One of my relatives is in law enforcement and he often goes into the homes of people who have died or are unconscious and nobody knows who to contact? They often live/lived by themselves.
He suggest leaving a note of Emergency Numbers on your refrigerator as well as a list of the medications you take.
I am moving abroad on Saturday and I haven't been able to sleep or eat for weeks. I'm going to live in a dangerous part of the city, my flatmates won't let me use the refrigerator, they will be noisy, I am going to die... All these thoughts come to my mind.
Alright, so last night was my last night at my job, and I left fearing that I forgot to put something in the fridge. This particular item being left out isn't really a big deal, so I brushed it off. But then... I imagined that maybe I did put it in the fridge, but forgot to close the fridge behind me, jeopardizing some very expensive things. But two things-- first, how did I go from "I didn't put this in the fridge" to "I definitely went into the fridge and didn't close it"??? and second, I'm pretty sure that door closes mostly on it's own, it's pretty heavy and it closes on you when you go in there. But I've been literally terrified and panicking since I left because I had no way back into the building and no one will be there again until Monday, and by then, the damage will have been done. I can't get the thought out of my head, and it's driving me insane. I feel like I'm literally infected with a disease in a sense, that's how this obsession feels. I think the reason it started is because I usually check every door before I leave and my boss had to leave in a rush and lock everything up, so I couldn't check it, and in my mind that means horrible things have happened. In reality, I usually close doors like that automatically, and if I accessed the fridge, which I might have also done automatically, I probably closed it that way, too. Leaving it open just seems so remote... but that doesn't stop the fear. But what does? How can I rest easy for the weekend? My family is home and I'm about to move far away, I need to enjoy my time with them, but I can't because I'm literally cowering in fear over a fucking refrigerator... I hate this fucking illness
Not sure if this counts as anxiety, but it may. (Warning: 7 Paragraphs)
I live with my mother and my two older brothers. I've been on unpaid leave from my job at the post office for almost a year, now, due to falling down in the middle of a panic attack back in October. I bought a dish rack over a month ago because our 20-year-old dishwasher finally broke and stopped working. My mom has this stupid controlling thing about anybody other than her adding anything to the house, and my older brother warned me not to buy it because she'll try to throw it away whenever she gets the chance. We finally got the new dishwasher late last month, and a few days ago, she said that I should be using the dishwasher instead of washing things by hand, even though the dishwasher doesn't fit properly where it was installed, and, as is, the door is too long, it hits the fridge nearby, so it can't go down all the way, and the wash cycles are super-long (like, 3 hours plus). This morning, she stacked it on top of the refrigerator inside of a container and put dirty boxes inside of it without telling me, and I guess I freaked out, because I knew this was her getting ready to toss it, and I got mad, and I said that I was going to put it back, and that if she puts it in the garage or throws it away, I'll just buy another one. I washed it, and went to place it back, and Mom went to try to pull it away and put it away again, but I grabbed it before she could, and she just went upstairs, saying that I needed to not put it back there. She kept claiming that it was taking up space in the kitchen, versus a mat that's always there that takes up just as much space, and is actually where the rack stayed on top of, and is actually always there, has been for years now, on the counter. I liked the rack because it made washing pots and Tupperware easy -- otherwise, I'd just leave them in the sink while I'd load the other dishes. It made the housework easier, but all because my mother doesn't like it...
I had my car note and credit card bill due today, and she hadn't lent me the money, and after our confrontation, she wasn't likely to, so I just threw the dish rack outside into the yard, since I figured if anyone's ruining it, it'll be me. I was crying while getting ready to go to the bank. I had to cash-advance withdraw from my credit card again to pay my car note and then, pay the minimum payment back on the card. Meanwhile, I unplugged the TV and satellite DVR in the living room out of anger. Mom and my oldest brother didn't find this out until they came home and found out that the cable wasn't working. My oldest brother kept asking over and over again why was the TV unplugged. I lied a few times, saying I didn't do it, knowing that he was just going to yell at me and call me childish once I admitted the truth, and sure enough...
