When you think no one understands ....read this.

[Squirl]

I spent years dealing with GAD. Practiced breathing exercises, reading Hope and Help for your nerves by Claire Weeks until the soft covered books pages were worn and tattered. Day after day, week after week, month after month, having anxiety speak into my life with words of fear, panic attacks, hot flashes and loneliness.  In the end I would just end up running out of the restaurant, or choking down food at business lunches, sitting in subway cars, my car, feeling trapped, dizzy, spacey and panicing, afraid, lonely and desperate. No one to turn to. Family and friends couldn't fathom the complexity of my illness. My doctor at that time told me to go outside and get some fresh air. How ignorant of this my most personal nightmare. I later looked back and pitied him.

Years went by, and the silent, shameful and hidden world of therapy and meds, that no one dared to talk about, filtered its hope through one person to another. After countless visits to the hospital with questioning smiles from countless doctors, and their pitied smiles, who only saw what they could touch and not what they could hear me say, sent me packing to a Psychiatrist. I gave up hope then, sitting opposite a man who listened to my well worn story like grooves from a needle in an old vinyl record. I stared blankly waiting for his sifting eyes to read the familiar story of panic and fear and push me off into the lake of misunderstanding, aimlessly set adrift to be blown by the wind of despair.

Then, as all was lost, something wonderful happened. He smiled as he shifted in his chair and offered me hope, like a desert thirsting for rain. He said he understood. He said its a common mental ailment. He talked about therapy and medication, who i now call Med my friend. It brought me freedom to walk ,think, smile, breath, and live again.

The inside could finally go outside into public places.

Your friend in the war against Anxiety.
 

[Squirl]

I love the above quote..very up lifting.

[Lunabell]

My goodness,it's as if you've read my mind. I had been thinking all day ''why does no one understand what I'm going through?''. Thank you for this lovely post!

[Despina]

It is so good to hear a story such as yours.  Like yourself I have suffered many years from anxiety and depression and still do.  Why does it continue after trying everything you have read and researched about - not forgetting those GPs and psychiatrists?

There are no magic solutions out there unfortunately.  A lot comes down to our own body chemistry and our personality, and most importantly how we perceive our day to day lives.

Stress and anxiety are conditions we all suffer from, from time to time, but the problem only begins if you let it get 'out of hand'.  We have built in stress factors within our body mechanism and for general stress and anxiety, it usually helps us cope with such problems.

Being a 'Tourette' sufferer has been MY biggest problem, and instead of things getting better, as my tourettes escalated, then so did my anxiety levels  It being an anti-social disorder, it makes you feel like you have 'leper' emblazoned on your forehead.  Dealing with sniggers and smirks really brings you down to a terrible level.  However, I now have the confidence to challenge these people - if I come up against it, which is pretty often (on the few occasions I do go out to do essential shopping), I now stop and turn to them and say, "Do you have a problem? - I have Tourette Syndrome, and guess what, you could take it tomorrow just like I did many years - right out the blue!"  Their faces are a picture, really, but I wasn't kidding with what I said, I took the condition (whilst under tremendous stress) at the age of 28 and I am now 58.

Keeping faith and hope on your side helps get you through the day, but we must try and stop anxiety in it's tracks before it decides to get settled in.  That way, we have a fighting chance to help us try and get to the root cause, and by doing so, gives us a much better chance of 'kicking it's butt!'

We must fight together, share our anxieties and worries and keep bringing them here to this site - WE WILL DO IT - TOGETHER

[rayandrae]

Hi my tag is Rae, and I have had anxiety for most of my life, and I am forty-four. I developed full blown panic with phobia after a very difficult birth trauma; I guess it was sort of like PTSD. Anyway that was fourteen years ago, and my life has changed significantly. I have a tendency towards hypochondria, with a inter-changeable list of physical ailments, that seem to stay for a period of time, and get replaced as soon as one ebbs. I can get a dry yucky mouth, weird migraine symptoms, irritable bladder, sinus issues, tinnitus, and my favourite, an off kilter feeling like I am on a gently moving boat.

That being said over the years I have gotten much better, and am now in school full time studying conflict, and I am a mother to a large blended family of seven kids ranging from fifteen to twenty-four. I can now pretty well nip panic in the bud, except when I have night terrors, which is when I cannot wake up. I am awake, but I still feel like I am dreaming. It is easier in the winter to come out of it, just open the door, but in the summer I look very odd doing jumping jacks. I think a great deal of my anxiety comes from a sleeping issue, but certainly not all of it. Some of it is my damn nervous system and my brain.

