Anxiety

Hey all, I hope this post is okay

I'm currently going through a very high anxiety moment and have been having panic attacks all weekend. I'm still in one.

I've got a doctor appointment scheduled for next week, but I need some encouragement and advice to calm things down right now.

I have avoidant anxiety. When I was a student and I started having panic attacks for the first time. I couldn't force myself out of the house and stopped showing up at work and got myself fired and failed out of my classes. It took me years to recover.

I found a therapist privately back then and did CBT and it helped make things manageable enough that for years things were okay. She's no longer working, and I specifically avoided drugs then but I think that was a mistake.

I've been working for over a decade and have been carefully managing my anxiety with only a couple incidents. I worked in small companies, then did independent contracting, but now I've been in corporate jobs since COVID.

The last couple years I've been really struggling with my anxiety. As soon as everyone started doing mass layoffs and tightening the belt I've been struggling hard. The last few months it's gotten exponentially wise, and it's beyond my ability to manage.

I can't focus anymore, sitting at my desk gives me a panic attack every day, then I fail to meet my deadlines, so I stay up all night pushing myself, which boosts my anxiety.

I feel like I'm on a treadmill running full speed, but I'm tired, I can't breath anymore, I have that feeling if I run anymore my legs will collapse. But I'm on a treadmill, if I fall I get wrangled and crushed, even though I know I can't keep running.

Man I just need someone to say they know how I feel, that I'm not alone, and to help me push the next week until my appointment.

Edit: thank you everyone, you all helped me through that moment and I'm feeling clearer right now. You said some things that were what I needed to hear, with concrete advice, and I can't express how much I appreciate that.

It's going to be a rough week and I have a lot to think about

I was on escitalopram for years. Got tired of being fat. Asked for something else. Trintellix wasn't cutting it. Added buspiron. That stopped my spirals. Still fat, taking 2 pills, buspiron makes me sleepy, and Trintellix is expensive. Enter fluoxitine! We'll see if it works.

I've always had social and general anxiety, but it's worries about finances that will turn it into something crippling.

I work on commission. there are days where the anxiety is beyond the tipping point where it's no longer a performance enhancer, but makes it difficult for me to do my job.

so today, I had one chance to make a sale. if I didn't make it, I was probably going to have to take klonopin through the weekend. but then I made the sale, and it hit harder than a fistful of Xanax

i fucking hate this world dude.

I went to the doctor. I lost 20 pounds or so since I was last there. I was prescribed new medication for the anxiety. I am to come back in 6 weeks as they were concerned about my weight loss and medication check up. They also said the chance of cancer is low at my age (mid 30s) and asked for s family history of it. Which it seems like most family members had it later in life.

Now I'm really worried about my weight. I already lack an appetite during stressful times.

Anyone else have any similar experiences?

For example my keys jingling in my pocket, my jacket sleeve moving against my torso, and to a lesser extent my footsteps make me anxious. I'm curious does anyone else experiences this?

I'm not sure if it's anxiety or something grander. Wearing noise cancelling headphones helps though.

I kind of feel like the noise version of a Nightkin.

I had been on lexapro/escitalopram for years but asked for something different to help with weight. Switched to Trintellix several months ago, but it's not working very well and my weight is the same. Doc gave me option to try adding buspirone or go back to escitalopram. I chose buspirone. Anyone else tried it?

I have a 14 hour road trip coming up next month that I have been nausetingly nervous about an entire month out. I'm even trying to seek out a counselor for a bit beforehand because near daily I get sick to my stomach thinking about it. I have bad driving anxiety and I know thats the core of it, but I'm also nervouse since I dont know the people I'm going with super super well, which adds to the driving anxiety component as well as just general anxiety. I'm also super nervous about being tired/feeling sick during the trip and terrified of being away from home/my partner for the week, and dreading the exhaustion upon returning and attempting to finish the work week. my work is also offering to send me to a conference a few days after I get back but the fear of exhaustion + another two hour drive so soon just adds even more anxiety. any advice??

