Anxiety has Left Me Too Weak to Function

[sunnyg]

I guess I'm here for some empathy. My severe anxiety started 16 months ago when my husband had major surgery. It continued and was made more difficult by an ill parent, an ill step dad, and a mean boss (after having a great one for years).

Too make things worse for myself I went on Citalopram cold turkey last September.

Then in November I lost my mom and in March I lost my stepdad. Now I'm left taking care of their spouses.

Stress, sick, panic, and freaking out.

I thought when my job ended I will feel somewhat better, but I don't at all.

I know think I am dying, My body feels like it just can't function anymore. I feel like my body will shut down at any minute. I'm dizzy, soooooo weak, anxious, loss of appetite, angry, shaky, stuffed head, on and off back pain, and more.

Has anyone else felt like they can't do anything; like their body is DONE.

Can anxiety finally put you down?

Docs tell me it's GAD, but man is this tough,

I am a happily married, successful, woman with three great kids and a very happy life. I, however, don't enjoy a second of it because I am always sick and anxious.

Thanks all.

I would love to hear if anyone was this bad and survived. And, if so, how did you survive?

[Jeff1943]

Sunnyg, you've had a string of bad news recently, one thing after the other. So you shouldn't be surprised that you're feeling anxious and down, anybody else would feel the same way. All that worry and anxiety has made your nervous system super sensitive so it sends you all those dizzy, shaky weak feelings by special delivery.

Your body isn't going to shut down and you certainly aren't dying, it's common or garden anxiety, most of us here have felt like that and we've survived and of course so will you. What hasn't helped in your case is that you have to take care of the surviving spouses you mention, you're in no shape to do that, you may have broad shoulders but taking on all that extra work and worry is too much. It's time to put yourself first, be quite ruthless about that, explain you can't take these other people on, be frank and tell them you're suffering from anxiety disorder and alternative arrangements must be made.

Everybody has their own way of surviving, I can only speak for myself though I know I can speak for many others on this forum too.

1. Realise that the power of anxiety to harm you is limited, it may scare you and give you strange symptoms but it can't kill you or disable you.

2. Instread of stressing and obsessing over the bad feelings and fighting them do the opposite and simply accept them for the time being. Fighting only causes more tension and angst while acceptance minimises the fear you generate - and when you generate less fear you starve your nerves of the fuel that is keeping them over sensitised. So in time they return to normal and you recover.

3. That's the in a nutshell version, to fully understand the ability of Acceptance to bring about cure and recovery I commend to you a short book written many years ago by Claire Weekes titled 'Hope and help for your nerves' in the u.s. and 'Self help for your nerves' in the u.k. The book is life changing and as I always say you will recognise yourself in its pages and it is written in a relaxed style that doesn't bombard you with technical terms or adopt a hectoring tone. It's available from Amazon.

Don't worry, sunnyg, you are going to come through this to recovery, you're not going to go to pieces believe me. But take some of the burden off your broad shoulders and discover how practicing Acceptance will in the fullness of time restore your quiet mind and let the sun shine into your life once more.