About to give up....

Hello everyone. My name is Jay, im 37 from Pennsylvania. My life and health has been terrible going on a year now and will do my best to describe and hope someone can help.

My wife (together 15 years) left me in 2005 out of nowhere and abandoned me.  Even tho I was devastated and beyond depressed I was ok health wise until a year ago.

I have since been in a relationship that is nowhere near a healthy one. Lots of drama, yelling, screaming, demeaning words and abuse.

about a year ago I have experienced a massive panic attack that I ended up in the hospital. It came out of nowhere and I got very hot, nauseous, palms, armpits and feet began to sweat and had an immediate feeling that im dying and need to get the hell out of the place where I was. It scared me so much that I had urinated myself.  The Dr's found nothing wrong and contributed everything to stress/anxiety/depression. I have since had many other panic attacks and sometime 3 bad ones a day which totally drain me even after a day after having one. I went on two weekend trips last year and had a massive panic attack on the last day of both trips, one I had to drive home 2 hrs after having one and feeling like I was going to die the whole ride home. Im missing work and leaving work multiple times in the past year because of these attacks.

Now im having other problems on top of this. Im getting bad chest pains, numbness in my right arm, strange headaches (right side from up the neck), blurry vision in right eye, dizziness, rapid heartbeat out of nowhere, fatigue (im tired all the time), loss of appetite, no motivation.  I have good days where I feel like nothing is wrong then all of a sudden feel like im dying out of nowhere.  I've been to the Dr's so many times in the last year along with multiple texts.  They did find a mass in the right side of my brain that I have to see a specialist to figure out what is it is.  Could this be most of my problems?  I don't wish what im going thru even on my worst enemy. Im at my wits end on feeling like this.

Thanks for listening.

 

Hi Stanman Jay,

First off, sorry for what you have been through. When I went to my therapist and told him of my torrid past, with all the mental and physical abuse, work stress, new baby on the way, and a slew of other issues going on with death anxiety etc in my life he said he would be worried about me if I wasn't having anxiety.

I'd be worried about you too if you weren't having anxiety in your life. It sounds like a lot to go through for anyone.

I had a panic attack last night, not unlike what you described, my heart was racing, I was sweaty, feeling of dying and it is terrible and overwhelming - at home alone and it was frightening. Scared the crap out of my dog who was standing by my side, not knowing what was going on.

Even so this was not my first so I tried all my tricks like telling myself yes I know this is a panic attack, it will pass, deep breathing, etc. And none of that calmed me down, I finally had to jump into a freezing cold shower and just stand in the freezing cold water to shock me out of it. Even afterwards I was doubting myself and sending myself negative messages like "what if I lose my job because of all these panic attacks" and "what if i pass out and die here by myself" some really scary stuff & the panic kept on coming on me obviously because I was filling my mind with negative and scary thoughts, I phoned my wife to distract myself and still and couldn't settle down. Ended up having to jump in the freezing shower again, then take a xanax and ride the bull out. Later I did guided meditation and slept like a baby. Exhausting stuff! But in the end it's actually just really annoying, and not hurting me and it's not going to hurt you either.

You are not alone in your struggle with anxiety & panic, and a lot of us worry about health problems. I first because aware of my rapid heart beat and thought I was dying and had a panic attack in the airport. I have since been to the airport three times later and conquered my fear of having another panic attack there.

So what it is about the last day of vacation that brings you panic? Is it having to go back to some un-desireable situation that your mind thinks is a life/death scenario (such as going back to an abusive relationship - that could truly be triggering your instinctual life/death body reactions). The rapid pulse, sweat, heat, crazy feeling of dying really and truly is an inappropriate instinctual body response at the wrong time. And that's why it scares the hell out of us. I think I had my panic attack last night because I got a birthday card in the mail from my grandpa, and death anxiety really triggers these panic attacks. So, I started thinking about my grandpa dying and boom, major panic attack that snowballed into a big mess.

I'm new to this too, so I don't pretend to have any good advise, just share with you how I am coping. For now, Xanax is taking off the edge so I can feel normal and function every day and go to work. I am not ashamed of taking the medication as its helping me feel normal.

At the same time I am doing MoodGym.Com online CBT and also I have a TEA journal (Thoughts/Errors/Analysis) journal that just started two days ago to try to retrain my mind. You know, if my mind got the birthday card from grandpa and thought "wow, he's so nice" instead of "oh my god everybody in my life is dead or dying" I would avoided the panic.

I am fine. You are fine, we are all totally fine. Just tend to your mind like a garden, try to keep the good stuff growing and the weeds out.

Please keep coming here to share your story. As scary as my experience has been lately, I am inspired by my own baby steps triumphs and by the stories of others.

Joshua