Can you help me with my anxiety?
I am 24 years old. I will be graduating soon and up until now I thought everything was fine with me. It was until one month ago I suffered my first and not last panic attack. Since that I have been dealing with a lot of anxiety. I can’t concentrate in school, at home…etc….I have tried acupuncture, massages, counseling, church groups, praying, medications and nothing seems to work.
At this point I am trying to leave the medications. I have read about their addictions and also their side effects. Ive read that they help somewhat with anxiety but will worsen other sensations.
Please please please please!!!!! I need to go on with my life. I need to finish school and I want to be the old Patrisia I use to be, happy, confident, outgoing, active, positive. If there is anything that has helped you deal with anxiety please share it with me and others that may be dealing with this same problem. I don’t want to fear the unknown anymore.
Filed under: Acupuncture Anxiety
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Well, anxiety is a mental illness and it really is not something you can control.
The anxiety/depression combo is helped by exercise, according to medical research. It is also helpful to get morning light to affect the brain hormones, for example, walking outdoors a while in the morning when the sun is out.
Another helpful thing to do is to try melatonin at a low dose before bedtime. This is a food supplement that you can get at the drugstore.
Finally, you may wish to try some probiotic yogurt to make sure that you do not have candida overgrowth or an imbalance in your intestinal bacteria.
Those are the “non-drug” things that could actually help.
However, if you need medications, you need them. Discuss your worries with a psychiatrist and try to come up with the best tolerated medicine that works for you. But try the above non medicine treatments first and see what happens.
You hit on it in your last sentence “fear” It may be that you are graduating and things are going to change. What you have to do is convince yourself 1) change is good 2) it is up to you that the change is for the better. Try this when you are alone. see if you can stress yourself a little to slightly trigger that feeling you get in your stomach before an attack. Concentrate on your breathing say to yourself (or aloud you are alone) I am OK I am safe I am stressed I need to let it go. (breath) repeat the “mantra” Once you can “relax” on command you will be ready to conquer your fear. It is a massive cycle in that you are afraid of the panic attacks (you feel like you are dying) You have to convince yourself that you are not that you are ok and that you are in control….Hope I helped…R
Have you prayed yet to be a born-again Christian? If you haven’t, see the prayer below. If you have, know that faith and love are powerful ways to get life straight, and God is love. Christianity is about faith for sure, a trust, but with love too. This takes a maturity. This isn’t just a head thing, a knowing, but also a heart thing — a willingness to love and commit to God eternally. The most important factors I’m learning are faith, love, peace, hope, friendliness, caring, giving. and meekness, plus obedience. God is our Creator, all-knowing, all-powerful, eternal, holy, love. Mostly, God is love and He wants us to be love too and become like Jesus Christ, which takes obedience and faith that He can help us succeed to do His will. Our will needs to be yielded to His will. We need to accept Jesus into our life as our Lord and Savior forever to receive God’s blessing and forgiveness plus go to heaven. Having Jesus in your life means changing your life to accept His leadership — thus He is your Lord, and not just your Savior. He wants to change us to be more like Him. The more we love God, the more we can commit and be obedient. Spiritual maturity comes as we realize that life isn’t all about us. Most important is loving and helping God and others. I’m Lutheran and I like the Baptist churches too. Ways to stay on the project are going to church, reading the Bible daily, and daily prayer as needed. Some churches do a weekly Bible study group and these can be a good way to get committed to read the Bible often and keep going. Let God guide you. Remember to love God first and most.
If you need to be a born-again Christian, this is the Christian message and prayer. You can have a personal relationship with God by saying the prayer below. God is our Creator, all-knowing, all-powerful, eternal, holy, love. God loves us and sent us His Son, Jesus Christ, so we can go to heaven if we know and follow Him. Forever means without end — time on and on without death. Forever is what happens after we die. Either we go to heaven and be with God forever, or we go to hell which is very bad and painful forever. The good people who are saved believers in Jesus Christ go to heaven. The bad people go to hell. We need to know and follow God in this world to get to heaven in the next world. We follow God by loving and obeying Him and loving others for Him. Jesus Christ, God’s Son, is our bridge to God. Jesus died on the cross to cancel our sins. We need to accept Jesus into our life as our Lord and Savior forever to receive God’s blessing and forgiveness plus go to heaven to be with God forever after we die. You can pray a sinner’s prayer to be a born-again Christian. This prayer is very important and should be said with a sincere heart and faith in God. This is the prayer: “Dear God, I know that I am a sinner and that Jesus Christ is the sacrifice for our sins. I have done the following sins (state these out) and I pray to discontinue these sins. I pray to receive Jesus Christ into my life as my Lord and Savior forever. In Jesus’ name, amen.” I’m Lutheran and I like the Baptist churches too. You could check out a Christian church and also see about their weekly Bible study group as a good way to learn about God’s will for your life. You can pray to God about your daily life and have a Christian church pray for you.
Yes – isn’t anxiety stinking? You might want to lead some sort of life, but this is the part which will simply no longer cooperate with that. It’s aim is to stop you in your tracks. There is nothing that helps – and medication fails to mask it.
Hard to say what’s going on – for real. Your life is a long, tangled web of memories and impressions which you have always taken for granted – but now it doesn’t work anymore. This happens to kids quite a bit during these years – from 18 to 25. It used to be called “manifest neurosis” or “psychoneurosis” – not sure what it’s called now. I think it’s classed under “depression” which is kind of funny. It’s not depression, it’s stark terror. And why? Nobody knows. And the people who don’t have this problem don’t care either.
Those of us who have suffered through this can’t even tell you what to do. Sounds like you’ve tried a number of things now – and seem to have had no success. This is most always the story you hear. A person will try one thing after another – he’ll even move out of state to start a new life. But finally it never works.
All I can say is that this anxiety is a life form – it’s almost like another person – who has come into your life to tell you a story. And you can’t tell what the story is because you don’t speak the language of the unconscious. The unconscious speaks in emotions and dreams – and it needs to tell you something.
The anxiety tells you the story of your life – or part of it – and it concerns a time when you thought your life was threatened – perhaps when you were a baby – and perhaps it was just a stupid mistake – perhaps you were never threatened – but the unconscious thinks you were. Whatever happened back then scared your young mind so much that the whole thing was repressed (“forgotten”) – and it was thrown into the unconscious (“damned to Hell”) while you went on to live your life and be outgoing and positive and active.
But then (as Freud pointed out) the powers of repression fail at a certain point – and this fear has come rushing back on you! And it comes back to you in the exact same way it was repressed. The anxiety you feel is from one or two years old – it makes absolutely no sense. But one way through this is to attempt to make sense out of it.
At this point, people with this sort of anxiety will work with a psychologist or psychiatrist to go back and try to understand this set of crazy emotions – what went on back then? And when when you KNOW, it leaves you free – “and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free”…..
So fix your sights on freedom – in the future – when the anxiety leaves. It would be great, wouldn’t it? And one day it will leave. I’ve heard it said that with or without treatment, this anxiety will leave you at some point – a year from now or two years. But it’s so interesting to try and understand it while it’s happening. So watch your dreams – they will try to tell you the story – the sensations in your body will try to tell you the story too.
We think we run this life and have choices – but turns out that a man is made of many parts – many motives – many personalities. And these parts of us want a choice too – and in the case of this anxiety, they have the power to take the choice away from you.
Anyway – the good news is that it isn’t “mental illness” – it’s a common form of neurosis – people come through it all the time. It will make you so deathly sick, and yet you’ll never really be sick from it.
Anyway – good luck – I hope I’m wrong about all this – and I hope the anxiety just leaves tomorrow morning and never comes back.