I know anxiety is different for all of us, so I thought maybe some of us could compare notes.
Anxiety to me is this feeling of dread, kind of like I’m standing at the edge of a cliff where some invisible villain is planning to push me off but I don’t know when, or why. I feel dizzy and light-headed and off balance, like I’m on a rocking boat, which is especially troubling when I’m driving. Dizziness is my biggest and most bothersome symptom. It makes it hard to concentrate on what I’m doing.
There’s this pressure in my head like my ears need to pop, and a slight ringing in my ears. My hands are trembly and my mouth gets dry. I feel my heart thumping and my chest sometimes feels heavy. At lunch and dinner time my stomach feels empty but I have no appetite.
Then there are the panic attacks. This feels like the invisible villain has pushed me over the edge of the cliff with no warning whatsoever. I’m falling, then I gasp and shake my head and I’m back at the edge of the cliff, wondering when it’s going to happen again. More dizziness, and sometimes that strange feeling of unreality sets in.
Does anyone have these same sensations, or different ones?
Written by
teemo1
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I feel so similar! Off balanced, fear, dizzy...like shocks of fear over the stupidest things. I feel disconnected from my body...im overly worried about my health. Its bad :/ sorry you go through it too.
Exactly, me too. I'll be sitting here working on something and out of nowhere, a sudden jolt of fear! I get the disconnected from body feeling as well.
Holy crap, I feel SO SIMILAR. I thought I had a vestibular disorder, but I'm realizing it's anxiety. I feel dizzy all day, more so when anxious. It's honestly more of a problem than panic attacks since I feel it non stop.
I just want one day where I don't feel dizzy and sick.
Yeah i thought mine was a vestibular disorder for a long time! That what they diagnosed it as at first...but it never went away...and I never lost hearing or had problems at all with my ears...
So I tried Lexapro and it actually made it worse, but it worked for me in the past so I won't say don't ever try it. Xanax helps A LOT but I try to not take it since it can be addictive. I'm about to start prozac, so we'll see how it goes.
It took me a while for me to figure out that what I feel is anxiety because some of my symptoms weren't the most common. I feeling I'm waiting for something to happen, except I can't remember what it is. My physical symptoms is I get cold all over and I just want to take a long hot shower or bundle up under a bunch of blankets and watch TV until the feeling goes away. I get really low self esteem and my thoughts tell me that all of my personal bests, my friends, times of happiness, were all lies. When I have a full blown attack I can't stop the feeling of wanting to cry. One morning I went into work - I was going to be starting a new job soon that I was really excited to get, and I woke up that morning feeling such a heavy weight of depression and exhaustion, and then I felt guilty for feeling like that especially if I don't know why I feel like that, which leads me to crying for hours. I had to leave work after an hour because I couldn't get myself to calm down. Another time I got such bad stomach cramps from the stress of dealing with my car and my insurance and my finances that I had to leave work early again. And then most recently I got my wisdom teeth out and I had anxiety dreams leading up to it and then while I was in the chair I felt my heart beating really hard and I started becoming short of breath.
Put all those symptoms under the umbrella of anxiety, learn to accept them all and do nothing to try and change your cuurent state of mind and body. Just go with the flow and avoid nothing. Go to work, socialise, keep fit. Do everything you would normally do if you weren't anxious, full of fear and dread. Anxiety is probably the biggest confidence trickster around. Don't be fooled by it. Call its bluff by leaving it be and taking it with you. Eventually, it will get bored and fade away so long as you keep moving forward, no matter how slow that may be. Anxiety is clever and thrives on avoidance or any other method usef to deliberately try to suppress or get rid of those thoughts and feelings.
So true! Engaging with it, struggling with it, trying to make it go away, all just make it more powerful and menacing. I am using guided meditations to train my mind to observe anxious thoughts and feelings without engaging with them. Your reply is helpful and encouraging. Thanks!
I feel the same way! Do you feel like you are actually falling.. like your on an elevator or a roller coaster? And get the funny feeling in your head? That’s been a newer symptom for me over the past year and has been the hardest to deal with.
I’ve always struggled with anxiety, since I was a child. I’m now 27. That particular sensation is actually what pushed me to seek help and start medication. I’ve had a hard time believing it was anxiety/ panic related. At first, I didn’t connect the dots at all. I just thought something was terribly wrong with me and then it became worse and started happening more frequently. That was incredibly helpful! Thank you for sharing!
