Home Alone Anxiety Help

You say, “I'm diagnosed with Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Panic Disorder, OCD, and Derealization Disorder, as well as post traumatic stress.”

As a bipolar, I was living alone, away from home at about 27, and when I found myself out of a job, I started getting depressed very fast, within a couple of days of losing my job.

On top of that, I didn’t know what to do. As the youngest child, I wasn’t taught how to solve my own problems, but rather to look to my older brother or sister or to my parents.

So, when I find myself alone with a problem everything was doubly difficult: I had a problem, I didn’t know how to solve problems, plus I had negative thinking, so I was trapped in all directions.

I wanted to call a psychiatrist, but which one was I going to call? There I was blocked by my own negative thinking. I waited until I had a nervous breakdown, then was put in contact with a psychiatrist.

I was just wondering if you think a psychiatrist might be able to help? There are medicines to deal with anxiety and deal with various other conditions.

For instance, with bipolar, I’m taking an anti-depressant (Mirtazapine) and a mood stabilizer (Lithium), which keeps the anti-depressant from throwing me into mania. Both of those medicines also help with anxiety.

You say, “Ever since I was very little, I can't be alone without panicking.” Was this an event or series of events?

Did one or both parents or grandparents have anxiety?

You say, “My phone doesn't work right now so I have no way to call anyone to help calm me down, but I still want to try, I'm just so inexplicably scared of being alone.”

I don’t usually know how to use my cell phone, I have a friend up the street that keeps showing me how to use the “speed dial” to just tap his name and it will call his phone.

But if a chest condition is my problem, I won’t be able to use the phone I will be in so much pain. So, what I want is one of these necklaces where all you do is push the button. It will call him or the ER.

I haven’t made myself order such a necklace yet, but that might be a help in case of an emergency.

It’s good that you are seeing a psychiatrist and have been trying out different medicines for the past ten years.

I’ve had panic attacks and I think they were caused by an old-style antipsychotic medicine I was taking called Stelazine. When I stopped taking that the attacks stopped, but I’m not saying that has anything to do with your situation, I’m just saying I’ve had panic attacks.

I went to the net and under: emedicinehealth.com it said top meds for panic attacks were Antidepressants
Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) such as paroxetine (Paxil), escitalopram (Lexapro), sertraline (Zoloft), fluoxetine (Prozac), fluvoxamine (Luvox), and citalopram (Celexa)
Serotonin and norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (SNRIs) such as venlafaxine (Effexor and Effexor XR) and duloxetine (Cymbalta)
Atypical antidepressants such as nefazodone (Serzone), mirtazapine (Remeron), and trazodone (Desyrel)
Tricyclic antidepressants such as imipramine (Tofranil) and clomipramine (Anafranil)
Monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs) such as phenelzine (Nardil), selegiline (Emsam), tranylcypromine (Parnate), and isocarboxazid (Marplan)
Benzodiazepines, especially in emergency situations, such as lorazepam (Ativan), clonazepam (Klonopin), and alprazolam (Xanax)
Anti-anxiety drugs such as buspirone (BuSpar)
Anticonvulsants such as pregabalin (Lyrica), divalproex (Depakote), and gabapentin (Neurontin)
Antihypertensive drugs such as clonidine (Catapres), propranolol (Inderal, Betachron E-R, InnoPran XL), nadolol (Corgard), and atenolol (Tenormin)

Have you taken any of these?

It also recommended:
• Behavioral therapy and cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) (thinking positive)
• Computerized CBT (FearFighter)
• Psychodynamic therapy
• Interpersonal psychotherapy (this could be being around people)
• Relaxation therapy
• Supportive psychotherapy

Mindfulness therapy, from Wikipedia, says Mindfulness is the practice of purposely bringing one's attention in the present moment without evaluation, a skill one develops through meditation or other training.) Mindfulness is highly recommended by this website.

Draae:

We're hoping you are doing as well as can be expected.

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