My older brother got dragged into it, and he told me that I shouldn't have bought the dish rack because he warned me Mom would do this, and that I should've gotten her consent. (She would've said no if I had.). Mom got mad at him for pretty much making her look bad. He confronted her over how she used his old apartment's mixing bowls to catch dirty water and threw some of his stuff away without his knowing years ago, when he moved back in, so this is what she does.
Last thing Mom told me tonight was that she's going to look for an apartment on Monday, and we can pay the mortgage ourselves. She said she's nearly 70, and she's too old to deal with our stressing her out. She doesn't have good enough credit to do it, but, heh... My older brother is mad at me now because he was relying on us to stay sane until he can get promoted at work and eventually move back out. My oldest brother and she were claiming that I'm capable of wielding a knife on somebody or switching people's meds when she's 80, all because I unplugged the TV and DVR and lied about it.
If I had friends, it would be easy to think about finding a place to stay, but I really don't. All I have is one nice person at work who invited me to her bridal shower that I had to skip today, and I have my high school friend who watches superhero movies at the theater with me (he offers to pay, and I lend him money now and then, but not recently, not since the start of my leave status, as gratitude), and boards at somebody's house. Mom was comparing me to him, BTW, saying that she's been "carrying" me since October, while he doesn't have a family home right now, and look at me..
I don't have any control over anything in the house, and I'm not really allowed to contribute to anything beyond maybe groceries, and she complains about me spending on that, but then, she'll go and buy junk food or just stuff she only eats, like stuff to use the juicer with, and she makes me help her bring it in, bring in food no one wants. She might buy ramen, and she'll buy veggie burgers, but no bread to eat it with, little things like that, so me, not working, might have to run to the store and buy supplements to what she bought, even though she's the one with a salary, I'm the one not working. My brothers won't buy food because my oldest brother just buys bagels, pies, and cakes, even though Mom's been trying to lose weight forever, and my older brother has toxic student loans and a high-interest car loan to pay off, so he says he has no real free money. No one really values my opinion, they want me to hear them complain about whatever happened at work or with their friends, but whenever I bring up work, Mom starts trying to pivot the conversation towards me getting another job or going back to school, and my brothers will tell me it's practically my fault for staying at my job because I "can do better." It took me years to get my job, because it took me a long time to get a driver's license (only been driving for five years, and I'm in my 30s), and it took me a long time to find a job that didn't use online personality tests or require experience. Post office were the only people who would hire me. My mom actually forced me to quit my last job on my second work night because she didn't like having to pick me up late at night, even though it was the only job I had ever had in about four years, at that point. It was her idea for me to work there, in the first place, and then, she decides I "can do better," that I "don't need this."
I'm wondering if this is a symptom of some sort of anxiety or obsessive behavior disorder, because my temper has always flared up like this for years, and it's hard to control it. Either I start breaking things or I start hurting myself in some way. Last time, out of stress, a week before I was made to break from work, I cut off my hair, and Mom had to help make it more neat. But my family always reacts by calling me a brat or calling me crazy. They wonder why I'm destructive, and I say, it's because no one listens to me or cares about what I have to say. They always undermine my feelings and make me feel like I overreact over nothing, whether it's major or minor.
What do you think?
I've never flown easily and in two days I have an 11-hour flight and then a 6-hour flight...this morning I woke up at 3am worrying about it (I usually sleep through the night unless worried). I know how irrational my fear is but that doesn't help. My doctor did give me a small amount of Xanax for me to utilize. I don't want to panic half-way over the Pacific.
I've been having bad issues with OCD the past two years or so- compulsions involving checking doors, the stove, refrigerator, and other appliances multiple times before leaving the house. I've ruined an overnight trip before because I feared I left the oven on (even though I KNEW it was off- my mind won't let me think otherwise). It's made me late for work. I'm going to really come clean with my doc when I get back about this.
I have a huge fear this stuff is gonna creep up on this trip. It's supposed to be a relaxing vacation with my spouse and I don't want to ruin it...
