Horrible Anxiety?

[raracer]

I am twenty one years old and as far as I can remeraber I have had these symptoms which I believe could be caused from anxiety.

I'll start with my symptoms:

-Stomach pain.
-Body feels nurab and weak.
-EXTREMELY hot to the point of feeling like I will pass out.
-Diarrhea
-Constipation (more like empty and stomach acid coming out lol)
-VERY edgy, I get VERY mad very easily at anything.

This "event" usually takes place on days when I have something to do. It makes my life extremely hard and makes regular functioning almost impossible. I can't say how many times in my early life I had to call my parents to be checked out of school because of this.

I've been to doctors before, I've been given anti depressants which didn't work in the least, in fact some made everything worst.

This doesn't just happen at times I am stressed either, today for example I was going out for fun, I had to come back home because it got so bad. The easiest way to make it go away is to take a cold shower, drink lots of water, and lay down watching something to occupy me.

I know it's in my head I can tell, it's just so hard to make it stop when it starts or prevent it from happening in the first place.

What should I do about this? I can't type how it really feels, sometimes I'd much rather be dead then go through with the pain this stuff causes.

 

[garrett24]

After suffering thru almost 4 years of intermittant anxiety I have come to the following conclusions that I believe are true:

1) Once you have anxiety you will never be fully rid of it, so I suggest that you get used to it and not get too upset about it when you are having bad attacks. Just ride it out and celebrate when it dissipates. Take things one day at a time and just accept whatever happens without trying to read too much into your symptoms. It doesn't help whatsoever to make a list of your symptoms and attempt to decipher what they mean. You feel like crap and it doesn't matter if it is a headache, diarrhea, hot flashes, nurabness, etc... None of it is going to go away until you stop worrying that it might be a brain tumor. If it is a brain tumor, believe me you will eventually know it and you can worry about it then.

2) Anxiety attacks actually cause "damage" to your nervous system that makes you more susceptible to future attacks. This is not necessarily a bad thing because I believe that this damage is not permanent, so you can heal somewhat between attacks. What this means is that if you can give yourself time to heal, the severity and frequency of your anxiety will likely lessen over time, mine certainly has.

3) Anxiety feeRAB on your fears. The only way to defeat anxiety is to overcome your fears, or at the very least stop dwelling on them. When you constantly think about what might go wrong, you never allow yourself to have a moments peace. I suggest that you mentally think of worst case scenarios and learn to calm yourself at the same time. Think about what your life would be like with a brain tumor while simultaneously meditating and/or doing slow breathing exercises. Learning to calm yourself takes a great deal of practice, but it is definitely worth it and gives you a great deal of confidence to handle anything that life throws at you.

4) It is not necessary to always be optimistic and positive in order to corabat anxiety. In fact, I think it makes things worse when you try to convince yourself that everything is going to be alright. It's quite possible that everything is NOT alright and sucks big time. You cannot control how things turn out, but you can control how you respond to a crisis. When you're suffering during an attack, you don't HAVE TO assume that you're dying or that your life is over. You CAN say something like "well at least I'm not blind"; and if you're blind you can say "well at least I'm not deaf". You see where I'm going with this. You can be pragmatic without being optimistic; whatever gets you thru the day is an acceptable approach.

5) I don't believe that medicines offer long-term solutions. In times of intense panic or anxiety, medicine might help you cope temporarily, but you have to resolve the issues I discussed in 1-4 to have any chance of living a normal life with anxiety.

I hope that you find something useful in what I've said and it helps you feel just a little bit better about your situation.