I am 26 years old and suffer from anxiety and panic disorder. It's hard not to feel hopeless. I have been dealing with this for 8 years. Some years are worse than others. The anxiety gets so bad that I have missed weeks of work at a time. I'm sure that everyone here is familiar with how debilitating anxiety and panic can be, so instead of describing those symptoms I thought I would share everything that I have tried so far. Maybe someone else has suggestions??
I have tried anti depressants (made it MUCH worse), therapy, emergency rooms, clinics, psychologists, stopped drinking alcohol and caffeine completely, yoga, meditation, regular bedtime/sleep schedule, and a little bit of mindfulness. I am currently taking Buisbar and have a prescription to xanax. The xanax works during panic attacks, but does nothing to help with the long term day to day struggles of crippling anxiety.
I have a daughter who is 5 and need to keep fighting for her. If anyone has suggestions or stories to help me overcome this, please share!
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Meekah4
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I found the most effective thing for anxiety and panic is RET, Rational Emotive Theory or Therapy. It was developed by Dr. Albert Ellis in about 1970, and is based on disputing our irrational self talk. Search for it and see what you can find.
Meekah4, you do not have to suffer like this for ever, you have nearly three-quarters of your life left, and a young child to consider. You have tried many remedies without success, you have tried medication and therapy, but there are other ways to achieve full recovery from anxiety and you may wish to examine these.
Anxiety disorder begins after a long period of worry or stress. Our nervous system decides its had enough and becomes over sensitised. In this state it causes all the symptoms we are familiar with and we enter a vicious cycle. Sensitised nerves cause symptoms which cause fear which causes more sensitivity. This causes more symptoms causing more fear causing more nervous sensitivity.
Soon the original cause becomes almost irrelevant: we are engaged in a cycle that perpetuates our anxiety indefinitely.
Recovery lies in breaking this vicious circle: to stop flooding our nerves with fear and stress hormones. When this is achieved our nerves begin their recovery and the days of our anxiety are numbered. No matter how long or deeply we have suffered.
To achieve this we must respond to anxiety in the opposite way to our natural instincts. For example, we should stop fighting anxiety as fighting only causes more stress and tension that make matters worse. Instead we should frame our mind to accept all our symptoms FOR THE TIME BEING.
No matter how upsetting or uncomfortable the symptoms and panic attacks we must accept them FOR THE MOMENT without undue introspection or obsession. They can do us no lasting physical or mental damage. The power of anxiety is limited: it does not deserve our fear or terror.
Anxiety, then, is accepted as an unwelcome guest that cannot put us in harm's way: it is a toothless paper tiger. Accepting this, we no longer fear it in the way we once did. We stop frightening ourselves to death every five minutes, the flow of stress and fear hormones slows and ceases.
Then the bodies' natural healing process begins and with enough practice and patience our nervous system loses its sensitivity and we return to normality.
May I suggest you go to YouTube and search for "Claire Weekes". You will notice one video titled 'Freedom from nervous suffering'. It is over an hour long. This explains the acceptance attitude more than I ever could.
Meeka4, I believe that this is a good starting point for your recovery.
Lillyofthevalley37, I have found theanine in the form of a cup of green tea helpful but strangely unhelpful when taken in tablet form. It counteracts cortisol which peaks at 8a.m.
Fish Oil and Evening Primrose I take each day for reasons other than anxiety but have never felt or heard that they can help with anxiety disorder.
Spirituality is a good friend of those with GAD as Claire Weekes once wrote.
I believe anxiety is not overcome by taking vitamin, mineral or any other supplements but by changing our attitude towards anxiety in a way that leads to desensitisation of our nervous systems.
Hi I have overcome most of my anxiety but not fully, I still get it here and there sometimes but not as bad as I used to have it. I would get constant panic attacks in school and would feel like I’m going crazy! Anyways I know from what you are saying that anti depressants didn’t help you and I didn’t think they would help me either but they did but I do get some weird side effects like tremors and what not. It sucks it really does but I always manage to pull through. I pray about my mental health a lot and pray for healing and that God will just take this away from me.
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