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...
Hi all, this is the first time I've ever joined a support group or anything since my anxiety and panic *reactions* began about 2 years ago. They seemed to begin with big life changes (graduating from my masters program, and beginning clinicals in my field in a different city.) My first panic attack in 2018 happened while driving on the highway during a 1.5 hour trip. While I've always had some baseline GAD, this was something totally new. Over the next few weeks my anxiety was very debilitating and I began getting terrified of highway driving. Fast forward and it began getting better with months and months without an attack and I was driving 20-30 miles on the highway occasionally (I live close to work and really don't have to drive far all that often) and without problem or just minimal anxiety.
About a month ago I had another panic attack while on the highway at night on my way home from a colleagues house. My anxiety is not nearly as intense as it was previously in general but my driving anxiety is back. I can drive to work, around town, couple miles on the highway, and if my fiance is with me I've driven the nearly two hour drive to my family's- no big deal. But if I'm alone and think about driving long distances that feeling of doom sweeps in.
Again, we are going through some life changes: buying a house, getting married, and I'm going to school for my PhD and leaving the work force to do so.
I'm looking for support from people who may be dealing with similar things- I want to tackle this. It scares me to feel "out of control" over my own life.
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I haven't written in my diary on my computer since May because I thought that my computer was dying. I got away from writing but my computer is hanging in there. I think that I will start writing in it again. It's so therapeutic.
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Years ago, I won a mirrored armoire from my job. It's in my bedroom but I rarely stand in front of it. Yesterday, I had to have a dexascan done so I had to change into a gown. There was a full length mirror in the changing room. I'm aware that I gained 5 to 7 pounds over the last year from cheating on Keto but I didn't know what it looked like. It was a reality check.
I am a lifelong anxiety sufferer. Driving has yet (knock wood) to make my anxiety trigger list, but my anxiety does daisy chain. One anxiety leads to another, every time, and WILL escalate when left unchecked. My med and psych pros seem pretty unanimous in the consensus that there is a physical component to the phenom. There are very specific hormones behind the survival instinct and, once triggered, those all-natural, self-replenishing drugs don't go away at the speed of a wish. I use psychotherapy tools and detox diets to help me purge those hormones from my system before I start looking for whys and wherefores of the attack. Even the best of analysts are handicapped when attempting to analyze while under the influence of powerful substances. The hormones attached to our survival instincts are quite powerful.
I, too, have noted that major life transitions --even the wonderful productive ones-- trigger lots and lots of extra anxiety. I'm far from the only nut in the psych ward whose major psychotic breaks came during positive upswings in life. Too much of a good thing is still too much. When the stresses of dream fulfillment hit, it is all to easy to deny the stresses attached until they accumulate into a force of nature that will not be denied.
I guess I'm rambling here. I, too, am in a major not-so-jolly life transition and feeling an especially dynamic need to manage all the anxieties attached. Rambling helps me sort sometimes. Anxiety is sneaky, leaky stuff.
Gentle empathy while you sort your own. Welcome aboard. Hope you feel safe to do your sorting here.
Repeat that my case is unusually severe and I began aggressive therapy in 1972. My arthritic fingers don't have the strength to type all my tools in a single sitting. Sharing them in specific cases is therapeutic.
In the case of a panic attack which hits while I am operating dangerous equipment, such as a vehicle or a table saw, I stop at the first safe moment and ply breathing and channeling exercises. Driving panic attacks are not normal for me, but close calls, gridlock and crazy drivers can get to the calmest of drivers. A driving panic attack is an emergency in my book. I use the emergency lanes.
Driving long distances, we stop regularly. I drive by myself and have added time to stop and rest from the road. Use what works, and add to it for those times you need it.
Welcome to DS!