Thoughts of self harm.

[worrier123]

I feel like iv reached rock bottom, my anxiety has hit harder than ever before, i have mini panic attacks often and they terrafy me! its making my body ill i cant eat a thing, i throw up all the time and this morning when i woke up anxious and panicy for no reason i now have diareha! iv been on citropram 10mg for 2weeks now, im having reiki sessions, i read up on anxiety all the time trying to understand it, im on here all the time trying to reassure myself that this is normal and others are the same yet i still feel so alone. i dont even know why i panic i just know that the fear of panic is my biggest thing, i feel my body is going to shut down on me due to the amount of stress and not eating, i have great family and boyfriend who are so supportive but surly its only a matter of time before they get fed up of trying to help me, i tried to get a doctor round my house today as i didnt feel i could leave myself due to the sickness a diareha but they wouldnt come and said i need to regester with a GP nearer to my address, i called the NHS helpline again in floods of tears and shakey and scared, my aunty has just gone down to her GP to get some forms for me to fill so i can register there and hopefully see a doctor today. I dont know wat else is left for me to do, i feel so terrafied constantly, i dread when il next feel fear, im always on edge just waiting for it to happpen, i feel i will eventually drive myself insane and end up in a mental home, i worry my body is going to start failing, i look to the future i think i cant face it, i have thoughts sometimes of wanting to end it all if this is how im going to be, i worry that in the mid state of panic i will do something stupid to myself-not that i want to but becuase i have no control, i dont understand why at 25 i have suddenly taken such a tern for the worst, i feel despite people being suportive they think i need to just shut up and get on with it, im constantly tired and exsausted and just want to pop pills to knock me out, all i do is cry and it brakes my heart to see myself go through this cos i thought i was stronger than this but i feel so weak and helpless, i know other people have anxiety and its ment to be commen but i always dout that mine is something different and alot worse than others and im beyond the point of help!

The anxiety is turning into depression and from there onwards its a downward spiral, i worry that im going to end up that bad that im going to try and end it all just to be put out of my missery, i know theres only so many people that can help and tell you your going to be ok and so many websites you can constantly read for reasurance,and only so many posts here and so many self help books etct etc....what if nothing works?! iv got an essment with a councelor next week for CBT and that is probably my last resort, im not enjoying life at all right now and i feel selfish as there are people in this world with actually illnesses who would probably love to be where i am(although i dout it)

Is there anthing out there that can actually help this anxiety/panic disorder that i have because there feels like no hope, i jsut wana talk to someone that understands and i want this pain to go away so i can enjoy life like we are meant to.

can anyone help me

[Brad72]

I all my 17 years of anxiety I have never lost the support of my family or my wife. I think they can get a little frustrated sometimes but have always helped me. It can be hard fot them to understand sometimes because what we are afraid of can seem so trivial but to us it certainly feels real.

Anxiety is terrifying. It wouldn't be called anxiety if it weren't. I also feel that when it is bad you can often feel like you are the only one that feels this way but I can assure that we all have the same sensations, thoughts and reactions. Our triggers might be different but in the end anxiety attacks are all the same.

It took me many years to find the right treatment for me. Drugs never worked so those were not an option. I started out with CBT which gave me some tools to start tackling things. In the last year I found a therapist that worked with ACT and Schema therapy's plus mindfullness techniques. Because of these I haven't had an anxiety attack for over 7 months. The main trick was noticing what your anxiety mind is trying to tell you, which is really a constant stream of lies with no proof to back the thoughts up. Once you start to realise that these are just unhelpful thoughts you can start to filter them out, and only give attention to those thoughts that are helpful.

Picture your anxiety mind is a bit like a "Doom and Gloom" tv channel that is constantly on. You could stay sitting in front of the tv believing what it is trying to tell you or you could go outside in to the fresh air and enjoy the fresh air and the beauty of nature. You can probably still hear the doom and channel playing in the background but you are not paying any attention to it. In fact you will start to feel relaxed and in control. You haven't tried to stop the anxiety thoughts, you are just not paying any attention to them. It's a bit like visiting someone who lives next to an airport. As a visitor you will hear every plane landing and taking off, but the people who live in the house don't even notice the noise. They have tuned out from the noise, it's still there, they just don't pay any attention to it.

This is why I found that the harder I tried to rid myself of anxiety and unhelpful thoughts the harder it got. Once I learnt to stop struggling so much with the anxiety, almost like walking arm in arm with it things got much easier. I don't have to like the anxiety but I don't struggle with it or pay it any attention. I also find that my energy level are better because I am not struggling so much. Think of how much energy you would use trying to physically push someone away, verses walking beside them arm in arm.

Forgot to say I also read a positive affirmation each day, try and spend some time in the sun each morning as this helps boost serotonin production and I don't watch the news or current affairs programs on TV. They often cause stress because the media loves gloom and doom. I also try and do things that are congruent with my core values, like playing with the kids or spending time with my wife and listening to her, not talking about myself.

Anyway I hope this has helped a little. You will get better, even though life seems impossible at the moment.

[jessed03]

[QUOTE=Brad72;36129
Picture your anxiety mind is a bit like a "Doom and Gloom" tv channel that is constantly on. You could stay sitting in front of the tv believing what it is trying to tell you or you could go outside in to the fresh air and enjoy the fresh air and the beauty of nature. You can probably still hear the doom and channel playing in the background but you are not paying any attention to it. In fact you will start to feel relaxed and in control. You haven't tried to stop the anxiety thoughts, you are just not paying any attention to them. It's a bit like visiting someone who lives next to an airport. As a visitor you will hear every plane landing and taking off, but the people who live in the house don't even notice the noise. They have tuned out from the noise, it's still there, they just don't pay any attention to it.
[/QUOTE]

Awesome analogy!

I posted a quote on here a while about something similar. "To give your sheep or cow a large, spacious meadow is the way to control him", it's when we force animals into tight cages that they cry and kick and howl and bite. It's when we just let them have a huge field, they roam, get bored, all go and sleep together in the middle of the field and eat grass. I don't know if you have a cat. If you tell your cat to not go into a certain room, that's all it wants, and as soon as it gets in there, it kicks a fuss, knocks things over. When the cat is allowed inside, it walks around, sniffs, gets bored and goes outside.

It sounds like you've gotten far more in touch with yourself Brad. I feel that anxiety has done that too me too. I didn't really know who I was, or what I was about in life before anxiety, I just picked random battles, changed beliefs regularly and wasted time. Now I'm far more in tune with what I really want in my life, and what my beliefs and values are. I did affirmations daily for a long time too. It can get better. You can only walk so far into a dark forest, before slowly you start to come out of the other side. You don't always realise you're coming out of the other side as it's happening though.