New to forum- looking for support and opinions!

[KrystleRae]

Hi everyone, my name is Krystle and although I haven't exactly been diagnosed with an anxiety disorder yet it looks to me like all my symptoms fit with a lot of yours, and like a lot of you I also have a hard time believing that anxiety could cause me to feel so lousy all the time. I'm 22 and as a kid I was always anxious, the classic thinking someone was in a car accident if they were home late or hadn't called yet and all that stuff. I never really felt physically sick from any of this until about the last year. It started with my heart feeling like it would skip a beat while I was sitting quietly but I ignored it thinking I was making it up, then progressively throughout the last year it got so much worse that it interferes with my every day living. My heart palpitations were what scared ( well, still scare) me the most, my heart will pound, race, skip beats, feel extremely irregular and flip flop all around my chest. Finally I went to my doctor and he did blood work, an EKG, echocardiogram and everything came back normal. When my heart would begin to beat irregularly I also started feeling ill, depressed down in the dumps feeling, along with a general weakness, fatigue, lack of energy, dizziness, shortness of breath, feeling of faint and probably more I'm forgetting. I'd feel ok one day and then awful the next and it keeps going around in some sort of cycles like that since this all started. I ended up at the emergency room 2 times while my heart was palpitating for hours and while hooked up to heart monitors, and a holter monitor again everything was normal, the doctors say. That's where I'm at now. Every day I feel anxious, but I don't feel like it could make me feel sick all the time, I've also begun to have attacks, I believe anyways. I'll be in the car or just sitting and I feel as if I'm about to faint, fall over, scared of what could really be wrong with me as I'm dizzy and trying to breathe normal. It passes but it scares me so much and I always feel as if there is something undiagnosed in me and that the doctors may not have done all the right tests. The ER gave me a low dose of xanax and I will take half of a pill sometimes but I don't feel like it helps much. I've also been having a lot of trouble lately having sort of flashbacks, and nightmares about when my mom died, about a year and a half ago. Could that have triggered all this ? Also, within the last year my boyfriend of 5 years broke up with me and I was devastated. The weird part is though when I would feel anxious about him, or my mom is not when I felt sick - it didn't seem to go together. But I've been told anxiety works in strange ways. So anyways, that's my story - or atleast what I can think of right now, thank you SOOO much for reading all that and I'd love to hear what you all think- if it sounds like I'm suffering from what you all are or something different, and any advice I would really appreciate.
Thanks Again!!

[dodger]

A bit different from what I've got I'd say but it sounds to me like you've had a lot of negative emotional experiences that have caused this problem. I'd suggest that seeing a pyschologist and properly addressing your feelings and responses to those events may help. In the short term simply talking to someone you feel you can confide in (like on here!) would help as well. Not trivilialising your condition at all as clearly it's serious, but at least you seem to have possible reasons for the root cause. In the short term you could also ask your doctor for alternative medication as not all drugs will work for you but some will.

[Crankcase]

Anxiety does work in strange ways. I've tried to come off my medicine twice and I got totally different withdrawal symptoms each time. You probably need to take a whole tablet of your Xanax for it to really make a difference. Sometimes it feels like I need 2 or three!  .

[Nikki_3]

KrystleRae,

everything you have described..to a T is me!!, all of your symptoms!!!..except i didnt lose anyone, i have no reason for my anxiety/panic attacks, it really throws me off because i can go through stressfull times with no symptoms at all, but after that situation has ended, thats when all the symptoms happen, i know how you feel!!!., i have a fear of all meds, so i dint take any, anytime you need to talk, I'm here