[] was used for editors notes:

top text (roughly): tfw [use mfw instead?] my anxiety (unmedicated [parenthesis?]) feels like physical [remove the word physical? it doesn't literally feel like physical pain] pain that makes it too painful [already said pain before, replace with a synonym?] to focus on anything else [overall this should be shortened, too wordy]

I was gonna use that video of burning in hell from that one r/distressingmemes post (CW: scary video and sounds: link)

I decided not to make this meme as it didn't sound all that interesting and felt self centered, and I knew some people would be spooked by the meme template used

I would have probably posted it to c/196 or c/[email protected]

i have an appt i'm nervous about and then i was thinking about these passages I read:

But it seems to me that emotion and its expression are almost the same thing. Let us take your cat: now suppose we shave her tail, so that it cannot shall I say perscopate or bristle; suppose we attach a board to her back, so that it cannot arch; suppose we then exhibit a displeasing sight – a sportive dog, for instance. Now, she cannot express her emotions fully: Quaere: will she feel them fully? She will feel them, to be sure, since we have suppressed only the grossest manifestations; but will she feel them fully? Is not the arch, the bottle-brush, an integral part and not merely a potent reinforcement – though it is that too?

...and you have no doubt taken notice of the impassive faces of the captured men? It is always so, I believe? And does it not seem to you that this suppression, this denial of the outward signs, and as I believe reinforcers if not actually ingredients of the distress – does it not seem to you that this stoical appearance of indifference in fact diminishes the pain?

this is insane i cannot believe it worked so well. like, almost instantly i felt the vibrations go down

it's just you hear so many horror stories about it all. both about the apps themselves and just from people's bad relationships in general. it's a huge life change to go from single to actively going on dates [or whatever the term is], i feel like, because you're being emotionally vulnerable, which is important / challenging, and committing to a lasting thing ostensibly as well. and i'd have to make sure my apartment is cleaner in all the specific neat little ways.

i mean i want to message back but every time it's like i stress myself out and overanalzye what they said and what i should say and i can't even enjoy it -- does anyone enjoy that part?

i've had this since 5th grade, if i have anything pending i worry and worry until it's done; i'm working full time, i need time to rest and not go insane

I’m having to take Doxycycline for a severe chronic sinus infection and it puts me through the roof. Last night was the fist dose and I was out of my mind. I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t focus on anything and all I could do was get up and pace around every 10 minutes or so.

Also, I have to have some of my back teeth removed and my ENT wants to do a procedure called Functional Endoscopic Sinus Surgery. This is all too much for me to handle. I know that it’s all necessary and if I don’t do it, the infection could kill me- but any surgeries scare the shit out of me on a good day- and the meds are making it worse.

Apologies if I’m all over the place, but I’m out of my mind with all of this and I can’t calm down. I don’t know what to do. I can’t find a safe place in my mind to take a break from this and just be okay. Nothing feels okay.

I was on #nortriptyline for a couple years for nerve pain. It wasn't helping but side effects got worse so I quit in about a week. Felt pretty good for a few months but #anxiety got bad causing me to lose weight. Have a list of non-habit forming anti anxiety meds and started drinking protein drinks(2x30g) and exercise. Weight is slowly coming back and I can go about 4 days before anxiety gets bad again. anti-anxiety list from best first; hydroxyzine(25mg)/4 days, buspirone(2.5mg/day), tryptophan at night, #CBD oil/THC(as needed), meditation, ashwagandha. Had an #aneurysm in 2017 and was put on various #antidepressants for neuropathy. It's been about 6 months since quitting nortriptyline and I'm hoping to get to where I don't need anything. meditation/relaxation helps most with pain. Any experience with #tricyclic antidepressant withdrawal?

hypno/meditation vids from a psych counselor: https://yourbrainisalwayslistening.com/book-order/bonus/audio-meditation/ Thanks, Mike

What are you favorite skills or tricks for dealing with your anxiety?

I'll start. I've discovered that earplugs (I use loops) make dealing with loud places like restaurants so much easier! I used to eat and run from family meals. Now I can at least hang out after I finish eating, if not easily participate in the conversation.

To preface, i do have some trauma, regarding two separate incidents that happened years ago and years apart, but since the last i have found it difficult to be outside sober without getting very anxious about my safety.

Walking past anyone, the potential of locking eyes or the potential of random people talking to me are things i worry about or become almost fixated on regardless of who they are and who im with. I cant just walk down a street, even busy ones without being hyper vigilant.

Has anyone ever gotten over this kind of anxiety? If so, how?

(Ive been to therapy and I've already processed a lot of what happened, but i still get this anxiety when leaving the house or just being outside in the streets)