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
    Oct 2015
    Location
    Slovenia
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    8

    Talking Hi, there! Julianna here! :D

    Hello everyone!

    I'm really happy I found this page since I'm experiencing severe anxiety attacks again and am not willing to go try the meds again.

    I've had my panic anxiety attack first time when I was 20, just fresh into university. They were really bad and I lost total sense of who I am, what my life is about and so on, which is even scarier than the anxiety itself. I was put on meds for a few months, but it was even worse. The attacks stopped but I neede months and months and months to get back feeling like myself again. I had problems with my memory, everything was there, it's just that information in my head hardly seemed real to me, eventhough I knew they were. I had problems memorizing, I was confused easily, on the edge all the time, it was hard to concentrate, I hardly understood my old lecture notes... It was a pain in the ass because my studying quality was dropped and I could've been a really good student with good grades. I was studying electrical engineering and I still have a few exams before I get my degree. Anyway so the attacks stopped and through the years I got to feel myself again. I might expose some pressure I was under: fear of failure, peer and relative pressure (especially since I was a virgin and didn't have a boyfriend; my aunt was specifficly telling me that I should be ashamed because of that), feeling like a loser because I needed more time to understand certain things... I'm known to set myself way bigger standards.

    My anxiety attacks came back last week. I'm 27, I have a boyfriend (finally), looking for a job which is pretty hard to find eventhough I have a lot of references, lots of experience, excellent capabilites on many general fields, and can't wait to get my degree. I'm glad I've found this page, so I'll be able to find similar experience and feel support from you all. I've read that people can get rid of anxiety without meds and for good, that's also one of the reasons why I'm here. In this very moment as I'm writing to you all, I feel like I'm in a distant land, my family members seem like strangers and I was watching my favourite show not feeling why I love it. I have a boyfriend I know that I charish and I love and I can describe why I love him, but I can't feel it. It's a nightmare and I hope it passes. So far I decided to do more things that will cheer me up, including regular sports activity to shoot myself up with endorphines.

    What my worries are now: fear of failure, as always, fearing of not finishing school, not finding a job, being stuck as a housewife and a mom, not being able to live at least some of my dreams which aren't rocket science, they are very doable; in the moment I owe our version of IRS because I opened a business that was supposed to flourish but didn't. My parents were telling me I'll fail, so I have - by the way, I think I fail because people program me to fail. And whatever grandmother wished bad for me to happen, does happen even on a daily basis. I can't find a new job, even as a factory worker (!!!), I'll get married in two years time and have a baby in that time and I'm not sure if I want it, but it's a wish of my boyfriend and... I'm not so estranged to the fact of having a baby, but I do not my kid to face what I had to face in my life. I read that people who faced or are facing trauma are more prone to get anxiety attacks. I was sexually abused as a child, I was 4, nothing graphic, nothing painful, but the fact that I was 4, the fact that sexually activity is done when you grow up, when you're mature, because it has a purpose to physically and spiritually join two people together, was just way too much for a 4 yo to handle and a lot of overwhelment happened with lots of anxiety and fear. Anyways, I'm kind of joining my story telling together now... So basicly I don't want my child to face anything I had to face and I don't want my child to have such a crazy mom, eventhough I have a lot to offer. I had to watch my mom (still watching) being on anti-depressants and her episodes of break downs from time to time. Nothing graphic, nothing scary, but lots of unsure things, especially when I was a child and didn't know what was happening to my mom. I didn't feel safe because of that.

    I'm such a mess right now in my head, otherwise I make great compositions in which facts and important stuff are presented in order. I'll add just this one more bit: I'm an introvert, so I was never really sociable as a child. My peers turned on me, so the only time I spent with children my age was when I was playing with my cousin, otherwise I didn't go out. I was spending time with kids my age later in school, never went on the playground again, that's all, so my parents couldn't know that other things where in my life - abuse. I was depressed since by all standards children shouldn't be depressed yet, nor should they know what that means at all. So basicly what I'm thinking is that I've been psycholocially under pressure or not stable... Ever. Depression was going on for a long period, it never stopped. I heard I was depressed when we were talking about depression in school in 6th grade. I should also mention that I was suicidal since around 5th grade of elementary school.

    So ok, those are my fears and life story written altogether. My question for you all or the ones who are going to read this is: how have you helped yourself feeling yourself after anxiety episodes? What do you do to lift your mood, serotonin levels? What was your experience with losing the sense of yourself and how long did it take you to get it back? Also if anyone has a familiar life experience or life story, what do you think?

