Physical symptoms from anxiety?

[Chav_a143]

So this is just our if curiousity because it happens to me a lot. I find that when I get yelled at or scolded like by my mom or basically anyone I literally feel sick. Like I get nauseous right away and want to throw up. Or when I’m nervous about something i also feel sick and nauseous but not as nearly as bad as when someone yells at me. I know other people get this too but I just wanted to know other experiences with this and maybe how to prevent/stop it?

[Swan2019]

I was just about to post on how awful I feel tonight. Then I saw this post. Yes physical symptoms are a part of anxiety. You get like that when you are yelled at because you probably get nervous.

[masa2333]

I have other symptoms, like chest pain, back pain, headache...pain all over the body really! Dizziness too and feeling like I can’t catch my breath

[hypercat54]

Hi are you of an age when you can leave home? x

[Chav_a143 in reply to hypercat54]

I go to college out of state but come home when I’m on break

[hypercat54 in reply to Chav_a143]

Well I would just avoid home if you can or at least keep a very low profile when you are there. x

[maggief9812]

Some blessed people (heavy sarcasm) are just lucky enough to have very gastrointestinal anxiety symptoms. I’m one if those lucky few!

For me it starts with The Burps of Dismay when I’m a little upset. If I get more upset/emotional/anxious/scared, it can increase to Nausea of Foreboding, or even to Diarrhea of Extreme Distress. I joke about it because that’s a coping mechanism of mine, but it’s the worst!

(Read to the end)

One time, I had been going through a particularly difficult period with my then future husband. He had been distant, uncommunicative, and testy with me for weeks. We fought all the time and I didn’t understand why because I was trying so hard to be open and loving with him. I didn’t know what was happening, but I felt like our relationship was ending and I was in a constant state of nausea, shakiness, and depression over it. At the time we were living with my older sister. I went outside to have a smoke and my sister was already having one next to the garage. I proceeded to tell her how awful I had been feeling, how everything was falling apart, and how now I needed to hurry and change the sheets before my SO got home. You see, earlier that morning, while sitting on the edge of the bed to get dressed I had to fart. Except, EXCEPT, because of the extreme turmoil of my gut, what came out was not just gas. I told my sister how I was so upset I sharted on the bed. At which point, the love of my life steps around the corner of the garage with his cigarette and says “you’re nasty!”

I had never been so mortified in. my. life.

Nowadays we can laugh about it because he knows that nothing is a more true indicator of how deeply emotionally involved I am than my “gut reaction”. And we are (mostly happily) deeply in love.

[maggief9812 in reply to maggief9812]

Chav, unfortunately I have never found a way to totally stop it. I generally try to avoid letting my emotions run away with me. When I start to feeling sick from my feelings I acknowledge it. I try to think “I feel dizzy and nauseous right now because I’m upset about _____.” I try to acknowledge the problem and make a plan to deal with it. For example “my husband is in an angry irrational state right now because of HIS anxiety disorder. I know this is triggering my fear/sickness and that both his irrationality and my fight or flight reaction will pass. I’m Not going to engage with him until we’re both calm.”

He might snap at me, or yell, but I will literally bite on my tongue unless I’m able to say something loving and emotionally aware. Once we’re both calmer I try to explain my experience if it.

The other day when he was having a hard day he was snappy about dinner. He cursed and raised his voice a little. As someone who’s been abused by a yelling cursing name caller, this is very triggering for me. I kept walking out of the room and not answering him very much. He loudly said “you won’t talk to me!” in a frustrated fashion. I forced myself to make eye contact and softly told him “I don’t feel like I can talk to you when you’re like this. You’re reading my mind, and you’re doing it badly. All I wanted was to help you, the way you asked me to.” (He’s an insulin dependent type1 diabetic- meals & healthy choices are tough sometimes.) This is new for me; stating my truth in the moment. In the past I would go shut myself behind a door and cry until I felt safe to speak. And that’s okay, because it’s all I had the mental space for. I would sit with my back against the door, knees to chest, trembling and trying not to puke or poop myself. Eventually he’d come knock and ask to come in, then hold me while I shook and cried. I STILL get anxiety stomach, but these days when I face my feelings and the problem head-on my stomach symptoms resolve faster. Some of this is the emotional work I’ve been doing, but I also think my new meds (SSRIs) are going a long way to calm my body reactions down a little.