I'm sleeping over at my boyfriends house, basically crashing his couch not wanting to live with my parents, I'm 25 this year, but I can't sleep. I can hear every little thing happening. Irregularities in his breath, some weird cracking/squeezing sound, (from the refrigerator I think), that is scaring the fuck outta me, my own breath. I don't want to bother him. The fact that I feel like a burden is making me feel like I'm about the be homeless. I don't work hard enough to get my own place. Anxiety takes over and I don't want to work. Am I just being a brat? Is it all in the mind? fear is keeping me from leaving. This cough syrup didn't help. My heavy breathing is just scaring me more. Help please
It's almost 3 AM here. The whole house is sleeping. The whole city, even. I couldn't. Not because I was worried, but because my mind somehow felt too fresh to go to sleep just yet.
It's been half an hour since the last car passed outside. I can truly be alone now. I'm sitting in the living room with a blanket and a cup of hot chocolate. There's a pleasant silence, the refrigerator softly buzzing in the kitchen. It's almost magical.
Friday, 3 AM. No one is talking. No one is messaging. No one is watching. No one is fidgeting. No one is online. No one is outside. No one is inside. It's just me and my hot chocolate.
Should I feel bad for not wanting to be housemates with someone who triggers my anxiety?
My friend is a nice person, but he has very messy shared living space habits. Within the past few months I have become very anxious about the cleanliness of the kitchen area. (probably after my mom's house had rats). If I see a spot or food particle on a dish or silverware I have to find a clean one or wash the dirty one if there aren't any others to use.
My friend leaves his dishes sitting around the living room or in the sink (taking up space when I need to wash my dishes). But, he never cleans his dishes or puts them in the dishwasher. Also, I get very frustrated and disgusted when my housemates leave takeout boxes in the refrigerator for 2 weeks or more (again in my mom's house, there are always many moldy things lurking in the refrigerator for me to clean out when I visit).
I don't want to be anybody's maid or nagging parent. I have had to ask my friend many times to clean his dishes or pans after they have been sitting dirty for days. He picks them up when I ask, but then the next time, I have to ask again. It is really a constant stress on me and causes anxiety to confront him about his filthy living habits.
Our lease is up soon, so I feel bad that he will have to find somewhere to live separately, but I can't think of any other option.
Today or yesterday I guess, I had what I think was a panic attack where I couldn't string words together. I could say things I have said a million times, "is that hot or iced?" (a sentence I've said at least 10,000x) But I couldn't say new things easily. I couldn't even think those things. Sometimes when I get stressed or tired my speech sort of, goes offline. Like I might not be able to remember the word for refrigerator and with struggle I can call it "the cold closet." It is a horrible feeling, being rushed by whomever is trying to listen to you. So they don't lose interest or become frustrated and move on. Today it was all speech and thought for about 3 hours. I just learned this can sometimes be aphasia. I was in a car accident yesterday and I think that's I reached this hi level of stree. (I am okay physically, just stressed.) Has anyone else here experienced this?
Hello! I posted this on another site as well but I don't seem to be getting any traffic so I thought I would try my luck here.
Anyway:
I've struggled with anxiety and depression now for about 7 or so years(currently a 25 year old male). I recently worked up the courage to see a Psychiatrist who diagnosed me with Panic Disorder and prescribed me 100mg of Zoloft. I later decreased down to 50mg (which I am currently on) and things are a bit rocky, but nothing like they were. One of my biggest triggers is anything that involves my health or breathing. But lately I have been having this weird symptom of anxiety that I can't quite figure out what's going on.
