I've been dealing with this since I was a kid. Never realized that my perfectionism and shyness stemmed from anxiety. I used to have the lactic acid type feeling in my head every once in a while, the dizziness standing up, difficulty concentrating, difficulty remembering, and just though I was sickly. It's hard to see myself as strong sometimes. But I am. I went back to school as an adult to finish my degree. I try my best to put myself out there and have great friends. I moved to LA to pursue my dreams. I quit a corporate job and started working for myself. Now I get paid to tell stories live on camera almost every night. An actor's dream. By many people's definition I am bold. But I'm scared all the time. Always worried things are going to fall apart. I am in a dream situation, in a dream city, in a dream apartment with amazing views, with a dream girlfriend, and though I'm probably in the best shape of my life, day to day I feel the worst I've ever felt in my entire life. By far. So my successes feel bittersweet. It's hard to enjoy them when you literally feel like your brain is attacking your body every five minutes. I'm so frustrated. The chest pains, heartburn, numbing sensations, lactic acid feeling in my head, etc. It's too much sometimes. I just want to feel normal again. Feel good feelings for more than just a few mintues, or until the comedy movie is over.
I just need a little hope. Has anyone had this and been cured? Does it ever go away? I know we can never get rid of it completely. But is there hope for me to be able to feel again? 😔
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huddybuddy44
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Chronic anxiety is a lying a**hole that tells us that only the worst possible outcomes will happen. It makes us feel like the world is falling apart even when all evidence points to the opposite. For me personally I found that cognitive behavioral therapy was very helpful. I dont know if you've tried it yet or not, but for me it helped me to recongize the difference between thoughts and feelings and get more control over my thoughts which made all the things I feel more mangable. I dont think there is any magic cure, but a combination of therapy and possibly drugs can make it way more livable. Congrats on your success, and good luck!
You've built a good life for yourself, huddybuddy, you are clearly a very capable person. But you have this fear that it could all go south. It's probably not going to happen but reassure yourself: if it did happen you could rebuild your life because you've done it before. And you're wiser and more experienced now. So don't worry about something that's not likely to happen and if it did you can fix it.
Yes, you can recover from anxiety disorder. Even if it's inherited you can still reduce the frequency and severity of episodes. Everybody has anxieties, that's normal. But everyone has a threshold for anxieties which if exceeded causes our nervous system to rebel. Or to be more precise, our nerves become over sensitised.
When this happens every problem, even small ones, become exaggerated by a factor of ten. A headache must be a tumour. A new boss means I'm going to lose my job. Muscular tension in the chest area has got to be heart failure. Always the worst case scenario!
Then over sensitised nerves start giving us strange thoughts and feelings. Everything from thinking you're about to die to symptoms of health anxiety which mimic real physical illness. Like your chest pains. So you become even more fearful and your system starts to release more cortisol and adrenaline: the hormones of fear. Before long the original worry is long forgotten because you now start becoming anxious about the symptoms your anxiety is creating. Like heartburn and visual disturbances.
We enter a vicious circle of anxiety causing more symptoms causing more anxiety causing more symptoms causing more anxiety.
Recovery depends on breaking the vicious circle. We must learn not to follow the flash of first fear with second fear. The way to do this is to accept the bad feelings and thoughts for the time being. I stress only for the time being.
When we learn to accept the symptoms without adding more fear we have started our journey to recovery. Remember, you now have the understanding of how anxiety works. You also have the reassurance that anxiety exaggerates our fears: anxiety cannot kill you, disable you or make you lose your mind. The power of anxiety is limited.
Acceptance isn't easy and it takes time. But it is the best way I know to regain your quiet mind.
What I have written here is not my idea. The Acceptance method was devised many years ago by Claire Weekes in her first book 'Hope and help for your nerves'. This book has helped millions to recover from anxiety during the past 40 years. It has never been out of print and you can pick up a new or second hand copy for a few dollars on Amazon or Ebay. Weekes' method can be summed up in six words: Face. Accept. Float. Let time pass.
If you only read one more book in your life I suggest this is that book. Whatever you decide I wish you early respite and recovery from the symptoms everyone here knows only too well.
This is a great post, Jeff1943, thank-you. My copy of the Claire Weekes book is on its way to me, it will be here next week. I am looking forward to reading it.
I hope that Claire Weekes' book is as beneficial to you as it has been to me and others. Not for nothing is Doctor Weekes' recent autobiography titled 'The woman who cracked the anxiety code'.
Hi Agora, 'Claire Weekes: The woman who cracked the anxiety code' is available on both the U.S. and the U.K. versions of Amazon as a downloadable Kindle book. If you don't already have the Kindle software downloaded you can do so for free by Googling 'Kindle' . Then you can buy the Kindle book and download it to your device. It must be quite an easy thing to do as I downloaded Kindle some time ago.
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