Help with my case specifically (anxiety, pessimism, insomnia)

[greyhound]

Hello, friends. Thanks for creating this forum.

I live in Sweden and I am in my mid 20s. I have always been a very anxious person with enormous mood swings. Some time ago I lost (no, she didn't die, she just dumped me) my girlfriend for the last 4 years and I think this is related to things getting much worse. As of now I alternate one night where I don't sleep at all with one night where I sleep 3 or 4 hours (thought it might not be just anxiety but also the "midnight sun" of the summer which i am not used to). Never ever in my life I slept normally, I usually take more than one hour in the bed before I can sleep even where there is nothing worrying me at the moment, and when I do sleep more than 3 or 4 hours it's in a sequence of 3-4 hour long blocks.
But my worst problem is that I have a deep feeling of pessimism and impatience with everything I do that is impairing all I do in my life. Everything that takes more than one day in the post I consider lost, I can't stand 15 minute queues, I have the feeling everyone I just met hated me (which honestly I don't think it's pessimist but merely a constatation) and often these worries and need for attention makes people actually hate me (recently things were going very well with another girl and I managed to fuck up it in like 5 minutes). I never know when to keep having patience with people because it's my anxiety lying to me or when to stop going after them because I am looking like a sucker. I had the worst love life of all people I know and now I am nearly paranoid I am never being together with anyone again in my life and when I ponder conditions and circumstances these pessimist thoughts actually become realistic (just as indeed I get quite a lot of stuff lost in the post). Actually Anxiety probably plays for 90% of what made me lose my girfriend too.

Surprisingly enough the healthcare in Sweden is crap. Few nurses and admnistration staff speak proper English making getting a consultation a pain in the ass. Right now all the doctors from my local health center are "on holiday" (I know, there are many good things about this place but this healthcare is a joke) and they will only treat "acute" cases which probably doesn't include a kid who doesn't sleep at night. I was looking at solutions I could get without a prescription. Therapy is probably the best solution for my case but completely out of my financial reach and I really don't have the patience (you might have already noticed by now) to wait years for it to kick in. I don't have panic attacks, sweating, other physical aspects of anxiety which medicines tackle usually the most so i thought that it would be unwise to just take the first thing I found at google.

Any tips from people here that could help me to deal with this, non prescription drugs, changes in lifestyle, whatever? I have looked into (not actually tried seriously) in meditation but I am so unpatient and worried all the time that I seem uncapable of doing it.

Thanks for all of you that managed to go through this rant!

[greyhound]

I forgot to say something quite relevant: unlike most people in my situation i DON'T have social anxiety. I am quite easy going, friendly with strangers, I see no problem at speaking in public and I am never shy to talk to anyone that are not women that I am romantically interested at, and even so I still have it at a quite normal range.

[mint]

Hi, I think you might want to look into vitamins/supplements. There is something called St. John's Wort that has been shown to help enhance mood (although evidence is mixed). You can also try Vitamin Bs which they say helps with stress and your nervous system. Vitamin D (lots of sun) usually helps people who suffer from seasonal affective disorder. Omega 3s have been also used for mood disorders.
Lavender is good for helping you to be calm and relaxed. You can buy the essential oil and dab it on your wrists to smell. I have tried putting some in my pillowcase and spray it around my bedroom for better sleep.
To help with thinking positively, I used to talk to a psychologist who tried behaviour therapy on me. She would get me to write down 1 thing I was happy about that I did each day. Helps to reinforce positive thoughts and feelings about yourself. She also told me to find something healthy that truly relaxes me (like a hobby or form of exercise) and make sure I do it when I am anxious.
Try practicing to breathe deeply or take up a form of yoga.
Hope you feel better :)

[mint]

Oh, I would also like to add eating healthy. It could make a big difference.

[greyhound]

Hi Mint, the suggestions about vitamins are great and something I will look about. I am already taking a lot of sun and actually my mood is better in the winter, probably because I go skating which helps me to feel better a lot, proving your point about exercises too. Eating healthy is important and this is something that deteriorated in the last weeks. I eat crap all the time because I don't feel like/don't have the forces (like in breakfast, i never have breakfast because I wake up so bad from (not sleeping) that I can't cook anything) to prepare something. I will get the lavender tomorrow already as this is the easiest thing to find.

These positive thinking exercises, not dismissing them but aren't they sometimes just hiding the truth? I might have indeed the most pathetic love life of the western world and a gigantic underachiever, aren't they something that will just brush those under the carpet and keep me from fighting the fact that I am a loser?
My pessimism nowadays hurts me a lot but sometimes it helped me too, when things went bad in a way that only I could expect I was prepared for it. My biggest fear (I wish so much I was just pathologically pessimistic) is that I have no mentality problem and I just see the reality "too much".

[dancingsunflowers80]

greyhound, thanks for sharing. mint has some great suggestions, thanks for those. What do you enjoy doing for fun? For me, having something to look forward to each week helps a ton. Hang in there....