While I generally take steps to decrease my overall daily anxiety, every once in awhile out of the blue something will catch my attention via my sense of hearing. It becomes a nuisance and often times feels like it's a hallucination. When I thought I was hallucinating I was thrown into a deep panic and thought I was going crazy. After this happened a couple of times I would try and figure out what the noises are. Sometimes it would be the humming of a the refrigerator, sometimes it would be the vibration of my phone 3 rooms away, just recently it was this god awful humming noise coming from a soda cooler at the local retail store. I know that I am not hallucinating since I asked my SO if they could hear the noises, and they could. Now that I have tackled that part of my anxiety my mind continues to play tricks on me and it causes me extreme anxiety. It usually happens at night when I am trying to fall asleep. We sleep with a window AC which is pretty loud and drowns out most noise but every once in awhile I will almost fall asleep and some random noise will wake me out of almost sleeping and I will lie awake in anxiety.
I guess what I am looking for is someone else who experiences these sorts of things and what I can do to let go of these noises I hear. I've tried deep breathing and focusing on the sound of my breath but it's almost like the noise that is bothering me gets louder and louder until I acknowledge it.
I'm not using a throwaway account. Most of my friends know my reddit account and they all know about my issues with anxiety so I'm not worried about anyone seeing it.
I've had anxiety and panic disorder for 10+ years. I'm in my twenties and I live abroad with my husband. I used to think my anxiety was bad, and I took it for granted how not-bad it actually was. It seemed awful when I was a teenager; I used to struggle to go to school and would end up in the hospital a lot because I'd get so dehydrated from being sick with anxiety, but I would still go out for walks on my own daily, go and meet up with friends I hadn't seen in years/never met in person before, go on trains and buses to other towns, go shopping, all of that. I think it just seemed so bad because teachers made such a big deal about my absences and I got bullied a lot so it was more depression than anxiety at that point. I did CBT and it didn't help. They put me on Zoloft but I developed an allergy to it, and that was that.
Then I moved, away from any friends and family, all I have is my husband. I'm at a point where I can't leave the house without him, and no one can ride in our car with us/I can't ride in anyone else's car. He's planning a trip for us to go out herping in the desert this September, and the idea of being out in the middle of nowhere and other people coming with us makes me feel sick to my stomach. I can't go out and work so I have to just do what I can from home.
I was prescribed Xanax. It makes me feel dopey and sleepy and that's about it. If I take it and feel good that day I always feel twice as worse as usual the next day. I took a Xanax on Sunday night and again on Monday then didn't take one last night. At 3am this morning I woke up with horrific palpitations and feeling sick and had a terrible anxiety attack. I'm at the point where even the idea of flying home to visit my family is something I don't ever want to do, yet I miss them more than anything. I freaked out on the plane over there last time and it was awful and the flight attendants had to let me sit in the refrigerator at the back of the plane just to calm down.
My insurance doesn't cover mental health services and I couldn't afford my co-pays anyway. I haven't been to the doctor since January and already have an outstanding balance of $40 just for having my neck cracked because I was so tense (the doctor offered it to me for free since I couldn't afford $40 to go to a chiropractor, but the billing department refused to give me a freebie so they charged me the full $40 when I could have had the full works done for that much at a chiropractor's office - sigh). The bills piling up are stressing me out alone because I'm worried about my negative credit popping up when I finally get a credit card or buy a car in the future.
I just hate life, honestly. The best way I can describe how I feel is that my biggest fear has always been the fear of dying when I'm not ready to, but now my anxiety is so bad that I don't know dying is still my biggest fear or if my new biggest fear is the idea of living a full life when I'm not ready to. Living with anxiety is like waking up unprepared for everything every single day, and it's just so exhausting and no one I talk to ever understands it. I know people with anxiety, and I know they think it's as bad as mine, but I look at them and see my teenage self when I thought it was bad but I was still going out and living, just like they are. I'm not going out and living, I'm missing out on a lot because I can't make friends or go anywhere without my chauffeur husband and I can't pay my own bills because I can't go out and work, which is what I want more than anything in the world. I would give away my worldly possessions just to be able to mop floors at Walmart without having a panic attack.
I'm constantly begging people to throw out suggestions on things I can try. I would have a lobotomy next week if it would fix it, even if I put myself in debt for the rest of my life paying off the medical bill. I will do anything to make the constant panicking go away. Does anyone know anything that I can try?
