Pain discomfort and anxiety

[Espinoza38]

Has anyone ever woken up feeling their arm numb like you slept on it. I know I was sleeping in my right arm. But now I'm in full blown anxiety mode. Has anyone else felt this way. Lately I cant handle pain or any type of discomfort I go into full panic mode. Why must I be this way? Am i going mad? Someone plz talk to me I feel scared.

[Hidden]

No, you are not going mad, even though it feels like it. I suffer from depression and anxiety and I recently read somewhere to actually focus on the pain I'm feeling and ask myself questions about it. What is this pain? What does it feel like? How bad is it? etc. When I did that, I took the focus off of the anxiety and the worry that something bad was going to happen to me. When I put my focus on the pain, I realized it was not that bad and that I could live with it and that nothing bad is going to happen to me. I took back my power. I also realize that it's all fear and it's a trick my mind is playing on me. I have a chemical imbalance in my brain - the neurons don't fire properly or whatever - and I'm not going mad, it's my brain's chemistry playing tricks on me. It's an illusion that something is terribly wrong. When I think it through, nothing is wrong. I have a nice house and I am safe, there is food in the fridge, money in the bank, nothing is broken and that everything is OK, but the chemical imbalance in my mind tells me the opposite. My brain lies to me when nothing is wrong. I have learned this over many years of fighting depression and anxiety. Recently, I started doing Sudoku puzzles. I have to focus very hard on the puzzles and it really helps me to relax. I must focus on the puzzle to get it right and that takes the focus off of myself. It's all FEAR - False Evidence Appearing Real - It's a lie. I watch YouTube videos on anxiety. I like Lisa Ramano. She's a health coach and talks about anxiety, etc. I was raised in a violent, abusive alcoholic home and my depression and anxiety stems from that. I don't know if that is the case with you, but I have learned a lot about how being raised that way has had such terrible, negative effects on me and I am learning how to manage all that through Al-Anon, a support group for families and friends of Alcoholics. Don't know if that applies to you, but I do understand the fear you are going through - it's pure hell, but you won't die from the pain and it will pass. I hope that something I said may have helped you. I wish you all the best because you deserve it.

[Espinoza38 in reply to Hidden]

Thank you so much I needed to read that

[Msteacher]

Don't panic. I have the same feeling all the time. My anxiety stems from my physical health as well. Anytime something hurts I go full blown worst case scenario. You aren't crazy. We just have a broken alarm system. So when it goes off, think of it like a smoke detector. It goes off when your cooking but everything is fine. It's annoying and you roll your eyes and turn it off. There was no fire. False alarm. The same can be said about anxiety. Allow yourself to roll your eyes at the false alarm and work on shutting it off. Remind yourself that the symptoms you are feeling usually aren't real. They are anxiety driven. I meditate and relax. When I do that, the symptoms go away and that reassures me that they weren't real and it was just anxiety. Let me know if you need to talk!

[Espinoza38 in reply to Msteacher]

I need to learn to accept my pain. I know they are muscle spasm and my mest up rotator cuffs on both arms. I just cant seem to accept

[Msteacher in reply to Espinoza38]

Have you had them looked at? Get some concrete evidence that that's what it is. Maybe that will help you accept it.