Need help with this.

Hello my name is benjamin I’m 21 and have been unemployed since late July last year. I left my job due to many things but the main thing was how u felt every day going in there I would shake feel the urge to escape. I would think that I was going to void my bowls feel down just all together awful. Despite it only being a part time job which makes me feel shitty about myself because I think who can’t do a 3 day a week job. The only things I will about the job situation was that it was a 40 minute round trip. Plus there was a lot of target pressure as well as having to learn about products constantly and not working with people my age anyway I digress. (Additionally i would lie about how far I was in my comedy career to them for no reason why h makes me feel bad about myself as well as having a girlfriend which would make me think what’s wrong with me?) anyway to get to the point after I left work my panic attacks became more frequent when I would go out my fear was loosing control of my bowls in public being sick etc. It got to the point where I didn’t go out at all and even struggled to walk around the block. So in late September I finally got a meeting at a therapy centre. (The appointment was set back in early July after I was convinced I had appendicitis’s and went to my doc)

Anyway the therapy was great it worked incredibly well and got me over some large humps however I still felt like the core issue wasn’t being hit deep down but I was feeling positive and finally felt like I could seriously star looking for work we are now in November. Through out that time I was trying to go out more and more often with hiccups along the way like when I headed a football was convinced I had concussion had the biggest panic attack I’ve ever had and went to a&e. Now we get into December and my panics have really hit a new level I would think that breathing had been affected when my brother would spray hairspray (something that never happened before) and around Christmas time it was a period of relentless panic attacks. So in early January I decided to go see a therapist my mother had just become friendly with who specialises in hypnotherapy. It did not go well after a few sessions I stated to feel very weird like she was changing my fundament psyche and made me question everything about my life and my perceptions on how I’d lived it. Additionally around this time I chocked on some steak and was bossed with my swallowing ever since feeling like it wasn’t the same and I couldn’t eat the way I used to and after seeing five doctors who all told me it was fine I’m still having a bit of trouble with it but that is improving a lot and is less of an issue. Anyway the main reason I’m writing is because After the first session where we spoken about my life and what I thought caused the anxiety I remembered I had forgotten to tell her about a friend of my brothers who unfortunately took his own life and how that started my issues with suicidal thoughts but as this had not been an issue for a year or so but I thought it was important to mention. After recalling that the subject of suicide seemed to just dog me day in and day out I would worry endlessly about the fact that I felt like I was going to do I would lay in bed crying to my brother and dad about it. As well as screaming and crying about it in the bath to my brother although that was additionally due to my stress about his exasperation when I tried to talk to him about my worry’s. Now in to late February the feelings have started to ware off but I still want feeling like myself I would just have this unexplainable feeling a lot of the time like I’m not myself I’m not me. I’m doing things I don’t even really like e.g lifting weights but my family says things like I am myself I’ve not changed it’s good I’m doing all this stuff there’s nothing wrong with me just need a routine and structure. But it just doesn’t feel right I don’t feel right I don’t have the same baseline good feeling I had even with all the panics feel like I’ve totally lost myself my feelings towards comedy have changed my feelings towards life feel like I’m not doing enough and shouldn’t be unemployed at this age it’s not normal like I’m a stranger to myself don’t know what I want to wear or how I want my hair to look? I just don’t know? And the worst part is no matter how ivy I talk I feel like nothing gets resolved I don’t feel better after saying this stuff when I panicked I and told people what I was worried about I’d feel better afterwards.

Any help on this would be greatly appreciated i apologise for the length of the post there’s more but I’ve written too much already

Thank you

[Kat63]

If you are in therapy, stick with it. Keep talking to your therapist and your doctor - tell them the things you have told us.

[Hidden in reply to Kat63]

I am going to start again later this month thank you, I think my main concern is just worrying I’m in a very bad situation

[Strebbs]

Hey buddy, first of all I’m really sorry you’re going through all of this!! You are clearly struggling with some very bad anxiety and panic. As maybe you can understand by now, this is a disease you have, and it is not your fault. In fact, I would state instead that it doesn’t even register on scale of morality whatsoever, no matter what your brain tells you. We who have anxiety really struggle with assigning judgements to arbitrary thoughts, making them seem not so arbitrary at all.

