Intense stress and fear consumes me. I've not left my home since 9-16

[LoosinIt879]

My life is almost too far gone to repair. My fear & high anxiety has crippled me. I watch tv that's it. I have a business, employees, a home, a rental home, children .... serious responsibilities!! But, I haven't left my home in months! What's wrong with me!?? Everything's crashing in on me because I can't get it together !! Pure fear, intense panic!! I'm loosing everything! Yet, I still can't move! I have no one in my life to help me. I'm scared to ask my dr for help. I fear he will scoff at me, say I need a SSRI.... in September he put me on Paxil and that was horrible! I was loosing my mind! That's a horrible med for me. I've tried 5 different SSRI's in past 15 yrs & all made me feel insane. Is there any help?? I've not had my reg income in months. The bills aren't getting pd, loosing biz., I'm loosing everything!!! Why can't I leave my house?? What can I do?? I live in such a sm town in middle of no where! No psychiatrists! Do I call my dr?? If I do... what do I say?? I don't want anyone to know. I can't keep ruining my life! I'm the provider !! My heart pounds so hard! How I've not died from this amazes me! I don't want to die but this life is horrible. I want to help myself but I'm petrified! The list of problems I have now with taxes, bills etc is overwhelming!! Has anyone experienced something like this? If so, what helps ? Desperate Thank you

[Agora1]

Hi LoosinIt879, Your life is never too far gone to reverse it. I was once paralyzed with my intense fear and high anxiety. 5 years of being Agoraphobic. Stuck in my house, afraid to step outside. Needed medical help to come to me. Doctors, nurses, lab techs etc. The fear just continued to grow. I was on a high dose of medication as well as phone therapy multiple times a week. I questioned how could this happen to someone who worked in the field of saving lives and now I needed saving from myself. Enough was enough of looking at the 4 walls. I hit bottom and wasn't planning to stay there. I kicked and screamed and swore at this monster name Anxiety. I was hell bent in getting back my life and getting back into control. That was the start. Accepting it was anxiety but also getting angry enough to discard it. It was no longer going to be a part of me. I was better than that. LoosinIt, there is only so much tv we can watch, bills need to be paid, families need to be cared for and you need to claim back your life. No psychiatrists, then call your doctor. Ask for the help you need right now. You need to break that circle of fear. Whatever it takes. Use the forum for support as well. We are all here for each other. I wish you well in going forward.

[Jeff1943]

Loosinit, at least you know what the problem is, anxiety, if you could overcome the anxiety you can reclaim your life and recover. What happens with anxiety is that it literally sensitises your nervous system due to a long period of too much stress and worry. Nervous sensitisation causes all kinds of bad feelings and symptoms which includes agrophobia in your case. Then you get caught up in a vicious circle of fear causing more bad feelings which cause more fear which causes more bad feelings and so the vicious circle rolls on and on.

The key to returning to normal health once more, and you can you know, is to break that vicious circle of fear and bad feelings. There is a way to do this that has helped hundreds of thousands of people recover during the past 50 years. It's very simple to understand but it takes time and perseverence to achieve a cure. It's called ACCEPTANCE - knowing that there is nothing physically wrong with you and all your syptoms are blips in your sensitised nervous system you acquire the mind set of accepting temporarily all these bad feelings. You know they're not life threatening soyou just accept them without allowing initial fear turn into second fear. You accept by letting every muscle in your head and body relax and go limp when the bad feelings come, you stop fighting them because fighting leads only to more tenseness. Let the worries and bad feelings rush past you like a wave, offer no resistance, just accept, utterly accept them. And by doing so you stop constantly re-sensitising your nervous system and in the fullness of time your system calms and returns to normal and you feel normal in yourself once again.

This method is explained in simple to follow terms by Dr Claire Weekes in her book 'Hope and help with your nerves' (U.S. edition) and 'Self help with your nerves' (U.K edition) both available from Amazon. The book is not long and I recommend to you this book that has rescued hundreds of thousands from the shadow of anxiety disorder. It pays particular attention to agrophobia too.

Anti depressants and tranquillisers can bring you relief but won't cure you of the problem but I think in your case you would benefit from a course of meds until you learn to practice acceptance. I recommend you go back and discuss this with your doctor, remember that half the people who visitdoctors are suffering from anxiety in some form so he or she isn't going to think you weird. There is an older style antidepressant called amitriptyline that's been around since the 1960s, it went out of favour when new meds came in but now is coming back into favour as it is more effective and has less side effects. Ask your doctor if he would consider prescribing it for you - it takes 3 weeks or so to become effective and when you come off it you have to gradually reduce the dosage in stages. I'm no medical person but I feel it would be beneficial to you in the short term but the long term solution comes only with Acceptance.

As far as your business worries are concerned you need to choose someone you can trust fully and has a head for business and ask for their assistance as your business problems appear to be too overwhelming for you to solve yourself at the moment. Nervous sensitisation always makes our problems seem ten times larger. The person you delegate must be someone you can trust and will no doubt need paying to do the work, you would have to be up front and tell them you have health issues at the moment.

Claire Weekes said that everybody has the capacity to recover from anxiety disorder if they study and practice her simple method - she herself suffered from anxiety as a young womean and it was during this period that she developed hervplan for recovery based on personal experience. The rest of your life lies ahead and I believe you have within you the strength and capacity to achieve a successful recovery and I wish you all peace and tranquillity in the future.

[Pat9]

I can empathise with all you had posted and when I was about 25 yrs old I had a nervous breakdown which it sounds to me like you are having virtually come to a full stop basically problems with my then husband started it off then it escalated.. wont go into all the details but suffice to say the ONLY thing which pulled me out of it was I came across two books considering by that stage I couldn't read either as well as eat sleep etc I didn't think I would be able to read them but I ordered them any way and when they arrived I opened one of them up and before I knew it I was on chapter 10 they were by Dr Claire Weekes - Self Help for your Nerves and Peace from Nervous Suffering, in the book I was reading first she mentions how many of us who are reading it won't think we will be able to read as we had probably lost interest in the world around us which I had done however she went on to say but the words in the book will be about you so you will be absorbed and not only did those books literally save my life I have them with me to this day and have dived back into them on and off throughout my life when going through rough pathces I would advise you to look the author up she is Australian and she was one of the first doctors to appreciate how constant worry compounds into a complete shut down of the emotions and stops us fucntioning .. I wish you well

[Jeff1943 in reply to Pat9]

As you'll see from my posting above yours, Pat9, I too recommended Claire Weekes' books to Loosinit879 so that's a double recommendation, I think the second Weekes' book you mention 'Peace from nervous suffering' explains how to overcome agrophobia in more detail.

[Pat9 in reply to Jeff1943]

sorry Jeff I didn't see your post yes she is a brilliant author