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View Full Version : My life with anxiety... A call for help



3point5
01-18-2010, 06:00 AM
Hey everyone, I just joined this forum in hopes of getting some help in finding some solutions to my anxiety issues.. :(

For startrs, I just turned 28 a cpl weeks ago and am a male. My anxiety started to get really terrible about 3 to 4 years ago, I mean just terrible. Previous to that, I was heavily addicted to amphetimines (specifically dexedrine) basicaly pharmaceutical grade meth and alot better than adderall. I was lucky (unlucky?) enough to have a friend who receives over 300 dexedrines a month so he always had plenty to sell me.

So anyway, after I kicked that cold turkey, I have not touched the stuf in years in any shape or form. But what the dex did leave me was the most intense everyday anxiety I could ever imagine... I had no idea anxiety was even a condition in middle school or jr high or high school, but now that i look back, i can see now that I definitely had it. I was always the one everyone called the shy kid, never said a word to anyone, kept my head down, never made eye contact with anyone, hard no friends etc etc. And it wasn't like that was the way I wanted to be. I wanted to be social. I wanted to be like everyone else. But the anxiety... the anxiety made in painful to take those steps to try to be outgoing in such ways. Just thinking of making move letting alone actually doing it was enough for my heart to start racing and have my palms start sweating.

All through jr high and high school, I had no idea such things existed like this. In fact I never even experimeted with any types of drugs not even alcohol nor cigerettes until long after high school. So one day my friend slips me a dex. So isay, what the heck.. wash it down with a red bull... lets just say half an hr later i felt like I could on the world. I felt completely content, confident, focused, sharp and ready to take on any task thrown my way.....



So anyway, after I kicked that cold turkey, I have not touched the stuf in years in any shape or form. I have no desire for any type of uppers at all anymore... I just cant stand the come down... its the worst everBut what the dex did leave me was the most intense everyday anxiety I could ever imagine... I had no idea anxiety was even a condition in middle school or jr high or high school, but now that i look back, i can see now that I definitely had it. I was always the one everyone called the shy kid, never said a word to anyone, kept my head down, never made eye contact with anyone, hard no friends etc etc. And it wasn't like that was the way I wanted to be. I wanted to be social. I wanted to be like everyone else. But the anxiety... the anxiety made in painful to take those steps to try to be outgoing in such ways. Just thinking of making move letting alone actually doing it was enough for my heart to start racing and have my palms start sweating.

....so anyway,
fast foward a couple years later. Im buyng 20 dex a day and going on 3 to 4 day binges, not eating food, not showering, blowing off friends and famiybasically tweeking my ass off with no regard for my well being. And it was the come down I feared... Oh the come down. Thats why I always needed more because the crash was just the absolute worst. But I got strong, and I lost way too much weight (I'm 6'3 and weighed 180 before taking dex... after binges i could get dow to 135 no freakin joke its scary).... so I basically put the nail in that coffin. My tolerance was getting ridiculous, couldn't afford it, plus i was just bored with the high.

so the last time I used any of that was like 2006 or 2007 ? But I think since I abused and binged on it for so long when I had it, I am going to have permanent anxiety issues on top on my ALREADY severe anxiety issues. I actually had to leave my job about 4 years back right before I quit the dex because I would stay up all night and not come into work and rage out on all my co workers. Anxiety also cost me my college schooling... Before the dex and that last current job I was just going to a community college.. but just like high school, anxiety got the better of me. It's like I have all the major forums of anxiety rolled into one: General Anxiety, Social Anxiety and whatever else. I don't so much have panic attacks although I do get low of breath sometimes and small chest pains but nothing major. But my anxiety was so bad tI could not bring myself to go talk to any of my teachers nor my counselor. I was that afraid of speaking to people I'don't know. And group work in class ?? Forget about it. I turned into a clam. People probably thought I was a mute weirdo...

So basically after I lost around 2005, I have have been jobless, and basically lifeless. my mother has been nice enough to let me stay at her place but shes getting fed up with me being her. I try explaining to her the anxiety situation but she just doesnt understand it. She actually took me to aclose doctor nearby, the cheapest one around, and I could tell off the bat he was an A-hole... he basicaly made me run down my problems to him, he told me i was "depressed" which i'm NOT... anxiety and depression are two different things... if anything, maybe my anxiety and agoraphobia have made me depressed in a way but im not predominately depressed. He basically spent 5 mins with me, I brought him a checklist off an anxiety website with a checklist for symptons he basicaly crumpled it up and threw it over his back :shock:

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not ignortant to the medication thats out there for anxiety. I do have my handful of friends and have tried xanax, klonoin, ativan, valium and buspar. I had mentioned klonopin to that same a-hole dodtor as a last ditch effort (as i didnt wanna sound kike a knowledgable drug seeker) and he bascailly said "that stuff turns you into a zombie...."

yeah well ok, so he gave me a months supply of effexor XR. what the hell ill give it a try.... uh ok, zombie u say ? if thats the case when then i feel like freakin young frankestein on this crap... it messed with EVERYTHING and top of it all made my anxiety worse... lost my appetite, lost my sex drive, made my mind...numb. made me not talkative, not happy, but not sad, stomach always hurt.. and that was just sme of the symptoms. And I know alot of SSRI's you have to take a month to kick in. Well I took this crap for a month and half and each week got worse so i chucked that crap in the garbage.

That's why Im afraid to go to a psychitrist and pay for the vist only to come home again with a worthless SSRI. It just with xanax and other benzos, they dont make me sloppy or stupid like they do other people -- they rid me of anxiety so I can enjoy people and my day, which I havent been able to do in so long. I have the courage to communicate with people, go out in public without the worry of thinking people are starrng at me and best of all it makes me alot more of a loving preson which I really enjoy because I am usually very cold and distant when it comes to my parents....

Ahhh I know this was long winded, but I had to get it off my chest somewhere... So would it be a good idea to mention to a new psychitrist that iwas a former drug user and that ive tried xanax before and that it works ? or will that raise red flags ? I mean i smoke pot occasionally thats all id fall for.