    And an extra question for those who have a familiar life story: is what I went through something that I can overcome and change my life story and is it something that can benefit my life experience altogether or am I a lost cause in the sense of being a normal functioning human being (is it something that can stop me on my way of being a successful person, good parent), whatever normal is?


    Thank to you all, greetings from Slovenia,
    Petra

  2. #2
    Senior Member
    Join Date
    Mar 2013
    Location
    East Coast, USA
    Posts
    3,690
    Welcome aboard, Julianna

    You have had some pretty crappy things happen to you as a child. That very well may be the reason that you have developed anxiety. And going back in your mind with or without a therapist in order to figure all of that out may be helpful

    I also developed anxiety in my early 20's. Seems most people who get it realize it at that age

    I can remember things as a child that should have been some type of signal to me or my mum that I was heading in that direction. Regardless of how I got there, I certainly had arrived with a few anxiety and panic disorders

    Anytime you are feeling anxious or panicky, the most important thing to do is adjust your breathing. Anxiety/panic are the fight or flight response for no reason and the first thing your body does is reduce your normal breathing to shallow breaths so more oxygen can get to your limbs so you can run or fight. Your blood pressure and heart rate change as well to deliver more oxygen.

    Realizing you are breathing shallow and correcting that immediately is a sign to your brain that there is no real danger. That will ease the heart rate as well as all those other great symptoms caused by your shallow breathing

    If you are not on meds and are open to them, that can be extremely helpful. A good SSRI takes a while to work but does wonders reducing panic and calming an anxious and racing mind
    Serotonin levels straighten out with them

    You are not a lost cause nor should you believe what happened to you as a child define who you are and who you will become

    I have seen so many people in much worse shape come here feeling hopeless and now they are kicking life's ass

    This is just a bump in the road and because you have anxiety, it seems like the end of the world. Anxiety is nothing but irrational fear and your fear is feeding your mind false information to be hopeless

    Just a bump in the road....
    "Y'all didn't have to shoot me" ~ Harambe

  3. #3
    Junior Member
    Join Date
    Oct 2015
    Location
    Slovenia
    Posts
    8
    Hello!


    Thank you for your fast response and words of reasurance.

    I forgot to mention that I had two pyschologists and a psychiatrist who at the time prescribed me with pills. The two psychologists only told me things that I have already figured out on my own and it was useless. I got to the psychiatrist who then prescribed me pills for the anxiety attacks and I went to a few therapies, but he was even less efficient than the two psychologists. He even didn't believe me I actually had anxiety... -.-

    The pills: they forced me into acting impulsively. I felt like I was druged and high all the time. I didn't feel like I have control over myself and eventhough they helped stop the attacks, I think they made more damage. What I do know from what the psychiatrist told me and other doctors, is that they can only prescribe worse meds (in case I wanted different ones) than on what I was on and I was on Paroxat. I'm sure there are other ways of getting serotonine in check, but if it doesn't help, I'll try with pills again.

    I have no problems with getting through when the attacks happen. I'm not really hyperventilating, my heart is just racing and I know I'm having an attack. I tried to tell myself to calm down that it's going to pass, but that caused me to have more vivid anxiety. I forgot to mention that all my anxiety attacks shift me into nightmares that I have actually dreamed. I'm sure you can recall that after you have a nightmare and then you wake up you still have that feeling you're still in the nightmare, but it eventually passes when you start your daily routine? That's how my anxiety looks like. After an attack I fall into the theme of an anxiety episode and stay in it. At the moment it's going on for a couple of day now and it's not stoping. I'm living the nightmare or better said with the feeling of the nightmare. I got used to it, it doesn't alarm me, I'm not scared, but it's really not pleasant.

    I stopped being afraid of another attacks happening, I'm just trying to get rid of the feeling and go back to feeling myself.

    I've tried to find good therapists to go through my timeline with them altogether, but I can't afford them right now. I even wanted to get a hypnosis, so I could really get all the facts and then get through them all so I would know what in my life was my mistake and what wasn't or just for the sake of knowing stuff and being at peace. I have that same experience! I knew that something bad can happen, when you mentioned signals, because of it and it now is. I was even telling myself: if this goes on like it is, I'll end up in the nut house. Well, nothing good if I sum it up.

    Yes, I'd say that we experience anxiety when we start adolescene or in the middle of adolescence, when we start to develop emotionally. That's when I started to figure out what happened to me, that I was abused and so on and what kind of damage my peers did to me while in was in elementary.

    Thanks for the support! I really appreciate the words of encouragement and reasurance!


    With regards,
    Petra

  4. #4
    UP cho thớt

    Nhân tiện ai ... bị vón cục thì qua chỗ e chữa nhé

 

 

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