Anxiety at night!

[hollylauracoleman]

My anxiety started 2 and half years ago. I had my little girl and 6 month later my mother inlaw died suddenly and my dad got cancer! My thoughts are ,I'm going to get a brain tumour, I'm going to have a stroke, just generally I'm going to die. My symtoms are Head aches, tingerling face, and just worring all the time. Find it really hard to talk about. And feel stupid. I've had some counselling, that helped for about 6 months. I find I mostly I panic at night time. I really feel that nothing will make me feel better and I'm always going to be like this.

[Loveydovey0519]

Have you been to your general practitioner to rule out anything physically wrong? If not then I would suggest you do so to be on the safe side. If you have and you checked out fine, just remember anxiety is one hell of a roller coaster. It can produce some of the most intense physical symptoms and make you feel like death. You just have to remind yourself, it is only your brain playing tricks on you and that nothing serious will come of it!

[hollylauracoleman in reply to Loveydovey0519]

I went to the doctors on Friday. She checked me over and wasn't concerned ,and my symptoms mostly happen at night. I would feel better if they gave me a blood test or brain scan. Does that sound ridiculous?

[Loveydovey0519 in reply to hollylauracoleman]

The first time I had REAL concerns about my heart when I had spoke to my doctor he would do nothing. I told him he could either give me an ecg and run more blood work or I would find another doctor. He did both those things and they both came back normal. I also get a physical once a year and they always run blood work then. I would be persistent if you truly think having those tests done will put you at ease. You can always go to a different doctor is they just simply won't help you or give you peace of mind. So no it's not crazy, you're just concerned with your health. Probably overly concerned but nevertheless concerned.

[hollylauracoleman in reply to Loveydovey0519]

Defiantly driving myself crazy! Reading everybody elses post does make me feel better. Thank you for your comments X

[Loveydovey0519 in reply to hollylauracoleman]

If you ever need someone to talk to I'm here to help anyway I can!

[Jeff1943]

Holly, you are NOT always going to feel like this I assure you. And your chances of having a brain tumour, stroke or dying are as remote as anybody else. Which is to say negligible. You've been checked over by your doctor which was the right thing to do. If you really, really aren't satisfied go back and see her again, but if her opinion is the same you must accept what she says 100%. Remember, she went to medical school for 5 years and you didn't.

The first step of your recovery is to understand what has happened to you. You had your little girl and had been anxious about that, then you experienced traumas due to what happened to two family members. At that point your nervous system had had enough anxiety and became over sensitised. When that happens our nerves can start playing tricks on us. We see terrible things about to happen wherever we look. Small worries become major insummountable problems. And our nervous system starts to mimic the symptoms of genuine physical illness, hence your tingling face and headaches. What's more, because all worries become magnified ten fold when suffering from over sensitised nerves, the normal aversion to dying becomes an obsession. That I believe is what has happened to you.

But all these symptoms and strange thoughts your experiencing can't kill you, damage your body or send you crazy. Because they are FAKE symptoms caused by blips and glitches in your tired nervous system. They are frauds that don't exist in the way genuine physical illness exists though they may seem real enough at the time.

That's the explanation of what's been happening to you and if you didn't know it before you know it now. This understanding should at least bring some reassurance and an end to bewilderment.

The next step of your recovery requires you to stop fighting these symptoms of nervous sensitisation as this only causes more tension, fear and anxiety which only maintain the sensitisation. In fact your recovery depends on you Accepting the symptoms and bad feeling for the time being. Yes accept them, don't fight them, but it must be genuine Acceptance - after all you now understand that the symptoms can't cause serious or permanent harm. Just imagine every muscle in your mind and body relaxing when the bad feelings and strange thoughts come, in fact say to yourself: "I'm not scared of you any more, you're only fakes without substance and I'm not going to be bullied by you any longer!"

If you can frame your mind to Accept without fear then after many days and weeks of practice you sensitised nerves will return to normal and you will feel the way you did before all this trouble began. So start practicing Acceptance, the sooner the better, and join all the other enlightened fellow sufferers on the Yellow Brick Road to recovery.

[hollylauracoleman]

Starting from today I'm going to except what's happening to me. Thank you for your advise. X

[Jeff1943 in reply to hollylauracoleman]

Holly, can I just add, the Acceptance method for recovering from anxiety disorder has been around a long time. It was first explained in a short easy-to-read book by Claire Weekes titled "Self help with your nerves" and it has allowed tens of thousands of people to recover. You will soon recognise yourself in its pages. Claire Weekes herself experienced anxiety disorder whilst studying to be a doctor and developed the Acceptance method to cure herself and went on to write the book. It's available from Amazon for just a few pounds. It's life changing.

[hollylauracoleman]

Brilliant . Thank you so much. X