Anxiety symptoms with no anxiety? Please help!

[JennaJ]

I'm 19 and I've been suffering from really bad anxiety the past few months. It would make me feel sick, chest pains, body pains, light headness, heart burn, numbness etc. It would usually happen at night, just before I headed to bed. I'd have 1 - 2 daily panic attacks, feel anxious for majority of the day everyday. I hated it, I cried out of frustration. It was frightening! I'd always think I'd have a heart attack.

I finally had some tests done, they came clean. My Anxiety is MOSTLY gone. I have it every now then. I'm in bed, it's night. And I'm getting the usual symptoms, but I'm not feeling anxious. But I'm starting to feel anxious again, because the symptoms came up on their own! Is it because I've had it every night? It just became a routine for my body? Am I subconsciously anxious?

I need help, please! I thought I was over all of this already. I thought I was getting better..

[Hidden]

I'm so sorry. I'm 17 and have practically the same thing! Every night my face and ears turn bright red and feel extremely hot, I get really panicky, my hands and legs get really shakey, and I also get easily angered when it starts to happen and I feel like I'm on the verge of tears, etc.. I normally have to distance myself away from other people when it begins to happen and lately, it's been happening every night at the same time and a few other times throughout the day. I don't really know how to overcome this myself (since I am still going through this.) But when it does happen, I drink lots of water and try and listen to music and calm my heart rate down. Hope you can find something that works for you.

[skyraknight]

Yes. Unfortunately, that's the nature of anxiety. It resides on subconscious level. When I first experienced anxiety, it was in a form of panic attacks that would last 6 hours, at least twice a day. Then after 3 weeks they stopped on severity. Later on, I didn't have to be anxious in any way to experience anxiety in hundred of different ways. The key is to refocus away from the symptoms. Sure, easier said than done, however, that is the key out of the cycle.

[Jeff1943]

Jenna, panic attacks, light headedness, nausea and all the other symptoms you describe are well known symptoms of anxiety and once your nervous system has become sensitised by stress and worry it will hit you with symptoms even if you're not particlarly stressed at that moment in time. This explains what you call 'subconsciously anxious'.

Once your nervous system that covers you whole body becomes sensitised it can subject you to panic attacks but it also immitates real organic illnesses that makes people believe they have some dreadful condition - but they don't because the symptoms they feel whilst sensitised are not real, they are fake, because they are caused by glitches in your nervous system.

To recover it's important to stop the 'first fear' that always accompanies symptoms not to be followed by 'second fear' generated by you. In other words you must practice Accepting the symptoms without further fear when they come, after all you understand that they are not for real, they are frauds and cannot damage your body, neither are they life threatening, though of course they are a nuisance.

If you can cultivate a frame of mind based on accepting these symptoms (for the time being) and learning to relax and let your mind and body go limp when they strike you will eventually break the vicious circle of anxiety causing symptoms which cause anxiety which cause more symptoms which cause more anxiety and so on. But it is not a five minute fix, you must practice and persevere with Acceptance but eventually you will surely stop bombarding your nerves with anxiety and they will revert to their normal state and you will once again feel fine exactly as you did before this trouble started. Why not start oracticing Acceptance today - the sooner you do the sooner you will start to recover.

[JennaJ in reply to Jeff1943]

Thanks for this! I started accepting the moment I read your reply. It has been somewhat working, not 100%. But it has stopped me from reaching the panicky state. While I still do get a little anxious, but it's better than having a panic attack. The symptoms take a while to go away, but I'll cope with it. Seeing a doctor tomorrow again, see if I can get any sort of therapy or maybe more tests? Not sure yet. Anyway, thanks again!

[Jeff1943 in reply to JennaJ]

Hi Jennaj, it is a good start that by practicing acceptance you have noticed some improvement already (there's a But coming) but to completely desensitise your nervous system does take a while of practicing acceptance despite experiencing bad feelings. In a way, bad feelings are almost welcome because they give the opportunity to practice acceptance and ideally achieve a position where it (almost) doesn't matter if you're experiencing those symptoms because you know they're not for real, you've rumbled they're fake and know that with a little more practice you will reach your goal and be free of them.

I wish you luck with your test results tomorrow but suspect that you and I both know the results of those tests now.

Jennaj, I know at your age especially you just want to get on with your life, wave the magic wand and it all goes away forever and the last thing you want to do is spend time reading a book about how Acceptance. But this isn't any old book, it's the book that over the past 50 years since it was published has cured hundreds of thousands of people like you. It's by Claire Weekes who as a young woman cured herself of anxiety and then wrote a book about how she did it. In the course of her life Dr Claire Weekes wrote many books but the first is the one to read, it's fairly short and written in simple and engaging terms. For me and many others on this forum that book has been life changing: in the UK it's titled "Self help with your nerves" and in the US it's called "Hope and help with your nerves", it's available from Amazon and they even sell secondhand copies for one penny/cent plus postage of two or three pounds/dollars. I recommend it but of course it's up to you, either way I wish you all the best.

[Edatis]

Hi. I absolutely agree with Jeff. Acceptance is very crucial in your battle. It has been something that has helped me a great deal . So take a moment and think about it. All the best to you. 🙂