I very much empathize with your situation and your feelings. I myself have been through much the same struggles and many of the same events, and I still face them, though after a year and a half or so of help I have made a great deal of progress.

You are not alone in your suffering. I am 29, still live with my parents, and currently unemployed. I didn’t even know I HAD anxiety until less than two years ago. I left my job before then because I was so miserable and recognized I needed to work on myself for the first time. Months later, I did end up getting a new job (“oh yeah! Umm, I’m ready! Psh, I’m all better now” *nervous laughter* I’m sure you know the feeling lol). That didn’t go so well for me, either. I started having genuine panic attacks for the first time several months in and had to quit.

That was almost a year ago, and I still struggle. It can be really, really hard to be patient with yourself when your brain is overwhelmed with feelings of worthlessness and not doing enough. Even as I write this I’m in a period of high anxiety, worse than I’ve had in months honestly. It’s so hard to tell myself that it’s not my fault - because even though duh, I know that, logically, I still have the feeling that the only reason I feel so bad is because I’m not doing well enough in my recovery.

I really get how hypnotherapy didn’t work out for you. I tried a similar thing once, with my therapist, where I lay on the couch and tired to relax while he spoke to me. Pretty much the moment I lay down, boom, all I could think about was how much I COULDNT relax, yet desperately wanted to, and I ended up in near tears of frustration almost immediately. I had similar agony over things as simple as trying to lie down and relax - anything to do with being still and “relaxing” seemed to have to opposite effect on me. From personal experience I can tell you that it will get better, it will just take time.

As for obsessing about potential threats causing you harm, like the hairspray: yup, that sounds about right! As a symptom of anxiety, I mean. I’m sure the hairspray did nothing to you. Months ago, when I was still brand new to how incredibly effective anxiety is to creating physical changes in your body, I convinced myself that I had a hernia (a few years ago, at that first job I quit, I was in miserable physical shape and had injured my back and neck multiple times, and was in severe agony for a long, long time). But even as I recovered, I still suffered from pains, stiffness, and more than anything a worry over what could be wrong with me, and whether it would ever end. At once point I began researching symptoms and was certain I had a hernia, because I had pain and cramping in my gut, pain that felt like nerve pressure, and even a feeling of something “shifting” around in the area. Eventually, I discovered that there was absolutely nothing there - true, my body was still healing, my muscles were still very stiff and achy, and my neck didn’t turn quite properly, but about 90% of my discomfort came purely from anxiety.

Your stress not only causes muscle tension, fatigue and pain, but your brain is perfectly capable of simulating just about ANY ailment in ANY part of your body. It’s kind of insane. So, yeah, I’m not surprised at all that you easily become fixated on things like hairspray damaging your lungs and making it hard to breath.

It will definitely get better for you. If you aren’t capable of holding down a job right now, that’s perfectly okay. If it weren’t such a struggle, well you probably wouldn’t struggle with it, huh? Work within your means. If you need the money right now and need to work, I would say applaud yourself for doing your best to make ends meet, even though it’s so difficult. There is absolutely no shame in your situation. Recovery is very slow, takes time, and kindness, but is ultimately more rewarding than anything else you’ll ever do. You aren’t bad for struggling at work, and you certainly aren’t a loser for not having a romantic partner (I met my current partner almost two years ago, when I was 27. She was/is the first girlfriend I ever had, and my first sexual partner. Until then I’d only ever kissed someone, if you even could call it that, and felt like a complete loser. Turns out I was an entirely worthwhile and love-able human being, and so are you, no matter how much garbage you believe yourself to be).

I would highly recommend reading articles on anxiety and panic disorders, any and all knowledge you can find. They helped me so much. Another great source of material is reading about childhood abuse, neglect, and trauma. Even if you don’t see yourself as having an abusive upbringing like I did, learning about childhood development and how the ways our experiences affect us is a huge help to anxiety sufferers, I guarantee it.