I was in a deep train of thought today about my porn addiction. Been watching porn since I was 6 years old I believe. Started out when I found my Grandpa's softcore porn magazine under his bed and I got hooked looking at naked ladies with their spreaded vaginas. I had this hot feeling rush of adrenaline telling me that this is pure happiness. Your escape! I had anxiety problems and masterbating to porn at such a young age has helped me to numb myself from reality and pain.
Porn has greatly affected my school performances. I've been going to the principles office a lot and I get a lot of whipping from my Dad from 6 to 12 years old. I remember him yelling at me and beating my ass with a belt 25 times until my ass had bloody marks. This beating goes on 2 times a week. There was a time when i accidentally broke the refrigerator door and he chased me around the house with a belt yelling and I was running for my life. My Dad was very controlling and my Mom was too weak to stop my Dad. All she does is watch him beat me as i scream and cried.
Everyday after school, I would go home and open my grandpas magazine. Fap to it and play my gameboy in the room alone. I've been addicted to video games due to my porn addiction. Because of my addictions, I flunked second grade and had to repeat again. All my old friends were gone and I felt like a stupid kid stuck with little kids. In 3rd grade, I started drawing comics of naked people having sex in crazy scenes and my friends liked it a lot. They insisted me to draw more sexy stuff and I did. My teacher later found out about my porn comics in the locker and had a meeting with my Mom. The next morning, my Dad woke me up out of bed. My Mom showed my Dad the naked drawings I drew and I was waiting for the slap in the face. Instead, he looked at the comics for a while and then grabs me furiously by the neck with both hands choking and strangling me as I lay helplessly on the bed gasping for air. Thankfully, my Mom stopped him and he let me go till I can catch my breath, coughing.
At 12 years old, I was diagnosed with high blood pressure. Doctors thought I had heart disease but honestly, it was my anxiety. Living with my parents was hell. I get sweaty hands when I get nervous a lot and my heart pounds really fast when I get in trouble. Everyday when my Dad comes home from work, I would quickly run up the stairs and hide in my room hoping he doesn't call my name. As a child, I see my Dad as a monster. I use porn to cover my emotional scars.
As I got to high school, things got a lot worse. I've been bullied, called names, and I never really wanted to achieve my academic grades. All I wanted to do was to waste my life watching porn and play video games. My porn fetish was blowjob and cumshots. Been watching those compilation for months and I moved on to some hardcore like threesomes and lesbian porn. I was hooked on these fetishes but it didn't last long. I wanted more excitement and disgust.
What made me more insecure of myself was watching shemale porn. Fapping to a beautiful woman with a nice package made me cum hard for the first time. I felt disgusted, shock, and asked myself if I was gay. I was only 16 years old and I had to keep it a secret because I fapped to a guy who looked like a woman. If anyone finds out about my secret fetish in high school, my life would've been over. Due to overload of insecurity, anxiety got the best of me and I had several panic attacks. I felt like I was going to die anytime soon but I knew it was going to pass. I had several girlfriends in high school but the relationship only lasted a month. I just kept going back to tranny porn.
Few years later, I graduated high school and went to my local college. I had a really hard time concentrating because I kept thinking about porn every hour. I didn't take college seriously and was suspended due to 1.6 gpa. I was really depressed and I knew that something was wrong with me. I felt suicidal at times but I never wanted to give up life. I always thought that watching porn was a normal thing because all of my friends watch porn but how much?