So while I have overcome a great deal, I still suffer many days, though some are minimal. I have wondered about medication, but I had adverse affects when I tried them, and so battled hard for about seven years without them. I was lucky to have a chiropractor who was amazingly patient and supportive and who could explain alot of what was going on with my nervous system and how disease processes work. So the reality of it is, I am not dying. Things that come and go are NOT tumours. Disease is progressive and you KNOW when you have one. This helps most of the time ... but I still have to do the self talk often. It is like I am watching myself with compassion explaining what I already know.

Mostly though, it is the discouragement with how quickly it can raise its head, and how quickly you can succumb. This time of year is the worst for me, always. I can't get past the feeling that I am a loser, and that somehow I should not be thinking the way I do. Well, I know I shouldn't be, but obviously after all the work I have done, I am not making the choice to do so. It feels that way though; it really does. Because I can clearly see the irrationality of it, yet I can't stop thinking about whatever is bugging me.

I have noticed that if I can get outside of myself and have a really fun time or get absorbed in a really interesting conversation, I can get past whatever is plaguing me at the time. For example, I can feel off kilter for days, and I get into a great conversation, and voila, it is gone in two hours. I fully realize the value of connection; I think it is really the only thing that makes a deep impact in the long run. Exercise, diet, counselling are all very important, but nothing works like the ability to get outside of your own head.

Anyway that is why I am here. I want to connect with people like me who understand the struggle. I am very afraid to be vulnerable with this, though of course I am ... kinda hard to hide in close quarters .... but I hate to feel like a burden and a loser. I get discouraged when I think of what it is like to listen to me so often. My husband says it bothers him more to have to watch it and how hard it is for me. I try to not talk about it anywhere near as much as I think about it. So again, that is why I am here. I want to interact with people who do understand.

Thanks for reading.
Rae

[sparechimby]

Thank you for writing this. It's always reassuring reading stories like this and it reminds us that we're not alone.

[mzimmer95]

I work as a professional counselor in Akron Ohio.  I never really understood anxiety before until this summer.  I had a severe trauma happen to my body in which my nervous system became so overly stimulated that I could not function.   The anxiety was horrendous that I couldn't take care of myself let alone my 3 small children.  I can honestly say I didn't understand until I went through severe anxiety myself.  I think the best advice I can give anyone is that sometimes we don't realize how our own subconscious elevates our anxiety when we are not even aware of it and because of this medication is almost a necessity.  This coming from a previously antimedication therapist.  By the way, never feel guilty for taking medications.  They were a life line to me, literally.... I am grateful that I have gone through this as I believe I will be a better therapist. 

[bigboltrules]

THank you for this post.  I know it is three years old, but this is exactly how I feel right now.  Thank you for the extra hope you have given me.

[~justme~]

thanks for the post.. amazing and hopeful!

[Acty]

I love the Claire Weekes books! They have been my bible for many years. They are pretty beaten up to from always re-reading those books. I hate the feelings, I hate the symptoms and I hate all of it! I have struggled many many years with it. Some days good and some days bad. One day and one step at a time.

[~justme~]

Great post!! I really needed to read this again

[Ashybear]

this post is exactly how I feel, except I still haven't found that Doctor willing to prescribe me proper meds...4 years and counting.

[Anxious4Nuthin]

great post...who was this you went to see? and you got better i guess?

[b_rocha31]

I just now registered for this website and this is the first forum I looked into and I already have hope for the future.  Thank you!

[nwtex200]

I just wanted to say thank you for that.  I'm a newbie and it helps me to keep my sanity knowing I'm not going crazy and that there is someone out there who knows exactly what it feels like.  I try to explain it to friends and family to get some comfort or understanding and they just don't seem to comprehend what I feel or go through.

[Bizarro2XL]

Obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) is an anxiety disorder that is characterized by the sufferer experiencing repeated obsessions and/or compulsions that interfere with the person's ability to function socially, occupationally, or educationally, either as a result of the amount of time that is consumed by the symptoms or the marked fear or other distress suffered by the person. Conventional knowledge is that there are four types of OCD: obsessions that are aggressive, sexual, religious or harm-related with checking compulsions; obsessions about symmetry that are accompanied by arranging or repeating compulsions; obsessions of contamination are associated with cleaning compulsions; and symptoms of hoarding.

