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View Full Version : My experiences [Just a guy with anxiety disorder]



Ezio Auditore
10-05-2011, 08:24 AM
Hello everybody.

Before I start, I must apologize for my english and possible misspellings.

I suffer from anxiety disorder and I am under treatment. I wanted to share my 'life' and possibly help you guys in the process.(something like the "works" and "doesn't work" stuff)

I live in Brazil, I am male and I am 21 year old. I have anxiety issues since I was around 8 years old. I was coming back from the beach with my family. I was sleeping in the car when I woke up with a huge urge to pee.
Something happened that day because ever since I always had to pee when I was going to travel.
The time passed by and that problem scaled considerably. My life revolved around peeing(as stupid as that may sound).
I peed before going out of home to go to school, I peed when I got at school, I peed between classes, I peed before going out of school and heading home. I peed every single time, because of anxiety.

Recently I started having some major anxiety episodes in college and in life in general, and that made me say to myself - "I can't live like this anymore, that's not living. I NEED HELP".

So... I sought help. Currently I've been on medication for almost 3 months, and I have been seeing a psychologist too. I must say that the psychology sessions helped me by like 51% and the medication helped the other 49%.
By that I mean that the sessions REALLY helped. Talking to someone and getting different insights is invaluable.
The medication is Paroxetine (also known by the trade names Aropax, Paxil, Seroxat, Sereupin) <-- by Wikipedia XD
The medication helps. When I am going through an episode I can actually fell it saying "you shall not get anxious!".

Today, I can honestly say I can control it. I am not cured by any means, and I still fell the urge to pee when I am anxious, but I can control it.

Here is a list, that I might update, of things that helped me:


- You have to understand your problem. For me, I used to see my problem as "when I am traveling, or presenting something at school or whatever, I fell like I want to pee." but what I should be thinking is "When I fell anxious, I fell like I have to pee, when I really don't HAVE too.".

- Something that REALLY helped, that my psychologist said was "when you fell anxious stop and try to think what you were doing BEFORE getting anxious.".
90% of the times I get anxious and I do that, the anxiety ceases. It's like this: I ride the subway and suddenly, for some reason, it stops halfway the line, and I get anxious. So I say to myself "hmm, I am getting anxious...why?..The train stopped...I remember being anxious in a situation like this so I got anxious". When you can actually see that by yourself, it sounds so foolish (being anxious because you THOUGHT you were gonna be anxious ) that the anxiety goes away.

- Talk to someone. The problem looks huge and threatening inside your head. If you can talk to someone you trust, you may get some insight that will show you that "It's not THAT bad". If you came to this forum, you are probably trying to do that. :)

- Distract yourself when in an anxious situation.
I get anxious when I am riding the bus for too long (example) because eventually I think about getting anxious and blabla. So get a book to read, listen to some music, sleep, play a game or whatever.
But don't think like "I am gonna ride a bus, I NEED some distraction or else I get anxious", just think "it's gonna be SO boring... I might get something to make the time pass faster"


Something that makes me get really bad is a girl in particular.
I have never, ever dated in my life. Probably because of my acne, or my "geekness" or whatever. That girl really played with my feelings, always making me think I had a chance and never saying either YES or NO, even I begged her to say she would never give me a chance, so I could just move on.
Recently I just said "enough" and e-mailed her some harsh and truthful things (I said I wished from the bottom of my heart that she DIED). Believe me, she deserves it.

I am seeing that with me psychologist. Trying to work this out, stop thinking about her (I study AND work with her) and maybe just "delete" her from my life, making the worst subject of my anxiety just go away.

That's all for today folks.

gadguy
10-06-2011, 07:40 AM
The peeing..the thought of not being able to go bathroom when needed will set off an anxiety attack in me in a minute. Its the only one of me fears I can trace to an actual event. I was in second grade, and had to go to restroom, my teacher would not let me go, told me I needed to learn self control. Needless to say I eventually lost control and wet myself. To this day I have this fear. She is probably the only person I really HATE and would take great joy in knowing her pains and sorrows.

I have often thought, that if this happened to a child of mine I would probabley hurt the individual responciable for allowing that to happen to a child. Fortunatley my anxieties have made have made realtionships and children nothing more than a pipe dream.

Ezio Auditore
10-06-2011, 03:00 PM
One thing that happens to me sometimes is that I get anxious because I REMEMBER being anxious in a situation before, that resembles the current situation.

If that happens to you too just stop when it happens and ask yourself "Why am I feeling like this?". Try to UNDERSTAND the problem, because once you do, getting to a solution will be easier.

Most times I said to myself "I am feeling anxious because I remember being anxious in this situation before. Hmm, there is no real reason to be anxious, and feel this urge to pee. I didn't drink anything, I just went to the toilet..." and it eases the anxiety.