I've been hearing a lot of people talking about the scary DeepWeb on Youtube and I didn't really believe it was true at first but I was wrong. I was very curious guy so I took a chance to browse on the the DeepWeb on Tor and I made a huge mistake. I clicked on a link and it directed me to snuff porn and necrophilia. I was scared as fucked. Seeing woman having sex and then get their heads decapitated was just horrifying experience and I mean horrifying as fuck. The minute they were enjoying and the next they were dead. Those woman didn't know what was coming until their heads roll on the ground. Who in there minds would like this kind of stuff? Its murder and insane! I am tell you. There is evil out there. Then, there were links to graphic images of children being raped helplessly from 3 year old to 12 year old and I felt really sick to my stomach. Those poor children being raped, tortured, and killed by pedophiles for no reason made me question our existence of humanity. Those children are innocent and were gifted to live a good life until sick minded people destroyed them. It was pure evil. I pray for those children. It just seemed unfair how they ended up in the wrong place. Who the fuck would this? What has porn become now? I decided that ENOUGH IS ENOUGH! This shit needs to stop now!
I took the time to do some research on porn addiction and I stumbled upon YourBrainonPorn.com. It explains that our brain is rewired through the consumption of novelty and our brains needed more stimulus to keep up the dopamine levels. I also stumbled upon the Nofap challenge on youtube and I knew that I needed to quit porn before its too late. Been doing the Nofap challenge for 2 years now and I have seen great results from Nofap. I came back to college to take my grades seriously and got my GPA from 1.6 to 2.8. I use to get Withrawals, Cs,Ds and Fs. Now, I am getting all A and Bs. I can talk to girls naturally and I got back to running 4 times a week. My highest nofap was 46 days and I felt like a gladiator. I realize that Life is precious. Porn saps the joy out of you because you release all that intense pleasure for a trade of depression. Thats how it works. I later found Buddhaism to be a very interesting religion and I keep questioning myself of what is the purpose of life and why are we here? Life has always been a test and I keep making mistakes over and over again. Throughout my life, porn has destroyed me almost completely until I decided that I need to take action. And here I am. Living the real life and learning my experiences from the past and moving forward. I am still continuing my Nofap no matter what. The answer to my life is still out there and I am not giving up! Never give up! Only you have the power to change! No one else! Only you!
I've run out of options to avoid or silence the noise, and now I'm looking for some way to mentally cope with it.
The problem is our apartment is next to a small food terminal which has refrigerator trucks and a cooling system on the building which are running day and night, I think on timers. It's a low frequency rumbling that escalates up and down irregularly. It's mostly on all the time with occasional breaks (just to taunt me with how blissful it is when it is quiet).
I've tried all the usual ways to deal with noise (earplugs, noise machine, etc). They fail for various reasons. I've become so desperate I've added more pillows to the bed and even hung up thick fabrics around the room in a futile attempt to muffle out the sounds. Obviously that doesn't work.
The more I focus on it, and the worse it gets. Knowing that it is never going to stop as long as I live here makes me feel trapped and frustrated. I'm at a point now where I dread going to bed. I lay down and feel stress and anger rising up at a time I should be winding down for sleep. It usually takes hours to fall asleep even when I'm exhausted. In the rare events that those fans are quiet, I sleep incredibly well and wake up like a new person... unfortunately those nights are rare.
So what I'm looking for are some kind of internal coping mechanisms. Some possible way I can train myself to stop focusing on this irritation and ignore it. Is this even possible? Has anyone else found a way to cope with irritating and inescapable stimuli that are beyond your control? Or is moving away the only option (not really an option at this time).
Any advice would be greatly appreciated. If you have a similar experience and want to vent I'd love to hear that too, it would be nice to know I'm not alone with this as my boyfriend handles the noise just fine, and that makes me feel worse about myself for not being able to tolerate it.
I hadn't drank heavily in awhile, but obviously for this occasion I was going to - my bachelor party. We got a summer home for the weekend, packed the refrigerator full of beer and played games and drank all weekend. Friday was meant to be light, but we ended up going hard. Saturday was the real party and we went very hard. I was honestly surprised I didn't feel terrible Saturday morning. Maybe I didn't give myself enough time to recover, as we started drinking again by the afternoon.
But guys and girls, I don't really get the conventional hangovers. It's been mixed hangover sensations since I have come off of Effexor. I don't get nausea, nor headaches, really (like I used to). I just get tired and my anxiety spikes up through the roof. I have Klonopin that I rarely ever take, but after drinking (the days after) I need it. I try and fight through it but I get terrible physical symptoms like heart palpitations. Mentally I'm drained as well, and I feel "off." Out of it, kind of sad, etc. I know alcohol is a depressant, so it's obvious why I feel this way.
