What has happened to me?

I was diagnosed with depression and anxiety 10 years ago and with borderline personality disorder at the end of last year. I love day to day with all the symptoms including panic attacks, suicidal thoughts and petrified to answer the phone or call someone back except close family and friends. I'm 27 and have been working from 16. I left my job in August last year and haven't had a job since. My last job caused me to finally give up. I am happily married and want to work yet I got a call today with a job offer that I let go to voicemail. I never called back as I was too scared! I have had a mobile number call me twice since and it's causing me more anxiety and fear that it won't stop. It is only a casual job but sometimes I can't leave the house so I feel it won't be good to accept. The last 2 mornings I have woken out of my sleep with full body tremors and nausea. I just want to live a normal life and feel so guilty that my husband has to support me. Everyone keeps saying just get up and get on with it but why is it so hard to? I feel so bad making everyone worry! I'm worried about writing this but I found the site and thought I could get help or find someone else like me.

[Agora1]

Hi SineadD, I can certainly relate to what you are going through. Anxiety somehow made me fearful of everything including answering the phone and the door. I remember on those good days where I would feel well enough to go on an interview for a job and then when they would call the next day offering me the job, I would lie and say that I accepted another offer. The fear of a commitment was more than my anxiety could handle. Plus I was agoraphobic at the time. Like you, I would wake up the next morning in total panic because of having this hanging over my head. I wanted to work, I needed to work but the fear was too overwhelming and so there was always the thought, tomorrow...I know it's not easy to just get up and get on with our lives. And yet if we don't move in some direction, we get stuck and stay stuck. I'm glad you found this forum. You will see that you are not alone in any of your mental health issues. I wish you well SineadD.

[Jeff1943]

SineadD, you don't have to live with anxiety and depression for the rest of your life. When we experience anxiety even the smallest tasks and problems seem ten times worse. But when we address those small tasks that have become insummountable problems we always find that they were molehills after all.

All the symptoms of anxiety that you describe are caused by your over sensitive nervous system misfiring and causing you all sorts of bad feelings. But though the panic attacks, nausea and tremors may frighten you half to death, they're not real physical illnesses. They aren't going to kill or cripple you because they are fake, just tricks that over sensitised nerves play on tired minds. What's keeping your nerves in that state is the extra fear you generate every time you feel one of those symptoms. If you could frame your mind to accept those bad feelings with less fear, and eventually zero fear, you give your nerves a chance to de-sensitise themselves and when your nerves settle down you will start to recover. It all depends on being able to 'accept' the bad feelings for the time being without fear knowing that those bad feelings are fraudulent.

Don't worry about leaving your house because you'll feel bad, leave your house despite feeling bad, accept that too. Just switch onto automatic pilot and go for it, you won't faint or collapse, your legs will always take you where you want to go.

Maybe staying at home leaves you too much time to dwell on your anxiety problems, too much introspection doesn't help us. So going for a new job could well help your recovery, occupation can be good for people with anxiety disorder and the depression that we feel because we're anxious.

So go chase that job offer that you let go to voicemail and any other leads you find, you may feel uncomfortable about it hut accept that too and do it anyway. Acceptance is the key to recovery, the answer to all your problems. So start to claim your life back by standing up to the paper tiger that is anxiety. You can do it, believe me, and the sooner you start the better it will be.