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...

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Starting to feel hopeless

OhCarol
OhCarol

After going to an ER, calling a nurse hotline twice, contacting my pastor and parish nurse (no responses) seeing my PCP a month ago, checking into a Crisis Stabilization Unit for several days, I feel like I've made no progress over the past 11 weeks. The psychiatrist at the Unit upped the paroxetine from 20 to 30 mg, I don't feel any better, just worse. I see a therapist and now a nurse practitioner for meds. She's switching me to sertraline and Buspar. The sertraline was the psychiatrist's Plan B. That was kind of comforting. I talked to a pharmacist who assured me this was safe at the prescribed doses. I start the changeover tomorrow. I'm trying to be optimistic, but so far nothing has helped. Does anyone have experience with this situation? It's so discouraging to keep trying and so far have no solutions. I even had the hospital my PCP is associated with turn me away. "Don't come in, we can't help you." My PCP didn't offer help either. At least I like the therapist and I'm hoping the nurse practitioner can help. It's been such a struggle.

mtd
mtd
I sense you are more desperate than hopeless. I’ve been there. It’s just the anxiety and the way it makes you feel is adding more fear to the already existing anxiety. Meds help a little to ease the symptoms but we can work ourselves into a state that even the meds can’t compensate for. Been there too. It’s described as adding second fear to the already existing anxiety. Dr Weekes describes it in her books. What is going on is we make ourselves worse. That’s why I advised Dr Weekes work on acceptance therapy. It’s a highly successful tool for anxiety recovery. It’s not a magic pill but it is a tool that, if used consistently, will help you learn to stop adding that second fear and be able to accept your anxiety and fear, to stop fighting with it and adding that second fear. It doesn’t happen over night but over time it will help ease the symptoms and help you be able to stop the mental behavior that is causing you so much distress. Anxiety is just a thinking disorder that we can correct, but it takes time to correct it.
Anna1212
Anna1212
Sounds very hard. Maybe hold on to anything positive and try not to think too much about the rest. I do that sometimes for temporary relief. I'm glad you like your therapist and I hope the nurse can help, too. Hugs
GirlinCalif
GirlinCalif
Yes, I can relate, definitely! I struggle with my anxiety every day, and it's been over 25 years now. We can only just put one foot in front of the other. Try our best. Know that it will be ups and downs. Keep pushing forward.

Changing meds, and their doses, will be a period of adjustment. It will require being as patient as you can with the process.

I had a question, forgive me if you have already answered this in your previous posts - You had posted that you were doing pretty well on the Paroxetine (Paxil) for 17 years. My question for you is, what happened that made you want to changes doses, change meds, etc? If you were doing "okay" and "functional" on the dose of Paroxetine for 17 years, I was asking why did you want to change it?

I guess my thing is, if it ain't broke, why fix it? :-)
arfie
arfie
this is a recurring cliche on my own recovery road. i have been in yet another round of ^it^ since march, 2020 when self-care finally made it to the top of my disaster list after the launching of my second parenting career after death of my son and his wife. nearly 3 years later, i still haven't unraveled the new normal far enough to trust much of anything **out there**. the increased social distances still feel like my greatest hope for safety.

there is nothing justy about "just getting help."

stay brave, carol. steadying support while you find your way through.
Community LeaderMid
Mid
This is one of those spirals that creates confusion in a full surround situation.

It's your brain. You are the only one who can take control of the wheel and change the spinning to a different 'calm'.

Medication is a temporary support for the natural balancing of anxiety.

Writing it out shares the thoughts that are visible. If some place is unable to help where you are in this process, they know that what they have available will not work effectively for you at this time.

MTD has it right that you have multiplied your fears, which increases the effect of anxiety in all areas naturally. Anxiety is a helper.

You are not alone in this. Please write in a private journal daily to see the patterns of your normal thought process to help figure out what method will help in what thought process.
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