Unusual GAD(?)

[Philip83]

Hi all,

I'm going to try and make a long story as short as possible. I've suffered from what I believe to be GAD since 2004. At this time I was 21 years old. It started seemingly out of nowhere. One day it just came over me like a general feeling of unrest. Like a fog or veil in front of me, distorting my view of reality and making it less vivid somehow. It's really hard to explain.

This feeling stayed with me for about 2 weeks, then as I was out walking in my hometown suddenly it was if as I just walked out of the fog, and I was suddenly back to my normal self. Again, no thoughts or events in particular seemed to trigger these experiences, they just happened out of nowhere.

Another two weeks past and as I was sitting eating my breakfast with my family at our summer-home, the fog rolled in again, out of nowhere, and I thought "Hm, that's weird, there it is again". I have now carried this fog with me, this state of unrest, for over 10 years. Not ONCE has it subsided, not even for 1 minute, 10 seconds, 1 second, never.

At first I thought there was something physicaly wrong with me, like a vitamin deficiency or likewise. I visited several doctors but they all said I was super healthy. When I started at the university a few months later, I began feeling worse. I gradually developed panic attacks. I started going to counseling CBT therapy and continued that for about 3 years. This helped to totally eliminate my panic attacks, but the GAD (the fog of unrest) was still there. My therapist said after these three years that she was at a loss about how I could get rid of it, so I just hoped it would disappear on it's own as I grew older, which still hasn't been the case. Since then I haven't really done much to try and deal with it, because I just don't know what this would be. When I was on CBT I also tried an anti-depressant medicin (can't remember the name) but this did nothing to help.

It's like if the "vent" controlling my anxiety levels in my brain has a leakage, and that my "neutral" emotional state is instead an anxious one. It has also made my emotional life more "dull". It's like all the feelings that one experience in life is just greyed down and less vivid. I can't really feel intense satisfaction, content, love, sadness. Still, it is not connected, as far as I can tell, to any negative thoughts or phobias or anything.

When I've tried to use the internet to find out what I can do about this I'm very often frustrated because the same symptoms and explanations to GAD always show up, but they do not apply to me. For example:

- I DO NOT worry excessively over life. I enjoy life and I'm a pretty laid back guy in general.

- I DO NOT worry about having panic attacks again. I haven't had one in 8 years now. The CBT helped me with this, to the point where I just KNOW that they won't come back.

- My anxiety is NOT connected to any (at least conscious) negative thoughts that are haunting or troubling me. The feeling is seemingly chemical to it's nature.

- I DO NOT have sleeping problems.

- I DO NOT have any other phobias. I'm pretty social and I like traveling, meeting new people, etc.

- I'm NOT depressed. I'm mostly a "happy" and positive person. This makes my condition even more annoying to deal with in a way.

Does anyone on here have a simliar experience like the one I'm describing? Would anyone be able to point me in some kind of direction where I could start again to try and solve this problem? I've been procrastinating with it for years now, because I have no idea where even to begin to try and fix it.

I should also mention that one thing that I think might be a contributing cause to how I feel is that I lost my dad to cancer when I was 8 years old. However, I really tried to exhaust any and all of the memories of my experience of this with my psychologist back when I was doing CBT, so I don't know what more I can do regarding this. His death is really not something that seemingly bothers me really. Of course it's sad, but I very rarely think about it. I still had a great childhood and my mom has been amazing raising me and my brother on her own.

[Anne1221]

You may not have GAD, but just an anxiety disorder. But your post is conflicting because you say you're a "happy" and positive person and that you enjoy life. But you also say you have a feeling of unrest. Do you feel anxious?

[Anne1221]

By the way, I don't have GAD but I do have anxiety.

[Fahrenheit]

I really don't know. A lot of what you said sounded like depression to me. Have you read about derealization? It seems like you might be experiencing some of that. What would you like to feel instead of the numbers you are describing? Do you feel detached from other people and yourself?

[Anne1221]

You said you don't know where to start. I would start with a good neurologist. Show him the post you wrote here. He can either rule in or rule out that something is wrong. If not, the next step is to see a good psychiatrist and try antidepressants again. You may not have taken the right one for you, or given it a chance. You may have what I have, which is a low level depression that is secondary to the anxiety itself. This past month I cut my antidepressant by 1/4, and the whole world seemed bleaker to me than before. I lost some of my zest. I bumped it back up, and this morning I woke up in a good mood, hopeful and optimistic. I wish you all the best, but you're wise to address this issue.

[Im-Suffering]

Make the distinction between 'exhausting' your emotions regarding dad, and deadening them. Take note as well that every physical sensation or disease, disorder, stems originally from some unresolved mental problem or issue.

You got a raw deal, yes, at 8 to lose dad. And make no mistake about the trauma and shock at the 'back' of your psyche. The world takes a different hue and overall cloud aa a result of such a devastating experience. This would reach out into your interpretation of your own safety in the world as you live on without him (security) and your own beliefs about the frailty of the human body in regard to sudden attacks upon it from so called deadly disease. You see? So there is fear of being stricken down alike, you understand.

Your journey is often difficult, you must understand, but once the emotions are fully cleared, which would take belief changes, you will pull out of the fog.

Understand the psychiatrist also subscribed to the beliefs about the body and so you could not truly have been healed. You carry conflicted residue. In ultimate reality, no one is ever 'stricken' against his will you see, so to heal a mass held belief that you would normally not question, (thus CBT futile) you will need to delve more into the spiritual, you see, and I don't mean religious.

Think about this post.

[Philip83]

Thanks everyone for your answers! I'll try and comment on them below.


You may not have GAD, but just an anxiety disorder. But your post is conflicting because you say you're a "happy" and positive person and that you enjoy life. But you also say you have a feeling of unrest. Do you feel anxious?

