My thoughts and experiences with anxiety.

[treadstone]

Hello, everyone. I'm new to these forums and I plan on getting well-acquainted with them soon.

I looked this place up in search of somewhere to write down my thoughts and experiences with my anxiety. I'm a writer and journalism major, so I do a lot of writing, but in the three months I've had anxiety I haven't really written about it.

I'm really sorry if this isn't the right sub-forum for this sort of thing, or if journal-style threads aren't allowed. I'll understand if this has to be moved or deleted.

Though I welcome any replies, I'm mostly doing this for myself, so I don't mind if I don't get any replies. I just need to get this all out into writing.

I'll begin by saying I'm a 23-year-old guy who loves writing. I'm a self-professed geek who spends most of his time reading, writing, playing video games, and watching movies/shows. I've been exceptionally healthy up until very recently. Aside from the occasional cold, I never got sick or hurt. While other kids were getting chicken pox and measles and breaking their wrists falling out of trees, I was indoors reading. The worst injuries I got were paper cuts.

I've been reading about anxiety (not too much, I find too much research makes me anxious, imagine that) and it seems most people agree that a panic attack is preceded by a period of heightened anxiety and worry. This wasn't true for me. In early June of this year, I woke up one morning and noticed I was exceptionally aware of my heartbeat. I could feel every thud. It felt faster than normal for me, but then again, prior to that day I barely ever noticed my heartbeat. When I did, it was when I was exercising, and it made me feel good to hear it because it meant I was working hard.

But that day, I was worried. I went about my normal activities, but when I went to bed that night, I was rather scared. I guess you could say that one day was the period of anxiety preceding the panic attack, but it seems rather short to be a 'period' to me. But then, I'm no expert.

So I'm lying in bed and just obsessing over my heartbeat. I suddenly freak out, and what follows were the scariest three hours of my life. At that point I knew nothing about anxiety. I had heard the term 'panic attack', but it meant nothing to me. So, when I got out of bed in alarm, and felt my breathing spiral out of control and my chest start to tighten and hurt I was convinced I was having a heart attack at the ripe old age of 22 (I've since had a birthday).

Even writing about that early morning (it was like 4AM) makes me feel kind of anxious. I had my mom drive me to the hospital. I was trying hard to remain calm. My mom was freaking out as well. I felt like shouting out that I was dying or having a heart attack, but I knew she might panic and crash or something. I tried to smile, and kept cursing in a happy sort of way every time we ran into traffic that delayed us.  The absolute worst moment of all was as we were about five minutes from the hospital. My arms and legs began to go numb, and I suddenly was convinced I was dying. This is it, the darkness closing in, goodbye world.

We ended up entering the hospital from the wrong entrance. I ended up banging on this massive security door where (as I found out later) criminals entered the hospital through for treatment. Some lady on the other side kept repeating "wrong entrance, go around" even as I pleaded with her to let me in, as I was having a 'heart attack'. Imagine if I had really been having one.

Nevertheless, I got to the E.R. and immediately started feeling better now that people were around who could take care of me.

Over the course of a full day they performed a bunch of tests on me. I had nothing - no heart condition, no stroke, no pulmonary embolism. They gave me some medicine which worked for about a half-hour and then wore off. My remaining symptom at this point was a feeling that no matter what I did, I wasn't getting enough air. I also spent half my visit looking over my shoulder at the heart monitor to check that I was still properly alive. At one point they brought me back from an x-ray and forgot to hook my heart monitor up again. I loudly complained and whined and finally they relented. I was a huge pain in the butt.

In the end they diagnosed me with a panic attack and sent me home with a $7000 bill. Oh dear. But that's for the debt relief forums, not Anxiety Zone.

The first few nights back home were unpleasant. Sleeping was difficult - I'd start falling asleep and then snap back to reality. I would cry with frustration at not being able to sleep without tiring myself out. For four or five nights, I'd just suffer through this for two or three hours after I got into bed, and then just nod off from exhaustion.

Then I entered a wonderful little period where I felt fine!

Starting at this point, it started to feel like my anxiety was a real living thing - an evil villain who would try a plan to get me anxious, fail, and then try a different approach.

Anxiety's first scheme was to get me to worry about my breathing. I spent three or four days focused on every single breath I took. I would try to watch TV or play a video game when I'd have to stop because I simply could not get enough air to satisfy my hungry hungry lungs. I despaired, wondering if I'd ever be able to live properly again. Then, slowly, I forgot about my breathing.

