Please help with this anxiety.

I feel exshauted every day I wake upe at 6oclock or sometimes earlier, feeling alful , I get up and feel lifeless, I feel dizzy and spaced out, I go to the toilet about three times . By 8 o'clock in the morning I am completely flat out. My celiac food allergies come back normal, still waiting for thyroid and b12 tests to come back, I am always having blood tests and counselling. I also have a anti depressant phobia, because of all the stuff I have been on in the past, and I am scared of medication , so I try to manage without medication, I read claire weekes books and take rescue remedy. A lot I can't travel far, as I feel too weak to go on holiday, I know there is no answere to my problems other than medication, I was put on melloril. Years ago by a doctor, and I was really ill also I am allergic to Prozac, I have been on. A lot of medication, I have few diazepam, for really bad days. It he last time I saw a counsellor I had about 12. Sessions and really it didn't help I didn't think I was getting anywhere, it did help a little bit to talk about things, I front know if I can carry on like this every day. I know what you are going to say. Take pills, I was thinking of alternative therapy. Any ideas would be appreciated please excuse the spelling. Thank you.

[rocketred]

Hey lavender,

Whether or not you take medication for anxiety is up to you. I'm also another one who refuses meds (had them briefly a few years ago, didn't work out so not keen on trying them again) but luckily my GP agrees with me on that front. My anxiety mainly revolves around emetophobia anyway so for my situation, they probably wouldn't help.

Have you tried CBT? It's different to standard counselling and aims to help you change the way you think and behave. It basically helps you to break down your problems into smaller parts so you can make sense of them. I am currently undergoing CBT and have found it to be very useful but obviously, everyone is different so what works for one, won't work for another.

One book that was recommended to me through CBT was The Happiness Trap by Dr. Russ Harris. It's based on mindfulness skills and ACT (acceptance and commitment therapy). I found it quite easy to use and it helped me make sense of what I was learning through CBT. The skills it covered were quite useful.

I've also found mindfulness to be quite useful. Here's a link that explains more about it: getselfhelp.co.uk/mindfulne...

Another website I found fairly useful is calm.com - I think there's also an app for it as well.

Hope this helps.

Take care,

Megy x