Now today I'm at work and just want to curl into a ball and disappear.
First of all, I suppose I should clarify that when I say "fear" I don't mean an outright state of being immobilized with terror, it's more of an anxiety that affects me exclusively if I happen to be alone and home at night.
I am a male in my mid-twenties, and I don't live in a particularly dangerous area. I live in a fairly nice apartment complex and nothing substantially criminal or suspicious happens around here. I consistently lock doors/windows and there's really no threat of somebody breaking into my home (save for literally breaking my double-bolted door down).
In other words, I don't have a reasonable nor rational basis for this fear I have of someone breaking in. I've felt this way for as long as I can remember, in many different living situations/cities/states. When I was younger it was a vague fear of "monsters" or something like that, but of course, as I am not particularly religious, I grew out of that and a much more obviously plausible fear of home invaders set in.
It has always affected the quality of my sleep, and has lead me to all kinds of silly behaviors such as keeping all the lights on at night, perking up at any and all noises (the refrigerator comes to mind) or even just staying awake most of the night.
It seems next to impossible to just mentally talk myself out of it, and I've never had a personal experience of anyone breaking into my home, making it both ridiculous yet negatively influential on my life at times. Thankfully, when I am not alone at night, it's not at all a problem. I live with my girlfriend and used to live with roommates, but whenever I find myself home alone, at night, I'm confronted again and again with this neurosis. It seems so childish and silly; when my girlfriend stays home alone she never has this issue. What can I possibly do to treat this? Does anyone else suffer with the same problem?
TL;DR: When I sleep alone at night, I have an irrational fear that my home could be invaded at any moment, causing me to lose sleep and negatively impact my life in general.
Thanks in advance for anyone willing to give me some advice.
:)
I'm really nervous to post this but here it goes. Sorry for the wall of text. I have had issues with anxiety for some time now. I'm even described as a "worry wart" by the people who know me well. But it goes deeper than just worry, it's a constant downward spiral that keeps me from functioning on most days and this weekend was the worst anxiety attack I've had yet.
It started Thursday when I checked my grades online. I had recently turned in some work for my college history class. All looked great until I saw that my 10 page paper received a 0/100. I freaked out and burst into tears. In my mind, I jumped to the worst possible conclusion. My school is really big on plagiarism, so I thought maybe I cited something wrong on accident. That would mean I could be kicked from the school. Even if that wasn't the case, this is a senior level class which I needed to get special permission to get into. I could be kicked from my program for failing this class. All I could think about all weekend was how I was such a disappointment for failing, I will never find a job, my family and friends will be let down by me. I guess any college student would be a little nervous about a 0/100 but I took it to another level. I literally couldn't do anything all weekend except play video games, which was the only thing that kept me from thinking about the paper. It literally made me sick to my stomach. My husband told me I was jumping to conclusions (as usual) but I was positive my college life was over.
Monday morning comes around and I finally get in touch with my professor. He was confused as to why I was concerned about my paper because according to him, I made top marks. Coming to find out, my grade was accidentally switched with another student.....I made an A. All of that worry for nothing. All that worry ruined my weekend and it's my fault.
And this is only one example. I don't want to admit that I have this problem but I can't keep going on like this. It's not healthy and it leaves me stressed. I always feel like I'm trapped in my own mind where I'm thinking about 100 things at once and ALWAYS coming up with the worst possible conclusion. Example: My husband is 10 minutes late from work? My mind tells me he was in a car crash or worse. I also have a problem with making lists. I make to-do lists of things that need to be done but I put so much stuff on the list, it's impossible to get everything done. My husband tells me to prioritize important things first, then go from there but I have a really hard time doing that because to me, everything has equal importance. For example, I need to study but I can't concentrate with the living room so cluttered but I also really need to go grocery shopping and to do that I need to clean out the refrigerator. So I end up doing 4 things at once and it always ends in disaster with nothing getting done. And then I feel like a lousy person for not being able to complete simple tasks.
