Feeling Crap

[Janey]

Just when i think everything is going great, things start to spiral and i feel like crap and really really down and nothing can cheer me up.

Does anyone ever feel like this? what can i do to not feel like this? Everything that is wrong seems to be magnified and nothing can make me feel better.

Why does this happen in no particular pattern. My meds are meant to make me feel better and not like this. I know that i felt like this when i first took my meds, but this hasn't happened for a while.

Any advice anyone?? My fiance just cannot understand why things go down hill when everything is going so good. I am on medication for my anxiety and OCD. Should i see my doc about changing?

Thanks guys 

[pinky5]

Janey,

If you are like a lot of anxiety sufferers, including me, when things start to go too well, it makes me feel a little uneasy. I get this feeling like I'd better not get to used to feeling happy, because who knows what might happen. If you have had trauma in the past, and in your childhood especially, feeling happy and good aren't the feelings you associate with home and safety. This sounds sick and twisted, but I think it's true, for me anyway. When things are unstable and I'm struggling it feels like home. I know this feeling of being lost, confused, alone, scared, and angry. As strange as it sounds, these feelings can be comforting because they are more familiar than the positive ones. This can lead to a lot of self sabotage if you don't realize what is going on in your brain.

 If you start to feel happy and good your brain thinks "There could be trouble here, better take this happiness down a few notches" With me, I realize that for a lot of my life my focus hasn't been on how to make it great, but how to just barely get by, fly under the radar and make sure my basic needs are met. Not the recipe for a happy life, so I am in the process of trying to change this, but the first step is to realize the force that is fighting this, and this is the force of your survival instinct. Making sure you don't get too happy is your brain's way of protecting you from harm. When you are a kid and you are hurt unexpectedly, you start looking for any sign that it could be about to happen again. You become jumpy and anxious and see trouble everywhere because you are trying to make sense of the situation. That's all I think anxiety is, a perceived threat where there really is none. Anxiety is just you trying to protect the parts of you that have been hurt badly in the past.

I combat this by reminding myself that I am now an adult that can protect myself and I don't have to be on guard against people's behavior or events that might happen. I can trust in myself to be strong enough to deal with whatever comes my way and guarding against happiness actually interferes with my ability to do this. I just have to trust that there will be happy and sad moments in life and that I can be OK in all of them. You have to let yourself have a happy life and this takes work. You are learning a new way to be.

Rachel

[gloomy]

That was so inspiring and true of how I feel I suppose I am used to living in a crisis.  I do try hard to be positive and not live in dread and fear but I find it incredibly difficult.

[Janey]

Do you know the scary thing? you are so true it's not funny!

My father came home from Bali the day i was feeling down and i was so so happy and so was everyone else and i sort of when on a down after it all.

I am so used to been in a household when i was younger of tension and stress (my mother the main reason) and i think i am not used to seeing the household happy like this. She came to stay while dad was away and i have been un easy while she was here (like normal).

I look at different situations now and think of how uncomfortable i am when something good in my life is happening.

Yesterday i went to the gym for my weigh in and assessment and was so happy to be getting a new program and finally getting somewhere that i got very nervous and when they took my bloody pressure it was through the roof. 

I am going to take on board what you have told me and truly use it and really just enjoy the moment and be happy when something is going good and normal for once.

Thanks so much Rachel!! 

[GMan86]

Rachel I couldn't have put it any better. Actually, you said EXACTLY what my psychologist tells me, almost word for word.