Hey everyone,
I like many of you know the uncomfortable and very frustrating feeling of panic attacks and depression. I have been suffering with them for 2 years now and was perfectly healthy before this time.
I think we all remember our first panic attack when you feel like the whole world is gonna cave in, like you have no place to run and your stomach leaps to your throat like you're gonna be sick. I am in such fear of vomiting in public it is unbelieveable. There were many time periods that I would only leave the house to go to appointments and nothing else. The anxiety drained me of my social and educational life.
Many times we've tried to explain to the many many many doctors I've seen that its not all in my head and that something is wrong with me but they shrug it off as Anxiety, give me meds and say come back in 6-8 weeks and tell me how its going. Its so FRUSTRATING to hear that all the time when all you want to do is get better right this minute so you can go back to having the life you once had.
I've been on about
42 different things in the past 2 years to treat my symptoms of :
Neusea
vomitting
panic attacks
depression
stomach aches
headaches/migranes
stress
pain all over
fatigued
I mean the list goes on and on, I dont mean to be a downer so I'll stop with that right there. LOL.
But I definately know the frustrating and darkened moments when panic attacks hit at the most random times, even if you're not in a stressful situation, or you're lying in bed at 3 am and it just automatically hits you. That was the worst for me, getting up at 3 am feeling like I was under a waterfall and I was shaking and it was just aweful. I didnt know what to do. My mother had to help calm me down and give me more medicine. I did and we didnt have to go to the ER like I very commonly said I wanted to go.
Now dont get me wrong, The ER is great, but all they can do for you is drug you up and send you home. Just like if you broke a leg, give you meds and send you home to heal.
That brings me to a very good point however. Anxiety is very much like a broken leg or arm, its a very big handy cap that you just sometimes cant deal with. So often we shelter ourselves and hide becuase this physical handycap robs us of our lives, and our energy that people always ask if we're okay. I, I dont know if most people do this too, would very often say I was fine but inside I was a wreck. I couldnt go places, I couldnt do things. It got so bad that I had to drop out of school and be homeschooled because I was so handycaped. I couldnt even sit through a 90 minute movie in a theatre without getting a panic attack. I was just ready to cry almost all the time becuase it was so hard.
I thought doctors knew everything, and to this day I think they are good, but only with the easy things : Colds, flu, bronchitus, etc. When it comes to complex things, They throw up their hands and write it off as somthing common and cant be fixed. Its unfortuneate but that's what happened to me. I just hope we find somthing that will work very very soon for me.
Sorry if most of this just rambles on and on. haha, I often dont make sense, so set me straight if I dont.
Love always,
~Annie~ (16 years old)