Posted 9/28/2016 8:00 PM (GMT 0)
A heads up- this is a little depressing.
So I was doing great- I'm a 17 year old girl with OCD and general anxiety, which normally manifests itself in the form of panic attacks or anticipatory anxiety.
I generarally get worse in the winter, due to SADD- less light makes it worse.
Anyways, I thought I was doing great. I've recently gotten my driver's liscence, was was adjusting to driving myself to taekwondo classes and college (I'm a nursing major at the lcoal community college) quite well. I was really proud of myself.
Yesterday during class, however, around noon, I got the urge to go t the bathroom. I normally get a little anxious when I have an unmet bodily need (food, water, bathroom, ect.), so I quietly excused myself and went to the restroom.
Only it didn;t get better. It got worse. I found myself sitting in the hallway, shaking, trying to control my breathing as I spiraled. I was texting my Dad and writing in my anxiety log as I went, and I ahve minute by minute accounts of what occurred. Basically, I fought it off as much as I could from 11:54am to 12:10pm, when I realized I wasn;t able to fight it anymore and started spiraling.
I felt hopeless and terrified- I haven;t had an attack that bad in awhile- and texted by Dad to come pick me p. By 12:26pm it was over, but then I spent around 40 minutes in the car with my Dad, crying and trying to get everything re-balanced again (after an anxiety attack, I often cry for about half an hour. I don't know why- I normally feel better afterward, though, so I think it re-balances the chemicals in my head.).
What really scares me is this panic attack hit out of the blue. I was fine, and al of a sudden I wasn;t. It was terrifying- to everyone else, it jsut loked like I left class 15minutes early, but I'm terrified it will happen again, during an exam or lab.
I'm worried I won;t be able to become a nurse because of it.
Today, I've been slightly jumpy and on-edge. I have permission from my doctor to up my OCD meds from 100mg to 125mg as needed, and I started taking the higher dose today.
Since then, I've been urinating clear urine quite frequently, and while I haven't panicked again, I've gotten anious over silly things (my head started hurting and I was afraid I was having a brain anyurism). :(
Has anyone else had this, where anxiety just sneaks up on them like this?
There are so many things that could be causing it- I might've ben overtired, or my menstrual cycle played into it- I had a similar crying episode exactly 20 days ago that I documented, and maybe hormones are playing into it, since then I was PMSing and now I've right around ovulation.
Basically, I just want to know I'm not alone. I know no one can take this away or make it better- it takes a long time and careful monitoring to fix. But has anybody out there been through something similar? And how to I talk back when my brain is thinking catastrophically or demeaning things? Thanks in advance for reading this.