I really want to get help for this. My dad also has anxiety but is much worse than me. I don't want to put this off any longer and make it worse like he did. I want to talk to someone who can help me sort this out but I'm scared to even do that.
He's just fine. He didn't get into enough to cause anything worse than some runny poops and one bout of throwing up. I'm keeping a close eye on him, though.
The stress of it, on the other hand, resulted in me spending 20 minutes crying. The crying resulted in a pounding headache that I've had for 8+ hours now. I took an oxycodone to help ease it and am waiting for it to kick in fully, but I know it may not help the headache itself since different pain medication types work on different kinds of pain. I took it more in the hopes that it will relax me enough to lower my blood pressure. I probably should've taken a xanax instead, but I'm down to 2 left and I've been too anxious and tired to make another doctor appointment to get a new script.
I don't have a history of blood pressure issues besides stress headaches every now and then. I'm pretty much writing this in the hopes that putting it down in words will help me calm down enough to sleep it off. Mostly, though, I wanna throw up, cry more, and stick my head in the refrigerator in the hopes that the cold will stop the pain.
One thing I really want to know, though, is whether or not this is a migraine? I've never been diagnosed with migraines before, but I've been told by family and friends that migraine pain is excruciating. I don't like being overzealous with saying I "have a migraine", but this stress headache has lasted more than 8 hours, light seems to make it hurt worse, but lack of light doesn't do much to help. I want to throw up, and I can actually feel my pulse in my head.
I have been suffering from anxiety/depression(?) in silence for the last four years. I'm a senior in college and I feel as though my mind has always been dancing on the edge of insanity. I work hard, so very hard, in order to keep straight A's and I fear that this obsession with getting good grades has ruined me mentally. This semester was the first time that I hit a wall with a course [French 101]. For the first time in my college career, I fucked up on a quiz... royally fucked up. Today, four days after the quiz, I had a panic attack in public that I couldn't hide. I broke down at 7am and was unable to gather myself up for my morning class. This feeling, however, isn't new.
For the last four years I have been stuck in my head. When I have "down-time" I start to think, and when I start to think about something not related to work or school, I panic. My solution for the last three years was to work full time and attend college for 21 credits every semester. It was hell, but at least I didn't have to think about myself and my life.
The worst time of day is the night. If I try to go to bed without being completely exhausted my mind wanders ceaselessly. It's as if my head is plugging into my pillow and turning on just to remind me of every small little detail, every mistake that I made since the last time I plugged in. I start to think about my life and how I'm a failure in my own eyes, that I'm not doing enough. I start to think about my chronic migraines and why they are getting worse and showing new symptoms, and that leads me to think that I have some disease that's going unchecked but now I'm too scared to go to the doctor. I think about my fuckups at university and high school. I think about the wall beside me and how we're not too different. We both exist as support structures for something/someone else but in the end that's all we are... support. We cannot function or sustain ourselves on our own, so we let others lean on us to give ourselves some meaning.
I just want my brain to stop thinking so much. 24/7, my mind is racing with a sound that I try to block out, but I can't anymore. I hear it in the high frequency of the t.v. while on mute, I hear it in the hum of the refrigerator, and recently I've started to hear it in the voices of my friends. It's the sound of loneliness and anguish, and it's getting louder every day.
The worst part is that everyone thinks that my life is fucking perfect. Family, friends, professors, etc. all think that I have my shit together, but in reality I'm splitting at the seams. How can I tell these people that I'm not okay? How can I look into the eyes of everyone that looks to me for support and say that I'm broken too? I help, not because I'm strong, but because I know what it feels like to be like this and nobody, nobody should ever feel like this.
I don't know what to do anymore. All I know is that at this rate I'm going to lose myself. The sound is becoming too deafening for me to hear much else anymore.
