solidfrenzy93
01-04-2013, 10:50 PM
My Anxiety Recovery
My name is Ryan Perkins, I’m 19 and I have Anxiety which includes general anxiety and hypochondria. I first found out I had anxiety when I was 18 when I became depressed out of the blue. I had my very first panic attack under the influence of cannabis, I remember my heart racing and a bizarre fear that someone laced my weed and that I was going to die. After that I quick weed after smoking it for a long time. I didn’t feel normal for a couple of days but soon returned to normal… Or so I thought.
A few months passed since I had the panic attack and I remember waking up for college feeling very down and upset and felt like it for the whole day. The next day wasn’t much better I still felt gloomy and I remember my dad asking me what’s the matter and I just broke into tears telling him I don’t know and he reassured me so I went to play football with my mates to get some exercise and I felt my normal happy self. But sure enough a few hours later I felt down so I got in the shower but I couldn’t relax myself, my mind was racing and I felt sick to my stomach and I broke into tears in the shower wondering why I felt so bad. I went to my father as my mother was at a JLS concert with one of younger sisters and I told him and cried and he told me to phone a doctor, she said it was anxiety but that didn’t ease my mind. My dad researched it and we learn a little about it but that wasn’t what I was feeling at that time. I spent the night crying, scared and worried and my dad was with me every step of the way and I managed to get to sleep when my mother got home and we said if I was feeling the same we would go to the doctors together. I was not prepared what lied ahead.
The following day I woke up around 7:30 in the morning and all I could think about was that terrible feeling and sure enough I felt the exact same so me and my mum went to the doctors and they said anxiety again and prescribed me Diazepam. When I felt I was going to break down I’d take a Diazepam and felt a drunk kind of feeling and just fall asleep but when I woke up… It would start again. This continued for a few more days until we went to the doctors again. I felt so sick and anxious I told my dad I was stepping outside for fresh air but I was actually making myself throw up behind the doctors. When I got called the doctor told me I was depressed and prescribed me fluoxetine A.K.A Prozac. I only took Prozac for a very short time and I experienced some bad side effects which has put me off medication so I tried to get over it without Prozac and looked online for any type of alternative and heard of St. Johns Wort. Just reading about St. Johns Wort gave me hope that I won’t live the rest of my life like this which is what I feared at the time and from that day my depression started to recover. I never took St Johns Wort even though I bought it and done fine without it until something else happened… something that started my anxiety problem.
I was on PlayStation with a friend and I was looking through facebook and saw a link about a 15 year old boy that murdered his own mother because of an episode of Coronation Street. I read the article about the boy and discovered that he has never shown violence but has seen violent movies such as Saw and played violent video games which I have also done and this bizarre thought came into my mind… “What if I go crazy and kill my own mum?”. The moment that thought came into my mind fear spread into my whole body, my hands started sweating and my mind starting racing. I thought I was going to go mad! I went for a cigarette to calm myself down and reassure myself that I wouldn’t do anything of a kind but I wasn’t so sure because at that moment in time I was finding it hard to see the line between fantasy and reality. I decided to go sit in the room my mum was to see how I would feel but I knew I wouldn’t do it, but for a while it never left my mind that I might instantly go crazy. Since the incident involving my mum I always seemed to get frightened hearing about bad stories of murders and people dying of illnesses and it always sent me into that spiral of fear but that wasn’t the worst of it yet. Soon came the health anxiety, hypochondria and phobia of dying…
A few months went by and I no longer felt anxious and was living my normal life again continuing my studies in college when I decided to smoke marijuana for the first time in a few months and I didn’t have a panic attack.. instead I had this sensation that my mouth went numb for a few seconds which terrified me. Reading back on what I just wrote I can see how I over reacted as it only lasted a couple of seconds. When this happened I couldn’t stop playing with my teeth checking if I could still feel them and rubbing my tongue around my mouth which made it worse. I ended up calling the doctors for them to say it was anxiety but for some reason I couldn’t calm myself. This happened for a couple of weeks but eventually subsided.
