Anyone else's GAD like this?

Hi everyone

I have a TON of issues and stressors going on in my life, multiple diagnoses and take various meds. I've had tons of tests and have seen many different specialists over the past few decades and it always seem to boil down to plain old GAD. Anxiety seems to rule my life, my dreams, my thoughts, my actions, etc. I've read heaps about GAD and in every single way, it describes me perfectly. Still, I'd like to tell you all a little about my issues and get your opinions. I hope that's ok :) .

One of my REALLY big issues (as of the past year or so) has been that some nights I will have these very stressful dreams where I'm obsessively and repeatedly performing some nonsensical task. It always seems to involve sorting, covering every possible angle or aspect of something, making sure it's "perfect", etc. For example, last night I dreamt that I absolutely HAD to write every restaurant I had ever eaten at a "Thank you" letter and request a copy of my bill from them as well as what I had ordered so I could have it for my "records". I also had to make multiple copies of each of the letters I wrote as well as the bills/receipts I got back from the restaurants. Everything had to be meticulously perfect or I'd have to start all over again from scratch. I spent much of the dream sorting through tons and tons of letters, receipts, documents, etc until I was just drowning in them and feeling completely overwhelmed. Then, I'd go back and sort through them all over again, terrified I was missing something and read through each one - even checking for typos and analyzing each word, the darkness of the ink, etc. The thing is, I rarely ever even go out to eat except maybe once or twice in a whole year and in my real life, I don't have any task that requires such activity (ie; sorting, etc)!.

I wake up and feel exhausted and miserable. I have these exact type of dreams about 3-4 times each week. When I DO have these odd dreams, I feel miserable, anxious, dazed and spacey for most of the day until much later in the evening. When I DON'T have these dreams, I feel pretty normal all day. I've been under TONS of stress for over a year now (which is when these dreams started) and have only awakened one time since I began having them and I was right in the middle of a full-blown nocturnal panic attack. So maybe all of this is stress/anxiety-related?. Anyone else here ever experience anything like this?.

--- UPDATE 1# ---

I woke up feeling really good for a change, got a lot done and planned to do a lot more. The sky was the limit. Then, I sat down to write my doctor a letter. Seemed so simple at first.

So, in the letter I let him know that I couldn't deal with one of the meds he prescribed because of the side affects but just when I had written and re-written and read and re-read the letter about a dozen times, I suddenly had this huge wave of thoughts come over me like "what if he gets mad?", "what if he thinks I'm questioning his judgement?", "what if he thinks I'm not being compliant?", "what if he wants me to rush over there to see him right away and I am unable to", "what if he stops seeing me?", "what if he calls the men in white coats to take me away because I couldn't take the one medication?".

So this one simple thing I sat down to do went from a simple task to an ever-increasing panic with my mind racing 100 miles per hour with all kinds of crazy thoughts and feeling totally trapped and overwhelmed. I even felt like just running out the door just to get away from everything. Then, I go on and on to a friend of mine about all this like some kind of a frantic mad-man and get completely worked up over it all. I haven't felt quite right since and am still feeling a bit out of sorts.

--- UPDATE 2# ---

I ate way too much before I went to bed last night. I actually felt extremely bloated and uncomfortable. Fell asleep fairly quickly. At some point I had a nightmare where I was living in some luxurious studio apartment in a big city and having a gay relationship with a movie star (who in real life is not gay - nor am I). He was stirring something in the kitchen and asked me if I wanted a drink and I said "sure, thank you" and he replied "ok hon". Then, we were in bed cuddling and that's when things started getting really weird. I heard this racket and looked out the window and could see lots of activity and someone was telling everyone to stay in their homes and lock the doors and close the windows. The apartment we were in was very futuristic and looked like a spaceship. As I looked out I could see smog coming down and then a huge Tyrannosaurus Rex robot made out of steel stomping through the streets. It climbed the building across from us (like King Kong) and smashed a bunch of windows and then took a huge bite out of parts of the building. Then, I see this guy pop his head out of one of the windows and he's screaming at the Tyrannosaurus Rex (something about it biting into the phone line while he was talking to his girlfriend). Then he smashed the T-Rex in the head with the phone and it was at that point that I woke up briefly only to fall back to sleep and have another wild and crazy nightmare even worse than the first one!. I woke up feeling very anxious, spaced out, stressed, dazed in the head, etc. My neck also hurt in the back (like I had a kink in it).

I worry about every little thing and everything is a HUGE "event" for me. I blow everything way out of proportion. I am constantly running things through my mind (in a loop), over-analyzing them, imagining worst-case scenarios along with all of the "what if's", etc. I am extremely stress-intolerant and it's very easy for me to feel helpless and overwhelmed by even the small things. I am constantly trying to do things to make my stressors go away (ie; getting stressful things done in advance, covering all bases and possible "bad scenarios", worring and trying to resolve things far off into the future, etc). A knock at the door, a phone call or just going out to check the mail can trigger an anxiety/panic attack. It's so tiring and it just makes you feel exhausted sometimes. Some days I am anxious all day and it feels like the anxiety is just buzzing through me like some kind of electrical current or something, I get weird feelings in my head (foggy, dazed, spacey, loopy, etc) and often have a constant sense of dread about various things as well. Does any of this ring a bell or sound familiar at all?.

My diagnoses include: GAD, Panic Disorder, OCD, Bi-Polar Disorder (my most recent diagnosis) GERD, Gastritis, IBS, Tourette's, Allergic Rhinitis, Chronic Sinusitis, Cervical Arthritis (w/ bone spur at C-4/C-5) and I can't remember any more at the moment.

My meds: Ativan, Keppra, Depakote, Rispiradone, Atenolol, Unisom (for sleep) and Prevacid.

It's reaching a point where this is getting ridiculous. Is anyone else's GAD/OCD/Stress like this?. Can anyone relate?.

Any input is very much appreciated and a big thanks in advance!.