Some things that also might benefit you to ask yourself, especially when you’re feeling panicked:

- “What’s the worst that could happen?” Please keep in mind: there is unfortunately nothing you can say to yourself that will be some sort of “magic pill” that will eliminate your pain. Expecting that to happen is only going to make you feel worse when it doesn’t. Instead, try to challenge and engage your brain in small ways when it’s going haywire. I find that asking myself a question like that engages my more constructive left-brain functions. It challenges you to consider an answer, something your right-brain isn’t very keen on doing. If you’re spiraling into fears of “oh god, I’m going to have a panic attack, I can’t have a panic attack” try saying to yourself “okay, so maybe I’m going to have a panic attack. What’s the worst that could happen? What will that do for me, really?” Obviously, your brain is very adept at coming up with every conceivable terrible thing that could happen as a result. But if you really pose that question to yourself, I expect your answer will mostly be a general “I DONT KNOW, P A I N “. When that happens, I usually go, “oh, okay, so pain is the worst that could happen? In other words, I’m scared of the panic attack that I fear is coming. And exactly what percentage of those have I survived so far?” Again, not some magic pill. Don’t expect to necessarily stop a panic attack in its tracks - instead, try to discuss with your brain about what exactly is going on, and why does it have to be so afraid of something it’s already endured so many times.

- “Is what I’m doing working for me?” I find that when I’m anxious, I really want to just roll over in bed and boot out the world. Unfortunately this basically never works. Even if I can find some peace in sleep, which is rare, the feelings generally don’t get any better afterward. The frustrating thing is, that I try TOO hard sometimes to practice the mental techniques that I’ve picked up in therapy - in other words, without even realizing it, I sit myself down and expect myself to be able to out-think my anxiety or else I’m not “doing it right”, or have a good enough handle on those techniques. More important than anything, do what works. This doesn’t necessarily mean trying to numb or dull your feelings through some form of substance or other escape, because as any addict can tell you, that doesn’t work. What is constructive, is to ask yourself, is what I’m doing right now making me feel better. There’s a world of difference between what ACTUALLY helps us, and what we WANT to help us. As much as we want to just curl up in bed and make it all stop, that doesn’t always work out for us. Sometimes, curling up with some blankets and being kind to ourselves certainly does help - but when it doesn’t, it’s important to recognize that coping tools aren’t black-and-white, there is “no one size fits all” in recovery. If you’re anything like me, and you find yourself creating weird blanket rules and decisions based on what I think “should” be versus what actually is, it might benefit you to examine your struggle from a more objective perspective. Ask yourself “is what I’m doing actually making me feel better, or do I just want it to?” If you’re still suffering, try something else. Getting outside for a walk is my favorite, even though it can be hard to get out the door sometimes. Doing a bunch of jumping jacks. Saying “I’m going to go call a friend” and then doing it. Another good question to ask yourself, “how often has this worked for me in the past, and how has it worked in the long-term?” A lot of coping mechanisms I’ve picked up turned out to be unhelpful. Examples include trying not to think about an unsettling thought (am example for you might be trying not to think about that fact you might have a panic attack. Ask yourself, “and how often has this technique worked for me? If it works in the short term, how well has it treated my panic in the long-term?”).

These are all things you slowly learn and pick up from types of therapy like CBT and ACT. If you aren’t familiar with those, look them up! Basically the best thing you can do for yourself is get a therapist (sounds like you’ve done that, so really good job). If they don’t seem to be helping you, remember that you can always ask them to refer you someone else. I’ve done that a couple times; I found that I was most comfortable with a male therapist of around my own age, someone relatable. By contrast, middle-aged women tended to put me on edge, because of how they remind me of my mother, a source of a great deal of abuse in my life.

I hope some of that helps you! Bottom line - you are doin a great job, even though you don’t think you are. Nothing is nearly so bad as it seems, and if you just keep living, keep up with therapy and trying to move forward, thins will continue to get better. And it’s okay if you feel lost, or feel like you don’t even know who you really are. Fun fact: this is actually a pretty common sensation. If you’ve spent so much of your time and effort combating your disease, trying to fit it, trying to appease others, and just trying to survive, it makes sense that you wouldn’t feel like you have much of an identity of your own, wouldn't it? If you’ve spent most of yourself instead responding to what your brain tells you and to the whims of others? I really feel you, I’m the same, and I’m still in the process of figuring myself out.

My own apologies on this massive essay I wrote lol!!! I hope it isn’t too much of an eyesore No you don’t have any reason to apologize for typing so much. I really hope you’re feeling a bit better <3

[samjon1 in reply to Strebbs]

Thank you so much for your time to help us