Since then I seemed to focus on anxiety and how to stop it but I wasn’t really motivated to do it so I always ended up saying “I’ll just live with it, it won’t be long before it goes”. How wrong was I? The next problem I had with my health anxiety was the infamous brain tumour. I had this weird numbing sensation in my brain and I thought my brain was going to fail and I needed answers. See where this is going? I thought I’d best check online to see if it was anxiety related but the first thing I seen was brain tumour. My heart started beating in my throat and I said to myself “I won’t read this because it won’t help me” but curiosity got the better of me. I read in terror as I convinced myself I have a tumour. I thought I was going to die anytime and I didn’t know what to do. I went to the doctors and she said I don’t have a brain tumour or MS but that didn’t stop me worrying. It got better over the next 2 months but my head always felt heavy even when I wasn’t anxious but I fortunately looked up anxiety relief NOT MEDICATION, I WOULDN’T TAKE MEDICATION and what stood out most to me was exercise. I’ve always wanted to join a gym and get fit but lacked the motivation. If there was ever a time had motivation it was now, so a month went past before I eventually joined a gym and worked out for 2 weeks before it closed for Christmas and I felt so good! The anxiety didn’t seem to eat away at me instead I felt happy. I was weight training and doing little treadmill and after the workout I felt great, the anxiety was still there but for the first time in my anxiety days I felt in control.
The gym shut for the Christmas holidays which made me a little anxious but nothing too bad to start off with, I was a little stressed and anxious about the 21st of December 2012, the end of the world. A search helicopter was directly above my house at 00:40 on the 21st of October and it triggered my anxiety straight away and for the next 2 days I was jumpy at every noise and vibration I heard. On early hours of Christmas day about 3:00am I had a sudden numbness that happened in my head for a few seconds and my first thought was I’m going to die. It ruined my Christmas. I had to go to the doctors to make sure I wasn’t going to die and I told him I had numbness in my brain and an intense fear that I’m going to die. He prescribed me propranolol which I decided not to take as I don’t believe medication will help me and I refuse to take them.
New Year’s Eve I had a long think about my anxiety and I know if I don’t act soon it’s going to carry on making my quality of life poorer so I’ve decided to arrange CBT at college and I go back to the gym when it opens on the 7th of January.
Today is the 5th of January 2013 and I’ve once again had these horrible brain feelings since yesterday. By the end of 2013 I hope to have accomplished in reducing my anxiety to a normal level. I will be writing up my feelings and progress often whether it be bad or good. I know it won’t be easy, I know bad times will come but on the other side I’m sure there will be a much brighter path.
My name is Ryan Perkins, I’m 19 and I have Anxiety which includes general anxiety and hypochondria. I first found out I had anxiety when I was 18 when I became depressed out of the blue. I had my very first panic attack under the influence of cannabis, I remember my heart racing and a bizarre fear that someone laced my weed and that I was going to die. After that I quick weed after smoking it for a long time. I didn’t feel normal for a couple of days but soon returned to normal… Or so I thought.
A few months passed since I had the panic attack and I remember waking up for college feeling very down and upset and felt like it for the whole day. The next day wasn’t much better I still felt gloomy and I remember my dad asking me what’s the matter and I just broke into tears telling him I don’t know and he reassured me so I went to play football with my mates to get some exercise and I felt my normal happy self. But sure enough a few hours later I felt down so I got in the shower but I couldn’t relax myself, my mind was racing and I felt sick to my stomach and I broke into tears in the shower wondering why I felt so bad. I went to my father as my mother was at a JLS concert with one of younger sisters and I told him and cried and he told me to phone a doctor, she said it was anxiety but that didn’t ease my mind. My dad researched it and we learn a little about it but that wasn’t what I was feeling at that time. I spent the night crying, scared and worried and my dad was with me every step of the way and I managed to get to sleep when my mother got home and we said if I was feeling the same we would go to the doctors together. I was not prepared what lied ahead.
The following day I woke up around 7:30 in the morning and all I could think about was that terrible feeling and sure enough I felt the exact same so me and my mum went to the doctors and they said anxiety again and prescribed me Diazepam. When I felt I was going to break down I’d take a Diazepam and felt a drunk kind of feeling and just fall asleep but when I woke up… It would start again. This continued for a few more days until we went to the doctors again. I felt so sick and anxious I told my dad I was stepping outside for fresh air but I was actually making myself throw up behind the doctors. When I got called the doctor told me I was depressed and prescribed me fluoxetine A.K.A Prozac. I only took Prozac for a very short time and I experienced some bad side effects which has put me off medication so I tried to get over it without Prozac and looked online for any type of alternative and heard of St. Johns Wort. Just reading about St. Johns Wort gave me hope that I won’t live the rest of my life like this which is what I feared at the time and from that day my depression started to recover. I never took St Johns Wort even though I bought it and done fine without it until something else happened… something that started my anxiety problem.