Following that, I had a nearly month-long period of time where I felt fine!

Then, about a week ago, my nemesis anxiety returned with a new plan - chest discomfort, leading to a hypochondria-ish worry about my heart health. My chest felt tight one night, heavy the next, achey the next night. When I had to lug groceries up to my apartment, my heart raced, and I worried. Even becoming intimate with my girlfriend made my heart twang uncomfortably. My imagination has always been my own worst enemy, and I found myself 'picturing' my heart deep inside my chest, surrounded by tumors and icky stuff that made it look terribly unhealthy. In fact, it looked so bad that some sort of dark wizard magic must have been involved. It was literally spitting out black smoke, and I think there might have been some evil-looking symbol stamped on the side by Sauron or something. It was seriously a miserable self-diagnosis. I'm not even qualified!

As I write this, I'm still going through that latest bit of anxiety. I'm drinking a mug of hot tea and settling down from a panic attack I fought off about an hour ago. I had been lifting a heavy box in my closet. My heart rate went up, naturally, from the exertion. But then it refused to come down. I hyperventilated a bit, my chest began feeling funny, and then I felt it.

Some people describe the onset of a panic attack as a falling sensation. To me, it's the opposite. It begins with what I call a 'rising action'. Every molecule in my body just soars into this heightened awareness. It's like traveling into an alternate dimension - a bizarro world like you see in comic books, though in my bizarro world I don't run into evil mustached twins of people I know. It just feels wrong. Dreadful. I feel like the characters in Harry Potter feel like when those Dementor things come around - sucking the happiness out of my surroundings, making me feel like I'd never be cheerful again.

When the panic hits, I want to get up and move around. If I stay still, I'll just keep hyperventilating, thinking "Shouldn't I be doing something!?". But when I get up to move about, I end up bracing myself against a wall. I never 'give up' to my panic attacks like I did to the first one I had. I know it's a panic attack, but that won't stop it. It'll retreat for a few seconds and then hit me again, and I can't do anything at the same time - can't walk, can't talk. I just need to brace myself so I don't fall, and fight it off. I try hard to reassure myself, even going so far as to try and talk to myself - "It's okay, it's a panic attack, it can't hurt you, you're here at home and you're safe". But I can't talk, I can't think, because my subconscious brain is telling me that if I stop focusing on the panic feeling, it will overwhelm me and harm me. I know that won't happen, but even though I know it, my brain honestly doesn't give a toss. It's very stubborn.

I can't say I know of a 'solution' to a panic attack. It seems to go away on its own. I make myself some tea, tell all my friends on 0276 that I just had a panic attack and survived (they were concerned the first time it happened, now they just say "lol" and continue the conversation as normal), and then just try and go about my normal things.

The most frustrating thing about anxiety, at least so far in my brief three-month experience with it, is that each time feels different. Or at least it seems like it does. I never think I'm feeling the exact same sensations or fears as I did on a previous occasion. The discomfort is always somewhere else, or pulsing in a different way. It's hard to breathe, but each time, it's hard in a different way. Sometimes it hurts a bit, sometimes I can't get enough air, sometimes a wave of cold washes over me while other times it's warmth. And even if it's my fourth time dealing with the wave of cold, it still feels different and unknown every single time. I assume this is the nature of anxiety - if it felt the same every time, it wouldn't be scary. The unknown is scary. Anxiety brings the unknown into play every time it attacks me.

From the limited reading I did, it seemed to me like the physical symptoms of anxiety came about after a bout of anxiety had already started. I thought the normal thing was for someone to feel anxious and scared, and then as a result of that, they would feel the physical symptoms like chest discomfort and shortness of breath. For me, it is the opposite - I feel completely fine until I feel a physical symptom. That symptom triggers anxiety and occasionally a panic. I know it's anxiety, but what if that 0.00001% chance that it's something more serious pans out? What if I'm sitting here trying to calm down from a panic attack when I'm really having a real heart attack? That tiny possibility, probably just as tiny as winning the lottery or getting struck by lightning, scares me immensely.

