Welcome to the Anxiety Forum - A Home for Those with Anxiety, Fear, or Panic Attacks.
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  1. #1
    Junior Member
    Join Date
    Sep 2015
    Location
    Portland, OR
    Posts
    4

    Can't believe I'm back here again

    Hey everyone,

    I've been lurking here awhile but find myself in need of some extra support today.

    My name is Jessica, I'm 29 and I had my first panic attack when I was in 2nd grade. I have always been very introverted, but was always curious and loved to observe and speak to other people until I started to suffer from social anxiety due to some emotional trauma in middle school. This continued up through my first year of college. I went away to school across the country and made it for about a year before coming home and falling into a major depression. I didn't like where I was, and I felt like a failure for coming home. At this time, my doctor started treating me with Celexa. I was on Celexa for several years before deciding to stop taking it due to improvement in symptoms, and because the medication really killed my creativity and joie de vivre. Six months later I had another episode of severe anxiety/depression that prompted me to go back to the doctor to get back on meds. I was on Celexa again for a bit before it ultimately pooped out. After some excruciating trial and error, I was put on 10mg Lexapro, which worked well for me for several years. I didn't experience side effects and was in a really good place in life. I was seeing friends and being social, I had graduated school and had been doing well at work. My job is very stressful - I work in a veterinary emergency room and ended up moving to a new clinic in March. Around this time, my parents started to have a lot of issues, and I decided to move. I have been experiencing moderate to severe anxiety and depression since July. It's agonizing at times. I feel like I want to crawl out of my skin.

    It has never been too difficult for me to go to a professional for help. I WANT to be better. I don't want to die, I just feel like I am because of the symptoms. My anxiety/depression presents itself in a very physical way - a horrible knot in my stomach, a lump in my throat, heart palpitations, sweating, GI symptoms, having to urinate every 30 minutes when I'm feeling particularly bad, headaches, really bad insomnia, you name it. It used to be easier for me to talk myself down from these symptoms (it's JUST anxiety, it's JUST adrenaline, right?) or do some breathing exercises to make it better, but this time around those things aren't working. My doctor bumped me up to 15 mg of Lexapro, which only helped slightly after a month. I was slightly less paralyzed but still experiencing anxiety today. Wednesday will mark three weeks since she bumped me up again to 20mg. I'm still having a lot of anxiety, but I have better days and worse days. When I'm not feeling anxious, I feel like things are pointless. I'm terrified that the medication isn't going to work. I've started therapy but I'm not thrilled with my therapist, and I have been given Ambien and Clonazepam. I take the Ambien every night - it usually works well to get me to sleep but if my anxiety is bad I'll still wake up very early and cannot get back to sleep. The Clonazepam works about the same way. I'm trying not to take it much because benzos scare me.

    I feel like I'm working really hard to try and get better but it's not working. I really need to fix my diet and sleep schedule. I rarely want to eat until late evening (when I usually start to get some relief) and I eat garbage. I recently switched from night shift to day shift so it's been hard to transition from going to bed at 4am to 10pm.

    If you stuck with me through that long-winded introduction, thank you. I don't know exactly what I'm looking to get out of being here but at my core, it is deeply rewarding to me to be able to help others. I hope to come to a point in my own recovery where I can be a voice of reason and provide comfort but for right now, I'm trying to tell myself it is okay to need a voice of reason and comfort from others sometimes.

  2. #2
    Junior Member
    Join Date
    Jun 2015
    Posts
    10
    Hi Jessica,
    I have the same symptoms as you and actually just hopped on here because I had a heart palpitation that freaked me out a bit. These symptoms make my mind twist like yours, especially the heart palpitations. If you wouldn't mind messaging me privately I think we might be able to talk ourselves down. I think for me, talking with someone else who experiences heart palpitations and fears death would be a positive thing.

 

 

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