Hello,
I'm a 26 year old male. I spend most my time awake at night. I am very heavy into gaming and computers and I find the best time to do that is at night. Sometimes I wish I was awake for more of the day. Maybe I'm missing out on something. Whatever the case is I only end up having to work in the afternoon. I have a son, but his mother and I are not together. I often only get to see him every other weekend. So here is my story.......
For the passed 2 months or so I have been experiencing very high amounts of worry about irrational things. This all started after what I believe to be a minor panic attack and more recently a very bad one. I have had this feeling in the passed and experience several other attacks over the passed almost 8 years. Each time i have an attack I feel really messed up for anywhere between 1-5 months. I have never actually felt like my old self since my first attack when I was about 18.
My first panic attack ... I was overcome with the worst feeling I had ever experienced. A feeling of sheer dread and felt like i was going crazy. My heart was racing but skipping beat and my stomach and chest had an empty hallow feeling to them. I felt like nothing was real and like something was terribly wrong. For days my anxiety was high and I felt alone and lost. My mind was always racing all the time. I would become so frustrated and annoyed with my worry that I would start to cry and be thrown into a downward spiral of depression. For the longest time after I couldn't find myself feeling in the mood for doing anything, including eat. ... After a few months i started to feel like myself ALMOST again. I foolishly tested my brain by trying something... Worst and dumbest idea EVER. It threw me into a terrible terrible panic attack that made me think I wasn't coming out of it. Again I felt all the feelings I had before. It was nearly identical only this time the anxiety only seemed to effect me for about a month.
This time I was done experimenting with foolish stuff. No more drugs or alcohol. The only think I would allow myself to do was smoke cigarettes. At some point it seemed like the nicotine was starting to trigger minor panic attacks. They could no long calm me, but instead eventually caused my anxiety to sky rocket. So I quite smoking cold turkey. Surprisingly it was quite easy. Than again I was so terrified that smoking would trigger another panic attack that I just straight up wouldn't do it. At some point i went to my doctor and he prescribed me to Zoloft and Atavan I believe. I never actually had to use the atavan but i took the zoloft for some time and it seemed to do the trick for the most part. However I didn't want to have to rely on meds to deal with this issue. The zoloft almost seemed to make me into a zombie or atleast not really care how bad things might really be. So I stopped taking it.
For the passed 4 years I have been battling the occasional anxiety spike for a few weeks here and there. sometimes even lasting a couple months. Most nights I would have to watch TV to fall asleep. The idea of sitting there trying to make myself go to sleep was scary cause often that is when my panic attacks would strike. This was because of all the silence around me and my mind not being occupied. It made way for me to lay there and think and worry about stupid things that either are not worth worrying about or are just plain ridiculous.
In about May of this year I finally was finally about to fall asleep without watching TV. I felt more at piece than i had for those passed 7 years or so. I still felt a little bit detached, but it was nothing that had even caused me to worry. Than fall came this year. I started to feel a little bit weird again. I began watching TV to fall asleep again. Than it hit me the a couple weeks ago. A terrible panic attack. This time I the surreal feeling was so very terrible that I thought for sure that this time I might lose control. After about 15min I wasn't panicing anymore but I had the feeling of derealization still lingering. I struggled to find someone to talk to that might understand the way I was feeling. I managed to get a hold of my best friends at 5am in the morning and he managed to help me feel a little bit better. I was much calmer but still feeling very very detached from reality.
I managed to get in contact with my mother who had also dealt with anxiety/panic attacks for years. For years she was told that she had GAD and was prescribed to a few different thing to help control it. Than recently her anxiety got REALLY bad and other weird physical things began to happen. She got some blood tests and was diagnosed with Grave's Disease. This caused her to developed hyperthyroidism. Grave's Disease is an autoimmune disease that causes your white blood cells to attack your thyroid. Instead of destroying it though, they stimulate it into becoming very over active. This cause a big hormone imbalance and large amount of adrenaline to be released causing the anxiety and panic. On top of high anxiety and panic it comes with weight loss, thickening of the skin and some eye problems. The fix i believe was to do radioactive iodine treatment on the thyroid or even have it removed, forcing you to have to take hormone drugs for the rest of your life.
So I started to wonder since I haven't been back to the doctors in a VERY long time. Perhaps I should get tested for this? Oddly enough I would feel better knowing that my thyroid was botched than thinking that I'm losing my mind. Either way I have some to the realization that I really would rather be on some sort of med. I need something to help me and I would rather not dismiss it this time.....
My thoughts today:
These attacks and anxiety I believe have turned me into a different person. Before my first one I was a very nice guys. I laughed a lot more and I nothing really ever bothered me. Now I believe I'm rather callous and angry. I think its all the frustration with this mental problem of mine. Some days nothing at work will bother me, other days I just can't wait to get home. I see people come through my work place that just make me lose hope in mankind so often. I get so very frustrated. Other times I feel like I'm being mean and feel so much remorse for the person I feel I have projected my anger towards. Currently I am still stuck in the in a loop. My mind is racing and worrying and I have that feeling that something isn't write. Sometimes I find myself feeling like things might not be real. I become afraid that I might start believing that and just lose control. I feel trapped and alone most of all. Like no one understands me or cares how things have been going for me. I wants so very badly to feel like I did before that first attack, but have so much doubt that I will ever be that happy again. This most recent cycle of anxiety is frustrating me to the point of a very deep depression that I feel like I might never escape. Is there any way to escape this cycle?
Sorry that I made this so long, I just really need a place to get this off my chest. I feel like I need to talk with people that know exactly how I feel for some sort of assurance. Any insight would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance.
(Post edited by moderator percycat)
Post Edited By Moderator (percycat) : 1/20/2009 6:47:37 AM (GMT-7)