I'm doing a few things to help with my anxiety - I've cut out caffeine entirely, I'm exercising every day, and I'm eating less junk food. Yet I'm still looking (perhaps in vain) for other triggers for my anxiety. I've found that (barring a couple of odd days), I feel my happiest in the morning when I wake up. My anxiety then worsens as the day goes on, usually hitting a peak at anywhere from 7PM to midnight. Then, I usually take a small upturn in mood in the early AM hours right before I go to bed. I wonder what this means. I've been pondering whether my anxiety, which is usually caused by sensations in my chest area, may be linked to something like heartburn or acid reflux or some sort of gas problem. Though it may just be coincidence, I almost never experience strong anxiety before I eat dinner.

My periods of strong anxiety are also often preceded by thoughts about mortality and life. I almost had a panic attack today when my mom casually mentioned her age - 53 - in a conversation. I turned it over in my head, almost involuntarily - my mind sometimes goes to dark places and drags me along with it. "53!?" I thought. "In 20 years she's going to be 73," and I pictured my mom hunched over with white hair, complaining about her pains and saying what my grandma used to say in the years before she passed away - that she was so sick of all the aches and pains that she'd rather die.

I'm not at peace with mortality - I'm either distracted from thinking about it, or I'm thinking about it. It has been on my mind a lot lately, especially when a friend of mine nonchalantly observes that this year has gone by very quickly. The other day my girlfriend pointed out that in just about 4 months, it will be 2011. "But 2010 just started like yesterday!" I interjected. She found it funny, and I guess it was in a way, but I really felt that way. It feels like it was January a week ago, and it's already mid-August.

Perhaps these worries and insecurities I have are the root of my anxiety. Maybe they're just a contributing factor. But they do accompany my anxiety, sometimes coming before and serving as a warning, or afterwards as a bout of "post-panic blues".

I suppose I should start wrapping this up before someone starts marketing this post as the sequel to War and Peace. My biggest frustation right now is how anxiety is still quite potent even when I know its true identity. I know panic attacks can't hurt me, and there is no real reason to be afraid of them, yet they scare me nonetheless. I know the pains I feel are symptoms, invented by my mind, but yet that is of little comfort. The only thing my knowledge does is keep me from running off to the emergency room again. Aside from that, I am on my own to weather the storm. I know I'll make it through, but the thought of just one more panic attack is an exhausting one.

Still, I try to keep a positive outlook.

If you read even some of this, thank you very much for your time. I feel it's an honor when someone takes time out from their day to spend on me.

I apologize for the extreme length, but I just needed to pour my heart out for my own benefit. These feelings and thoughts have been mostly bottled up, and I had to let them go somewhere, and I figured Anxiety Zone would be the best place to put it.

I plan on putting down more of my thoughts and experiences as I encounter them.

Best of luck to you and thank you again!

[sixpack]

Goodmorning Treadstone,

Reading your post I can definitely see you have a writer's heart.  Usually a first post goes in the intro sub-forum.  However your post goes beyond an intro post.     So I think I'll leave the thread right here.   

As I read your post, it is very much how others come to grips with anxiety. Some, though, spend a lot more than $7000 to get an understanding that it is anxiety.  So I think you've learned pretty quickly.  I do understand the fear of another panic attack.  You don't want it to happen.  You are searching for ways to avoid it.  Sometimes, though, that fear can keep them happening.  You know it just increases your level of anxiety, even if you don't consciously see it or feel it.  You are right often people experience a 'build up' preceding a fall.  Some seem to just get an attack.  What I think happens is that you don't necessarily see triggers or the build up but your body feels it.  The last time I had a GIANT fall was after a long stressful two years involving a move, owning two homes, health issues with my eldest, repairing problem after problem with our 'new' home, then my sister ends up with a brain tumor (benign but our father died from one!).  IN the midst of it all, I didn't really "feel" anxious--obviously I was-- but in the moment I just moved from crisis to crisis.  It wasn't until things just started to calm a bit OR maybe it was some inconsequential occurance---a straw that broke the camel's back---ie I got up late one morning---that set the dominoes into motion.  At that point I was buzzing, tingling, getting headaches etc, etc.  I finally let all of the 'what ifs' take over.  Fear certainly can be a humbling experience.

FYI---we did have a "blog" type section in the ZONE but with one of our changes it was moved, I believe, to our sister website called Anxiety Connections.  I am certainly not saying not to post here.  I'm just mentioning it in case you would like to have a look there as well.