me. I'd look at the sites or research as I thought knowing about it meant I could do something, or if there was nothing I'd feel reassaurance. It never worked that way, and I was at the point of having a few awful panic attacks every night, where I'd end up in bed, shaking in a ball, throwing up out of pure unadultered fear.... Then one day my laptop broke, and I went a few days with just some minor anxiety. It was only then I put 2 and 2 together, and realised I was actually bringing on a lot of these attacks, by scaring myself silly. I think it's the way of life, we find what we look for really. If we look for positives, I think although it's cliche we begin to see good in bad situations. When we look for fear, my goodness do we find it :)

I can definetly tell you're a rational person. In fact, I think our problem is we're too rational! So are most with anxiety. We're too analytical, too creative, too intelligent. We know too much sometimes, and it comes to bite us in the ass! We can think up arguement's for any sort of topic, in order to work ourselves up. There are so many mysteries in life, I had similar anxiety to you during my teen years, a real theological, philosophical kind of anxiety. It can really get to you, because the answers are just so vast and unknown.

How are the Beta blockers working out? They'll do work on the physical symptoms of anxiety, but as you know, they won't do anything for the mental side. They don't really prevent racing thoughts the same way other med's do. That's not a bad thing, it just means things need to be sorted out through a more CBT type method, instead of through chemicals. I don't think you need Anti-D's really, no matter how insane those racing thoughts can feel. I think a little work to slow down the mind, and things will begin to fall into place :)

[Gennalouise]

The beta blockers are ok except the give me insomnia and drowsiness! That sounds silly I know but I took one last night and I've managed two hours kip and I took one Monday and couldn't sleep at all even though I feel like I could lol! It's better than having a pain attack though I must say! I feel better for talkig about and I think I'm goin to try coming here to talk when I feel like I need to searh more information. I dot think its healthy to obsessed with a particular subject like I do when I'm anxious! Did you anxiety disappear or have you learnt to live with it?

[jessed03]

Talking helped me so much too. When I had therapy, I could never be sure if it was the techniques that had helped me, or just airing all this stuff that kept spinning around my mind. Probably a bit of both! This is a great place to come and vent some stuff, as many people here have had similar issues, or at least understand. When we tell others about our problem, it can be harder for them to understand, ya know. I remember having anxiety related to harming people, and would justbe told, that's silly, you'd never do it. It was meant to be reassuring, but it just didn't seem to help me.

I think as far as anxiety effect goes, I managed to stop the snow ball. Over time, you begin to spot patterns. It starts with maybe one quick thought such as "What if....", and the mind builds on it, you begin to scan for evidence, then if you find it, which you will, you begin to go deeper, "What will I do if this happens", "How would it affect the people I love", and before you know it, there's this whole story in your mind of all these outcomes, possibilities and tragic conclusions, complete with feelings and emotions attached to it. Often all this just starts from a single split second idea. Over time, I've learnt to stop it at stage one. Whenever those thoughts that sound like "what if's" come in, I know it's anxiety, and don't rise to them simply because I've realised I NEVER win when I do. I get that momentary feeling of concern, but there's nothing to feed it, so it's gone in seconds with minimal fuss, instead of taking 3 days like before.

My grandma used to say there are always two wolves fighting in your head. One wolf is representing fear, worry, doubt, jealousy and anxiety. The other represent's peace, happiness, calm and hope. The one that wins, is the one you feed. For quite a long period of time when my anxiety was bad, I just stopped everything that was negative. Stopped watching crime shows, stopped reading about things that worried me, stopped watching the news and gossiping about doom and gloom stuff. I wouldn't say it's essential, but it really helped me strengthen my mind again. Just putting some nice stuff in there, after all the disaster that was in there, it helped me balance everything again.

I think coming here and perhaps just expressing the fear or the thought you have, could give it a new dimension, maybe it won't seem so overpowering and terrifying seeing it outside your head, in black and white on a screen. It's worth a try :)