My experiences

[Joe Collins]

You know, I never pegged my self as agoraphobic until my girlfriend pointed it out to me. I always just chalked my negative feelings up to being anxiety related. I always thought agoraphobic meant being afraid of blood or being afraid to leave the house. I never understood what it actually meant until I looked it up.

Anyways, I suppose there's no better place to start off than telling you all about who I am where I'm at now in life. So here goes nothing.-

Hi, I'm Joe. I'm 23 years old. I have a 2 year old daughter who lives with her mother(my ex) in Massachusetts and I never get to see. As of march 11th I'm 3 years clean from a 8+ year daily pot smoking habit. I'm still living at home with my dad and I'm currently in the process of getting on my feet and getting my shit together.(I think this is a common thing that most people get anxiety about) I should have a car on the road by weeks end, and within a month I should be working full time with an electrical union; something I'm not particularly looking forward to as it's one of the things giving me anxiety. Today I had an interview with a Union board which actually went really well, despite having massive anxiety about the whole thing.

Taking a Valium in the morning before my interview was my saving grace. I'm lucky to have a doctor who is so willing to readily prescribe me benzodiazepines. I've been taking Valium for around 2-1/2 months now. Having had experience with addiction I have been very vigilant with my doses and trying my best to keep from getting addicted. I'd like to get off it at some point, but for the time being during this transitional 'getting on my feet' stage in my life I don't mind being dependent on it. Over the past 2-3 months I'd say I've taken maybe 2.5mg a day on average. If something happens to my awesome liberal doctor (god forbid) and I'm not able to get any more Valium then detox off of that dose shouldn't be too bad at all. But I digress...

I've always had some form of anxiety since I was maybe 13-14. Around that time my aunt Joni died. Her death was the first close family death I had ever experienced. I was living with my mother at the time and one thing led to another, and we ended up having to move to a different town. The new town had a school with 5x the number of students. It was all big shock to me mentally and emotionally. I had no friends and it was during that time I started to become more and more of a recluse. I started getting really bad stomach pains in school, feelings of my face flushing, and just a general uneasiness which can be best described as feeling as if the nerves of my arms/face/chest were being ripped out. I started seeing a psych and was diagnosed with social anxiety.

I did not respond well to SSRI medications and still do not to this day. I always got bad side effects. Most notably anorgasmia and severe nightmares. They ended up giving me Vistaril for the social anxiety. I think the pseudo-effect it had actually benefited me more than the actual drug did. I ended up coping and made my way through high school with a D average despite being extraordinarily intelligent up until grade 12. I was half a credit short and my school counselor suggested that I just get my GED. So I ended up taking my GED and acing it. Since then I've been coasting in life, bouncing between one shit job to the next.

I don't know when my anxiety peaked. It's hard to pinpoint the moment exactly. If I had to guess I'd say it really started getting bad when I was with my ex. Trust issues have always been a big problem for me and with her they were rampant. But that's another story for another time. What matters is that I have a girlfriend now that I have been with for almost 6 months and who treats me good and loves me to death....But again, I digress....

I have gastritis/ulcers. I have agoraphobia, social anxiety, and general anxiety. I can leave the house and I can talk to people with no problem. However, if I ride in a car with anyone but my dad I get panic attacks. I also get them when I ride on buses. I get dizzy, panicky, sick to my stomach, and it feels like my nerves are being ripped out. I think it stems from me feeling trapped when I'm not in control. The lack of control makes me sick. I find I can manage it better if I just think to myself 'fuck it..if I throw up I throw up...that's the worse that can happen. I accept that I'm anxious and there's nothing I can do about it.' That's the best way I've found to cope with it right now. I also found surfing and reading on my phone helps. Anything which distracts my mind helps immensely.

I figure posting my story will help me self reflect and serve as a much needed cathartic release of emotion. As well as giving others a chance to perhaps learn from me and teach me their coping mechanisms. Feedback would be much appreciated.

(It's late here and this post is unfinished. I plan on adding more to it tomorrow when I get a chance...until then, feel free to comment if you want. No worries.)

Note to self- writ about other symptoms, OCD