I was on PlayStation with a friend and I was looking through facebook and saw a link about a 15 year old boy that murdered his own mother because of an episode of Coronation Street. I read the article about the boy and discovered that he has never shown violence but has seen violent movies such as Saw and played violent video games which I have also done and this bizarre thought came into my mind… “What if I go crazy and kill my own mum?”. The moment that thought came into my mind fear spread into my whole body, my hands started sweating and my mind starting racing. I thought I was going to go mad! I went for a cigarette to calm myself down and reassure myself that I wouldn’t do anything of a kind but I wasn’t so sure because at that moment in time I was finding it hard to see the line between fantasy and reality. I decided to go sit in the room my mum was to see how I would feel but I knew I wouldn’t do it, but for a while it never left my mind that I might instantly go crazy. Since the incident involving my mum I always seemed to get frightened hearing about bad stories of murders and people dying of illnesses and it always sent me into that spiral of fear but that wasn’t the worst of it yet. Soon came the health anxiety, hypochondria and phobia of dying…
A few months went by and I no longer felt anxious and was living my normal life again continuing my studies in college when I decided to smoke marijuana for the first time in a few months and I didn’t have a panic attack.. instead I had this sensation that my mouth went numb for a few seconds which terrified me. Reading back on what I just wrote I can see how I over reacted as it only lasted a couple of seconds. When this happened I couldn’t stop playing with my teeth checking if I could still feel them and rubbing my tongue around my mouth which made it worse. I ended up calling the doctors for them to say it was anxiety but for some reason I couldn’t calm myself. This happened for a couple of weeks but eventually subsided.
Since then I seemed to focus on anxiety and how to stop it but I wasn’t really motivated to do it so I always ended up saying “I’ll just live with it, it won’t be long before it goes”. How wrong was I? The next problem I had with my health anxiety was the infamous brain tumour. I had this weird numbing sensation in my brain and I thought my brain was going to fail and I needed answers. See where this is going? I thought I’d best check online to see if it was anxiety related but the first thing I seen was brain tumour. My heart started beating in my throat and I said to myself “I won’t read this because it won’t help me” but curiosity got the better of me. I read in terror as I convinced myself I have a tumour. I thought I was going to die anytime and I didn’t know what to do. I went to the doctors and she said I don’t have a brain tumour or MS but that didn’t stop me worrying. It got better over the next 2 months but my head always felt heavy even when I wasn’t anxious but I fortunately looked up anxiety relief NOT MEDICATION, I WOULDN’T TAKE MEDICATION and what stood out most to me was exercise. I’ve always wanted to join a gym and get fit but lacked the motivation. If there was ever a time had motivation it was now, so a month went past before I eventually joined a gym and worked out for 2 weeks before it closed for Christmas and I felt so good! The anxiety didn’t seem to eat away at me instead I felt happy. I was weight training and doing little treadmill and after the workout I felt great, the anxiety was still there but for the first time in my anxiety days I felt in control.
The gym shut for the Christmas holidays which made me a little anxious but nothing too bad to start off with, I was a little stressed and anxious about the 21st of December 2012, the end of the world. A search helicopter was directly above my house at 00:40 on the 21st of October and it triggered my anxiety straight away and for the next 2 days I was jumpy at every noise and vibration I heard. On early hours of Christmas day about 3:00am I had a sudden numbness that happened in my head for a few seconds and my first thought was I’m going to die. It ruined my Christmas. I had to go to the doctors to make sure I wasn’t going to die and I told him I had numbness in my brain and an intense fear that I’m going to die. He prescribed me propranolol which I decided not to take as I don’t believe medication will help me and I refuse to take them.
New Year’s Eve I had a long think about my anxiety and I know if I don’t act soon it’s going to carry on making my quality of life poorer so I’ve decided to arrange CBT at college and I go back to the gym when it opens on the 7th of January.
Today is the 5th of January 2013 and I’ve once again had these horrible brain feelings since yesterday. By the end of 2013 I hope to have accomplished in reducing my anxiety to a normal level. I will be writing up my feelings and progress often whether it be bad or good. I know it won’t be easy, I know bad times will come but on the other side I’m sure there will be a much brighter path.