An obsession is defined as a thought, impulse, or image that either recurs or persists and causes severe anxiety. These thoughts are irresistible to the OCD sufferer despite the person's realizing that these thoughts are irrational. Examples of obsessions include worries about germs/cleanliness or about safety or order. A compulsion is a ritual/behavior that the individual with OCD engages in repeatedly, either because of their obsessions or according to a rigid set of rules. The aforementioned obsessions may result in compulsions like excessive hand washing, skin picking, lock checking, or repeatedly arranging items. Different than compulsions, habits are behaviors that occur with little to no thought, are repeated routinely, are not done in response to an obsession, are not particularly time-consuming, and do not cause stress. Examples of habits include cracking knuckles or storing car keys in a coat pocket.

The diagnosis of OCD has been described in medicine for at least the past 100 years. Statistics on the number of people in the United States who have OCD range from 1%-2%, or more than 2-3 million adults. Interestingly, the frequency with which it occurs and the symptoms with which it presents are remarkably similar, regardless of the culture of the sufferer. The average age of onset of the disorder is 19 years, although it often begins during the childhood or the teenage years and usually develops by 30 years of age. It tends to afflict more males than females.

Individuals with OCD are more likely to also develop chronic hair pulling (trichotillomania), muscle or vocal tics (Tourette's disorder), or an eating disorder like anorexia or bulimia. OCD sufferers are also predisposed to developing other mood problems, like depression, generalized anxiety disorder, and panic disorder. OCD puts its sufferers at a higher risk of having excessive concerns about their bodies (somatoform disorders) like hypochondriasis, which is excessive worry about having a serious illness. People with OCD are more vulnerable to having bipolar disorder, also called manic depression.

Although sometimes confused with OCD, obsessive compulsive personality disorder (OCPD) is defined by perfectionism and an unbending expectation that the individual and others will keep a specific set of rules. OCPD sufferers do not tend to engage in ritualized behaviors (compulsions). However, OCPD tends to occur more often in people with OCD than in those without and therefore can be considered another risk factor for the development of obsessive compulsive disorder.

[nwtex200]

My girlfriend has OCD but it really only pertains to how she cleans and does laundry.  Everything else she has no problems with.  When she's laying in bed and if she knows there's dishes in the sink, she won't stop thinking about it until she goes and cleans it.  If I do it for her, she goes back and cleans over what I originally cleaned before she even got home.

I make it a goal to let her know that I embrace her for her "quirks" just as she embraces me for my anxiety in general.  Over the past 3 years it's gotten better and it really helped with her knowing that I'm supportive of her and I'm there for her, rather than her feeling that I think she's crazy.

[servantofgod]

Hope things improve

[rieno]

Thats great that the meds are working for you and you can live a more normal life.

[Jmomma33]

You put EXACTLY  how I feel into words perfectly. Well done!!!

[Eliza8157]

Wow! I had no idea that other people actually feel the same way I do! It is so wonderful to not feel so alone! Just reading other posts had brought me a level of comfort that I haven't had in such a long time. I will do anything to get my anxiety and constant mind chatter under control! It has gotten to where it RULES me. I'm starting to get really scared!

[girlx]

just beginning to see a therapist now and i'm hoping for the best

[chasteenally]

I too am seeing a therapist, he reassured me that everything i am going through is anxiety and he thinks i will do good if i stay focused. Things look hopeful, its not easy but i have to push myself. For therapy to work you have to be willing to try and trust what the therapist is telling you.... Meds on the other hand I share the pain of people whos bodies can't tolerate it. I am only able to take 10 mg of celexa i cant go higher or i get about every side effect except vomiting and siezures. same went for  paxil, the regular practitioner gave me 20 mg after a week i was so disorientated i had to stop taking them. before that i was on ativan....longest withdrawl of my life..but thats just me, im actually considering b vitamins..along with my jump rope, abdominal breathing, and progressive muscle relaxation. I have panic disorder and generalized anxiety disorder. I have panic attacks once a day and atleast 10 limited symptom attacks a day. i am hopeful life doesnt have to be this way. I wish all of us whatever we be suffering from a great recovery! im 22 theres more out there then this for me!

[debm]

I find when I read the post here it gives me hope !

[cabeazer]

IT IS VERY IMPORTANT TO FEEL  THAT YOU ARENT ALONE THAT SOMEONE GETS IT...IT IS A VERY LONELY STATE TO FEEL MISUNDERSTOOD..THANKS