If you're suffering from anxiety don't just put up with it and hope it will go away. Whatever the symptoms you should take control of your recovery as so many other people have done on this forum successfully.
The first thing to understand is how anxiety works. It's usually preceeded by a period of worry and stress until finally your nerves have had enough of it. When this happens they become ultra sensitised and this results in all sorts of symptoms. These can include a feeling that something dreadful is going to happen, stomach pains, dizziness, visual disturbances, headaches, breathlessness and palpatations to name but a few. Immediately you think you have some serious organic disease and surfing 'Doctor Google' only serves to confirm your worse fears. But of course if you're experiencing anxiety disorder it's NOT some serious physical illness, it's your over sensitised nervous system playing up and sensitive nerves are very, very good at impersonating real organic illness.
The first thing to do is to see your doctor and fully describe your symptoms. You need him or her to examine you and maybe send you for some tests to make sure that it is 'just nerves'. That's very important because there's always a small chance that it is something physical like a thyroid problem that can be easily treated. If you're disatisfied with your doctor's diagnosis see him or her again, ask to see a specialist or for a second opinion. And when that only serves to confirm that it's anxiety disorder, as it invariably will, then accept the diagnosis without further question. It's amazing how many people don't believe their doctors but remember: your doctor went to medical school for 5 years, you didn't.
Many people on this forum are worried about going on medication. But meds have their part to play in recovering from anxiety (and the secondary depression that sometimes accompanies anxiety). If the bad feelings are overwhelming a shortish 'holiday' on meds allows us to gather our thoughts and marshal our strength. But you don't want to be on meds for ever - so that means looking for a talking or reading cure that will be permanent. Once you've decided to stop giving anxiety permission to make your life a misery, that is.
Those of you who see my trying-to-be-helpful posts on this forum are probably getting bored with my advocacy of the same old solution. But every day new casualties appear on this forum so that's my excuse for my repetition - that and the fact that it is the only remedy that worked for me. The method I embraced 40 years ago is the method devised by Doctor Claire Weekes and described in her first book 'Self help with your nerves' also titled 'Hope and help with your nerves' in the U.S. Both books available new or used for a few pounds/dollars on Amazon. Claire Weekes' solution is to temporarily Accept all the bad feelings and symptoms without fighting them. Fighting means creating more tension and more fear - and sensitised nerves feed on tension and fear so fighting only prolongs our illness. Stop adding tension and fear to your sensitised nerves and in the fullness of time they cease to be sensitised and we recover from the nightmare and return to normality.
So how do you Accept the bad symptoms that frayed nerves are bombarding you with? You now know, because you have read this far, that anxiety disorder isn't caused by real physical illness. It's caused by blips and glitches in your nervous system. Are you really going to go on being bullied by blips in your nerves? They are FAKE illnesses, they are FRAUDS, the are confidence tricksters. It's time to tell them they've intimidated your life for too long and your giving them their marching orders. And you do that by Acceping them for the time being and not fighting them. You have the measure of them and your fear of them is coming to an end - you are going to starve them out of existence by denying them the fear on which they thrive.
As I often say, imagine you are a rock on the shore and the waves of fear keep breaking over you. Again and again the waves come and wash over and around you. But the rock endures. YOU are that rock. No matter how bad you feel now, no matter how long you have been ill, Claire Weekes' Acceptance method will work for you as it has for tens of thousands of others. It's your decision. But I commend her book to you. Read it and before long you too will become a fellow traveller on the Yellow Brick Road to recovery!