Symptoms do evolve. At first, I had health anxiety which morphed into relationship anxiety. To tell you the truth, my mind was constantly conjuring up a myriad of scary thoughts. Although they all came uninvited and loaded with fear, many were easy to let go because they didnt mean much to me. I could let them go without too much trouble. Others, such as those which made me seriously doubt my love for my wife were harder to let go. It took a leap of faith to not get involved but the more I practised observance instead of recoiling in fear, the less they bothered me. During this time, i had moments of clarity where those thoughts just weren't there and made me realise it was just anxiety making me think and feel that way and not a reflection of my true feelings which were buried beneath the symptoms of anxiety and waiting to resurface. Once acceptance had been fully established, the revised attitude started paying dividends and my levels of anxiety diminished. Those moments of clarity made it easier to accept the scary thoughts even though they still came with such force for a while. Moments became hours, hours became days, days then became weeks. I did have setbacks (it was also worse in the mornings) which make you think you are back to square one with no hope of recovery but they are an important part of the recovery process and learnt to accept those too.
Hi, I am new to this site so I wrote my post before looking at yours. This is SO SIMILAR to what I am feeling now. I get a constant dull headache with a feeling of lightheadedness and like I’m off balance all day long. It’s like I’m floating. I do believe I got an anxiety attack today but I am not sure. I rushed out of the room with a bunch of people and went to dry heave even tho nothing came out. I had a lump feeling in my throat along with racing heart and shaking. But yes such similar feelings. I have bad health anxiety and I am going to doctors for these feelings because I am scared as well.
Great visualization, teemo. Anxiety is a nasty beast isn't it? I don't get panic attacks like I used to but still have anxiety symptoms that cause pain and insecurity. I'm very sensitive to the slightest sensation in my body and don't know if my pain is caused by my mind or there's actually something wrong physically. When you feel these pains for months or longer it causes me depression and I feel I've lost my true self. I don't laugh or smile like I used to and I'm reluctant to put myself in situations that aren't normal everyday activities like work or home. I've missed out on some great travel opportunities and family events because I didn't want to have to be put in that situation. Many people around you can't relate and won't understand. This is just a small part of the large picture but I understand what you're going through and you're not alone. I wish you all the best! Thanks for sharing your story.
Gone.... That's mostly how I've felt in the past. buried somewhere inside myself, like in a shell of a body, robotically moving about and going through the motions. Trying so hard to listen to people, to concentrate, getting sucked back to my thoughts with the force of a black hole. People's voices so far away, muffled. Whole body buzzing, vibrating, head-to-toe just tight, taught, like a rubberband about to snap. Not hungry. Too preoccupied to eat, but when I did have food in front of me, too nauseous to eat. Lots of stomach problems. Dizzy. Startle-y. Hyper-aware of my heart, my breathing, an itch, a visual change. Pain (even a little headache) was magnified by the worry of what might be causing the pain, and worry that it might never get better. Ruminating- thinking about the situation or any situation or any future situation over and over and over. What if, what if, what if?? Depressed. Anxiety has led to depression for me a few times. Obsessive. List-making. Obsessed with--- weight, exercise, being on time, schedules, having things done a certain way, the minutia, the silly details. Oh my gosh, the schedules. Every day planned out to the minute. Anxiety trying to gain some control over something, anything, because the idea that we aren't in control of much at all is unbearable for anxiety. Sick- I felt sick. So alert, so prepared for doom and gloom, so negative. So many catastrophes that weren't even a molehill. Awake. Exhausted from lack of sleep. More exhausted by the worry of lack of sleep than the actual lack of sleep itself. So off balance in my mind. Knowing deep down, something is off, something is wrong, I'm not seeing this right. I'm not seeing it right. Glimpsing the truth and the way out but getting pulled back in to anxiety's efforts to protect me from... life.
It feels like I'm talking about another person now. I truly don't know that person anymore. I have no doubt I'll be hearing your recovery stories soon.
I get a lot of those symptoms. The ringing and ear pressure sensations are especially bothersome, but the most dramatic symptom for me is a head rush. Not like a quick head rush from standing up too quickly either - it literally feels like a bomb has gone off in my head and I get a creepy crawly sensation over my scalp. It's almost always accompanied by intense, INTENSE fear and panic and a racing heart. Nausea sometimes too. That's what I call an episode.
The usual anxiety comes with trembling, a BILLION muscle spasms and twitches all throughout the day, some nausea here and there, and oh the headaches.
Hello, I am so sorry to read these posts and hear what you are all going through but it is such a huge support to me as I am suffering from so many of these symptoms too, especially the constant feeling of being off balance. I am also suffering from muscle twitching all over my body which just fuels the anxiety all of the time.
I feel mine has progressed over the last 7 years. Some symptoms have lingered, some have gone and new symptoms have developed. Right now I’m battling through depersonalization and the feeling that I’m not in my body and everything feels hazy. I’ve been getting a lot of numbness and tingling and muscle sores all over my body. Having them as I type atm. I can’t breathe well at all. It’s an everyday battle and every time I walk, I feel this heaviness upon me as if I worked out. I’ve been getting this pressure in the back of my neck and sharp pains around my head. It’s really freakin me out but I’m trying to be positive.
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