Anxiety Support Group
Anxiety is a physical condition marked by intense and persistent feelings of distress, fear, angst or dread. General anxiety caused by routine day-to-day stresses usually passes quickly and is experienced by almost everyone at one time or another. However, such feelings that linger over time and are very difficult to cope with, and which lack a clear cause, may indicate...
I'm a 34 year old female and over the past 2 years have been through a decent amount of change. Divorce, moving, getting a new job and now being a single parent to 2 young children. Well I have good family support and have been doing pretty well with these adjustments. I still have a decent amount of social anxiety but was doing pretty well. Then a few months ago I started dating a guy. He was 'okay' and we had a decent relationship but we broke up (I wanted to do this) about a month ago. I felt relief but over time I questioned it but still thought it was the right thing. Well this is about the time I am linking all of these changes happening in me. I don't feel it's because of the break up but possibly the affect it had on my confidence and self-worth.
I feel totally out of it. I'm usually a fun, happy, easily laughing person and recently nothing at all makes me laugh. My sex drive is non-existent which I've never had in all my life. I feel totally restricted, make even less eye contact with people, and can't hold any conversation because I feel like I have nothing to add or say. I feel almost emotion-less. And during the relationship with my ex-boyfriend I did notice I had trouble feeling or showing much emotion, or processing emotion. I think a lot of this is due to the divorce. But I really don't know how to fix this. I see a psychiatrist regularly and try to get myself to cry every now and again, but again have difficulty. I feel almost frozen and out of touch with reality. I just started taking Lexapro about a week ago because everything has gotten so bad. I'm only taking 1/4 of a 10mg pill b/c I'm very sensitive to side effects. I'm hoping this will help snap me out of this funk, but I am so scared. I've never felt this bad off before and don't know how to fix anything. To make things worse, I start a new job on Monday. So I need to be at my best and be able to communicate properly and with confidence. Does anyone have any advice or ideas on how to feel like myself again? On how to better process emotion? I'm so scared. :(
I feel totally out of it. I'm usually a fun, happy, easily laughing person and recently nothing at all makes me laugh. My sex drive is non-existent which I've never had in all my life. I feel totally restricted, make even less eye contact with people, and can't hold any conversation because I feel like I have nothing to add or say. I feel almost emotion-less. And during the relationship with my ex-boyfriend I did notice I had trouble feeling or showing much emotion, or processing emotion. I think a lot of this is due to the divorce. But I really don't know how to fix this. I see a psychiatrist regularly and try to get myself to cry every now and again, but again have difficulty. I feel almost frozen and out of touch with reality. I just started taking Lexapro about a week ago because everything has gotten so bad. I'm only taking 1/4 of a 10mg pill b/c I'm very sensitive to side effects. I'm hoping this will help snap me out of this funk, but I am so scared. I've never felt this bad off before and don't know how to fix anything. To make things worse, I start a new job on Monday. So I need to be at my best and be able to communicate properly and with confidence. Does anyone have any advice or ideas on how to feel like myself again? On how to better process emotion? I'm so scared. :(
What are you doing to take care of yourself during this time? Anything at all to relax or slow it down and make room in your life for all these feelings? Your mind is so filled up with stress that its not going to be able to hold all that AND your regular normal day to day life that you have always lived. Thats a LOT for any mind to handle. Its no wonder your brain has you on autopilot for a while.
If I had to guess i'd say your brain is saying "You aren't feeling anything new until we take care of the old stuff first" It sounds to me like you have some healing to do and if it were me, I would be laying low, staying away from stimulation and stress as much as possible and just letting your brain and mind heal on their own the way they were designed to do. Brains know how to take care of themselves pretty well. They have been doing it for tens of thousands of years. But if we don't give them the time they need to do it....its not going to happen and it has to compensate in other ways. Lots of luck to you.
I wouldn't self analyse too much and I would avoid adding pills to my life because they are so hard to get rid of.
Just rest whenever you can. I'm sure that in your new job you will be 'on' automatically. That's all you have to achieve.
We go through quiet periods in our lives as women, reflective, exhausted times. Our kids don't even notice. Or if they notice they don't remember once we've come right. So give yourself a bit of space to just have no feelings and be numb for a little while.
JMHO of course. And I'm a fellow sufferer, not any kind of authority.