Morning anxiety - lasting all day :( Please help!

[hedgecrone]

Hi again

Haven't posted for ages because I was beginning to feel better. THEN I started MBT (Mentalisation Based Therapy) I'd been referred for by my shrink. Since then I have felt terrible, truly awful -in a state of high anxiety much of the time. I wake with churning stomach and 'butterflies', feeling nauseous and with palpitations; I try to meditate for a bit, but the longer I stay in bed the worse it gets, however tired I am. I get obsessive thoughts (about one of my obsessive worries which I go over and over in my head) but generally the anxiety is just always there. I can't eat breakfast, can't eat much lunch and am losing weight (not a problem at the moment because I am very overweight and on a diet, but I wish I could enjoy my food again!). I find it hard to cope with social occasions I myself have arranged, feel awful seeing others happy and coping with their lives when I am not. I question everything I have ever done and feel a total failure in my life, constantly comparing myself to others (I know that's a bad habit but it's obsessive). I'm nearly 60 and feeling useless. But my main question is: How do I cope better with morning anxiety? Do other people take meds? I've been prescribed Zopiclone to take occasionally but it's addictive so I don't want to take it regularly. What meds help other people and do you have any helpful strategies? Thank you for reading! xx

[Bramwell]

I have bouts of awful morning anxiety so I know just how you feel. The last few weeks have been particularly bad for me too.

Some days it wears off and others it just gnaws away at me all day.

I wish I could offer you a solution but all I can say is you're certainly not alone.

[BriarRose]

Hi, Hedgecrone, and welcome back - well, not really glad to see you back cos it means you're feeling low again, but you know what I mean, I hope!

If you've started to feel worse since starting this therapy - which I must I've never heard of till now - i think maybe you need to go back to your GP/psychiatrist and tell them!!! Therapy is supposed to make you better, not worse! I do know that sometimes we have to get worse before we get better, but this seems a bit extreme!

i would strongly advise you to talk to your doctors and explain to them what's happening - it may be that this is the wrong therapy for you, hun - therapies are NOT a "one size fits all"!!!!

Good luck, hun, hope others have more useful suggestions, but keep blogging, lots of help/support on here!

Lots of love n hugs

Rose

xxxx

[hedgecrone]

HI BriarRose and Bramwell. I have told my psychiatrist. He is encouraging me to stick with it for the time being, and says that this reaction is common at first. Also I'm aware that I've only been going for a month so it seems premature to give up on it yet. The other thing is that if I pull out of it, I have nothing else to help me feel better and it will have left me up in the air as it were, feeling dreadful but nowhere to offload and help me through it. So for the time being I don't feel I have much of a choice. The only saving grace is the one-to-one part of the therapy but that's only once a fortnight. The group therapy is twice a week and it's very gruelling - the therapist has a deadpan, expressionless face and doesn't seem to react to anyone's distress or emotions and I find it hard to work out what he's thinking. Sometimes it isn't a group because the others can't be bothered to get there on time (there are only a few of us anyway) - so it's just me and the therapist and I find it difficult to say how I am feeling. I tend to over-analyze anyway and therapy seems to make this worse somehow, making me question stuff I already worry about - why I feel envious of others, compare myself so much, other people seem to be happy but i can't be, finding it hard to share other people's joy when they have good things happening to them....whether I am capable of love, whether i truly love my lovely supportive husband - all sorts of frightening, worrying thoughts cirulate and torture me with doubts and fears.I want help to DEAL with the fact that I have anxiety and depression - I know more or less where it's come from in a sense, but I need to find ways of dealing with it and helping myself.

The therapy is meant to help people with mood disorders, like mine, for whom other therapies haven't worked. It takes place at the Touchstone Centre at the Bethlem. If I knew I was going to improve it would be worth sticking with it but of course there are no guarantees in life.

This morning I had a friend round for a couple of hours but it didn't help much - I felt panicky, anxious and very low. I can't eat at the moment but I am making sure I drink enough. All I want to do now is hibernate till I feel better, but I know that's not good and in any case not possible. I feel such a useless feeble freak, a total washout, unable to help myself when there are others out there with real problems in their lives.

[Hidden]

I thought it was just me that suffered morning anxiety,I'm having a really bad day so far,panicky ,difficulty breathing,fast breathing,choking sensation all since breakfast it's awfull,I'm seeing my gp,that's ifi get ther at all,just feel like crying my eyes out

[hannah_smith]

Hi Everyone, Anxiety is really destroying individuals life’s. It is taking over peoples every movements, from waking in the morning to trying to sleep at night.

Anxiety is tiring and over whelming. I struggled for 15 years. Everyday i would dread, another day worrying, panicking over every little thing i did, said or felt. I hit rock bottom and got to a point I started to black out at work. I couldn’t hide my anxiety anymore, people where starting to ask questions. 'WHY WAS I ALWAYS ILL' and WHY IS SHE BLACKING OUT?' - I started to panic and for a period of time thought i was going to die - I then found ARM (Anxiety Rebalance Method), Carl Sheppard. Please check it out. I am now that person I wanted to be! I don’t mask anxiety, I am now an ARM Buddy and help 100's of people over come what I felt for 15 years. I dont ever want to go backwards,,,if you want to help become an ARM Buddy, join our community and lets work together!!!! ;-))) xx