Hello Anxiety: Hey guys, Witchoo. I'm a 2... - Anxiety Support

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Hello Anxiety

Witchoo profile image
6 Replies

Hey guys, Witchoo.

I'm a 23 year old guy from the UK. I've been suffering from panic attacks for the last 7/8 months which resulted in other anxiety symptoms. At the beginning, it was mostly ones that feign heart attacks. Before knowing I was suffering from plain old anxiety, I had went to hospital for dizziness and panic attack-like sensations. I was told on the spot that I had an viral infection that effects balance and was injected with an antipsychotic. I went home and after a few hours, I began to feel a cabin fever that drew darker and darker ever so. I went out for a walk and felt the sensation increase. Back home, I tried to be sick and nothing was happening. I phoned an ambulance in what I would call mental torture, thinking I had a bad reaction. I was in so much distress I was about to jump out the window. My parents turned up at the house and managed to get me into a taxi back to hospital. The doctor said I had a bad reaction and sedated me.

The next day it felt like I was slowly recovering from shock. It's like I had a panic attack but mixed with the symptoms of the drug which resulted in a new kind of terror attack. Instead of the fear of dying I had been getting with panic attacks, this was the opposite where I was under so much distress I felt I had to end my life. Bizarre and devastating. I came to the conclusion with my family that I never had the infection and it was just anxiety symptoms, the doctor did have a hard time diagnosing so it makes sense. After thinking it was bad luck and a one time occurrence, I would experience similar repetitive terror attacks (I call them terror attacks to differentiate from the panic attacks as they are both the two opposites) It's never as bad as the initial experience but I still have the feeling of needing to end my life in a panic-like state. A therapist told me that while I haven't developed PTSD aswell, it is a traumatic memory that now could act as a new recoccuring anxiety symptom. This is an interpretation of course of a very confusing scenario. One second I could be great and the next some hits and everyone surrounding me including sounds cave in and I feel instantly suicidal. Very strange and completely life-changing.

I've been to see a couple of therapists and recorded their tips and information. I have learned a bit about depersonalisation, derealisation, health anxiety and the frightening modes anxiety can put you in.

I'm at a strange stage of recovery where I've realised I may have had the optimum amount of professional help I can get and it's just a case of living with it and trying to beat it with the tools I've learned.

However, I experience symptoms that are really hard to describe. Instead of going to a therapist, I figured I can now explore an online community of people whom I can relate to that can hopefully help me and I, of course, can help others down the road of recovery and experience.

Recently, I've been feeling an aggressive energy, most likely built from frustration over the lack of control and the weight of the anxiety. I would say my mind interprets this energy as a rage, an incredibly strong feeling of not being able to do several things at once. It feels as thought I'm frustrated by physical limitations, like if I was to kick my foot into the ground it would never go deep enough or if I was to punch a punching bag, I could do it for ages but fear I would still feel the exact feeling of that impossible frustration afterwards, even if tiring the body. In fact, it's a frustration of the limits of any concept like a song, a book, a building, a conversation. SUCH A HARD IDEA TO PUT INTO WORDS. and by the very sound of it, it is irrational. But I guess I'm scared by this idea because I don't just think it, I feel it. I suddenly feel trapped in my own body. Like I need my intangible physical self to break out my own body. I can obviously literally survive and move about with it. But I can not enjoy life at all. The thought feels completely mutated, I feel it scares me before I have time to control it. I guess I need help to get rid of this bizarre part of the anxiety (if that is what it is). and to know if there's anybody out there that can relate in any way to this strange factor I've described. It's like my brain has malfunctioned and it's actually creating impossible sensations.

The sad thing is I'm not aggressive at all, I'm quite sensitive. So it's a surprising feeling, it's quite intense so it can be devastating. It almost feels like an inhuman urge that could never be relieved.

I have learned about the obsessive and irrational parts of anxiety, which i believe I have been having problems with.

It could very well be an irrational thought. But I desperately need guidance and clarity with this specific problem, as it doesn't just feel like a irrational thought, more a feeling.

Anyway, I'd love some advice, some things that have been great recovery hints for anyone out there with similar experiences.

Glad to be part of the community.

Thank you.

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Witchoo profile image
Witchoo
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6 Replies

Hello, Witchoo,

One part really sticks out to me and that's where you said, "It's like my brain has malfunctioned and it's actually creating impossible sensations". That seems to be the case with anxiety in general. Our fight or flights are all mixed up and the experience of our first attack, has us in this negative cycle of focusing on the negative.

I have one question,

Whats one thing that you wish were there while you are going through this?

Here is a video that's helped me out a bit, I saw it earlier today,

youtube.com/watch?v=_7dTGDR...

Witchoo profile image
Witchoo in reply to

Thanks for replying rockster321, nice to see people want to help!

I think one thing I wish was there, if this answers your question, is the vital parts of my self. In which I mean, the knowledge that I am a free human being, that I do love music and can find comfort in it rather than fear and I do want intimacy, where as just now it seems to be yet another concept that my mind deems as something I absolutely do not want or the feeling is not good enough. I think I need glimmers of the self that has now been warped to return and prove that I am coming back, and it is in fact anxiety that is stopping me from being completely grounded in receiving a rational setting of human needs, desires and perception of my surroundings. I guess I don't know exactly what tools to use to find my back from this strange state of mind I have found myself in after months of panic symptoms.

Thank you very much for the link, I am about to watch right now!

in reply toWitchoo

Very deep response, that I'm sure everyone reading can relate to. Though I am still enduring this myself, I can say with confidence - and you can too- that this is on the way out. I want you to hold on to those good memories, those glimmers of hope and how good things "used to be" and know that you will know them again. We all go through times where our heel is struck and our life shatters. From that moment in time - on, nothing is the same. But its all about how we're refined in those moments where we come back so much stronger. I'm focusing now on more positive thinking and knowing that this isn't from anxiety, but anxiety merely being a symptom of my negative thinking patterns.

If I think about it, I wake up every day reliving the same scenarios that make up such an existence. That's analogous to putting flour, eggs and oil in a pan, baking it and being upset when I have cake, when its something I've created. Every time it will be the same unless I change the negative thinking..

Sorry for rambling, but my mind was going.

Take care and God bless

Witchoo profile image
Witchoo in reply to

Thank you for this great reply. I felt some sort of physical relief just reading a truthful, honest account of hope and possibility.

I can relate to the repeated patterns of negative thinking, where you're reliving the same days in only slightly different ways.

I believe you're right in focusing on changing this, I hadn't thought about doing this that much, I guess because it's hard to find the answers during this state.

I can now keep and look back on your reply as one thing that will help me live again down the line, as I hope you are too.

All the best.

Kkimm profile image
Kkimm in reply to

Hi rockster

I see you posted this video 2 years ago but I have just seen it and think it is brilliant.

Thanks for making it available.

I am almost fully recovered from GAD but it had some useful reminders for me.

Health and happiness to us all.

Kim

Witchoo profile image
Witchoo

I guess an additional query to be answered for anybody reading and willing would be,

how do I overcoming this aggressive restlessness? it's like i need to get out of my body sometimes, a claustrophobia, a cabin fever wherever I am, it's maddening because it is obviously impossible to stretch out of one's physical body, it feels like an intense frustration, it's what peace is not..

if it's a feeling like this do I treat it as an anger issue, treat it with exercise or is it treated with other methods? I believe positive thinking is absolutely the first step, according to rockster321 but (I know 'but's are popular with anxious people) how do I treat such a strong by-product of an aggressive FEELING as this?

Cheers

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