By the way, I don't have GAD but I do have anxiety.

Well, yes, I do feel anxious, but not ABOUT something in particular. I mean I'm happy in the sense that I enjoy my life in general and myself as a person. I feel like getting up in the morning, going out on the weekend, explore the world, etc. I'm not "closed up" so to say.

But you're right, it might not be GAD, it's just the diagnose that I myself always thought closest resembles what I'm feeling.


I really don't know. A lot of what you said sounded like depression to me. Have you read about derealization? It seems like you might be experiencing some of that. What would you like to feel instead of the numbers you are describing? Do you feel detached from other people and yourself?

I did read about derealization a long time ago, and I do feel this might be part of what I'm experiencing for sure. Actually, a few months ago after having a lot of stress at work, I felt I took "yet another step down" deeper into this feeling, and the world became truly surreal and my "ego" seemed even more detached from reality. Fortunately this went away after about 1 day.

The reason why I wouldn't think it's depression is simply because I don't feel depressed. I have a positive mindset and I'm not closed up or feel helpless or so. Then again, this isn't a clear cut science, maybe there's a little bit of depression in there as well, who knows!


You said you don't know where to start. I would start with a good neurologist. Show him the post you wrote here. He can either rule in or rule out that something is wrong. If not, the next step is to see a good psychiatrist and try antidepressants again. You may not have taken the right one for you, or given it a chance. You may have what I have, which is a low level depression that is secondary to the anxiety itself. This past month I cut my antidepressant by 1/4, and the whole world seemed bleaker to me than before. I lost some of my zest. I bumped it back up, and this morning I woke up in a good mood, hopeful and optimistic. I wish you all the best, but you're wise to address this issue.

A neurologist might be a good idea too, thanks. I'm not a person very found of the idea of SSRI's, so I would really like to leave this as a last option, but at the same time I wouldn't totally dismiss them as a least a part of the puzzle that might help me solve this thing. Without any down-looking on you, or anyone else taking them, I just don't like the idea of being on constant medication, it just wouldn't feel right for me.


Make the distinction between 'exhausting' your emotions regarding dad, and deadening them.

You might be right, I just have no idea how to "un-deadening" them..

Your journey is often difficult, you must understand, but once the emotions are fully cleared, which would take belief changes, you will pull out of the fog.


You might be right, I just have no idea how to "un-deadening" them..



Understand the psychiatrist also subscribed to the beliefs about the body and so you could not truly have been healed. You carry conflicted residue. In ultimate reality, no one is ever 'stricken' against his will you see, so to heal a mass held belief that you would normally not question, (thus CBT futile) you will need to delve more into the spiritual, you see, and I don't mean religious.


You mean that I need to look further into the psychological reasons for this and try and not focus on the physiological ones? I agree, I just don't know how I would do this. And my therapist back then did have a more or less experience-based look on the whole thing, and not a physiological one, so I might have explained this wrong in my initial post. She was of the firm believe that everything you feel as a person are the cause of prior experience, nothing else. In this case I was more the one trying to impose my super-materialistic view that I just wanted to "close the anxiety leak in my head".


Anyways, thanks for all your answers! If I were to seek both help from therapy and from medicine, which type of therapy would you suggest, and what type of medicine?

[Fahrenheit]

It is hard to say without being in your shoes, but a lot of people who live with anxiety and/or depression can also be happy. Mental illness, like you said, is not a clear cut science, and people experience things differently. Your post does sound contradictory at times, and I think that might be because your actual lived experience is contradictory. Depending on how anxiety presents itself to different people, I feel it can either pretty much co-exist with other regular, human emotions with everyday regularity, or it can be something that comes and goes in waves where when it is really bad it is super debilitating and destroys you ability to feel anything else. For me, I have had long stretches in my life (months, sometimes a year or more) were I have anxiety that completely takes over my life (internally), and it has been THOSE experiences that have illuminated how much of an anxious person I still am, day-to-day, even when I am relatively healthy. And that knowledge motivated me to work on my day to day anxiety when I feel healthy and empowered, so I have the skills to combat it when it is really bad.

But even when my anxiety was at my worst, and I felt it was effecting my sleep, how I related to people in my life, and my ability to do my job, it didn't seem like anyone ELSE was noticing those changes - so even though my functionality may have declined, I was still high-functioning enough to at least partially mask the pain. I felt like a diminished version of myself, but everyone else just thought it was me.

That said, I think one of two things, or both, might be happening with you. You have day-to-day anxiety that coincides with all your regular emotions, and that doesn't fit into your notions of what capital A Anxiety looks like, so you sort of think you have it but sort of don't. Or you have anxiety, but are high functioning enough that, again, you think 'this must not really be anxiety, because I can still do all these normal life things.'

I don't know, it might be neither of those things. But either way, I do think it is important to remember, you can live with anxiety every day, and still have a normal life, and even normal feelings.

[Anne1221]

Which type of therapy, you ask? That's hard to say. But you can start off by trying to find either a good psychiatrist or psychologist to start with. I always look for recommendations. Ask your doctor can he/she recommend someone? It's hard to find a good one, and you may have to visit with a few before you find the right one. But it is SO worthwhile when you find the right one. I finally found a great therapist, and we don't always just talk about anxiety or depression. I tell him issues like a fight I had with my friend, and a conflict with a neighbor. (Both of which are now resolved)

Which medicine, you ask? As far as medication, you're not an anxious, nervous, worrying, wreck like me so you probably don't need a benzodiazepine, like Klonopin or Xanax. But you might benefit from an antidepressant.

This is the part of your post that made me feel like you may benefit from an antidepressant: "It has also made my emotional life more "dull". It's like all the feelings that one experience in life is just greyed down and less vivid. I can't really feel intense satisfaction, content, love, sadness."