I definitely try all the breathing exercises, "being in the now" and all that and with minimal success.
I was actually doing quite well for about a month until Monday, I guess, it's been constant anxiety ever since and I've had to fight off numerous panic attacks
CNN is an enemy of the state and should be treated as such.
Food for thought after reading Ben's signature line in a different corner of the forum. Now bear in mind that I'm just shy of an actual ape on the subject, and I don't know how pervasively the political discussions and news cycle affects anyone's life, but I see in a few people around me how enveloping that whole arena can be, and it is nothing but a tailor made cortisol machine that is monetizing fear and dispensing it out to maximize feedback algorithmically. They are data analyzing what gets the most clicks and how much will get you to click more.
I would imagine people handle it all very differently, but in terms of stressful stimuli without a possible practical outlet, you couldn't do better than any of the "news" narratives out there today.
Is it just anxiety about having another panic attack ?
That's a big part of it. I'll have normal anxiety from things like work, meetings, obligations, but then if I feel even the slightest pain in my chest or arm it starts this crazy negative feedback loop where my body is flip flopping back and forth from "you're about to have a heart attack" to "calm down it's just anxiety" and then the panic attack starts flaring up.
CNN is an enemy of the state and should be treated as such.
I definitely know how you feel, had a panic attack once and then couldn't sleep because anxiety was keeping me up about having another one. I was giving myself anxiety, maybe talk to your doctor about getting on some meds temporarily. I have Xanax on me 24/7 and it helps keep the attacks at bay knowing that I can just reach into my pocket and have a substance that can stop them
Food for thought after reading Ben's signature line in a different corner of the forum. Now bear in mind that I'm just shy of an actual ape on the subject, and I don't know how pervasively the political discussions and news cycle affects anyone's life, but I see in a few people around me how enveloping that whole arena can be, and it is nothing but a tailor made cortisol machine that is monetizing fear and dispensing it out to maximize feedback algorithmically. They are data analyzing what gets the most clicks and how much will get you to click more.
I would imagine people handle it all very differently, but in terms of stressful stimuli without a possible practical outlet, you couldn't do better than any of the "news" narratives out there today.
This is a fair point. I've been trying to cut back from it, tbh, although not necessarily because of my anxiety, but just because of how exhausting it can be.
CNN is an enemy of the state and should be treated as such.
Ben, I know what you mean. I never knew why my depression and anxiety would creep up, or why I'd suddenly go into panic attacks. In my early 20s even going to HEB would cause my brain to get foggy and my eyes to loose focus, then spin into a panic attack. I saw a therapist which was good, but just never kept it up. Same with breathing exercises. Again, see my post above. Food is medicine. You and me and everyone else here don't have anxiety/depression because of an SSRI deficiency. There is a definite inflammatory component to this disease, as there is with many other diseases. Diet may not get everyone all the way there, but I'd put more money on that than big pharma anyway. The medical community just chose to ignore these facts for many years, or at the very least have been willfully ignorant. Btw, this is me speaking as a healthcare professional.
Food for thought after reading Ben's signature line in a different corner of the forum. Now bear in mind that I'm just shy of an actual ape on the subject, and I don't know how pervasively the political discussions and news cycle affects anyone's life, but I see in a few people around me how enveloping that whole arena can be, and it is nothing but a tailor made cortisol machine that is monetizing fear and dispensing it out to maximize feedback algorithmically. They are data analyzing what gets the most clicks and how much will get you to click more.
I would imagine people handle it all very differently, but in terms of stressful stimuli without a possible practical outlet, you couldn't do better than any of the "news" narratives out there today.
Username checks out! But seriously, I agree. Politics (and especially the 24 hour news networks that just want us fighting with each other) isn't the place to be if you're prone to anxiety.
I finally broke down and ordered some CBD oil from a reputable place. I got the kind that supposedly helps with anxiety.
Disclaimer: I am not expecting ANYTHING from this, but figured it was worth a shot. It hasn't come in yet but should some time this week.
let us know!
I have a farmer that dropped off some of his smoke-able hemp, which I haven't really smoked before. I smoked it and man i felt fantastic, I usually smoke 3-4 times small bits of dispensary weed and its been helpful, but the smoke-able hemp was fantastic throughout the day without the desire (not that i had any to desire afterwards) to smoke more later on.
Looking back at the day, I didn't feel any anxiety despite my pregnant wife having spotting and going to the hospital (all good). Just a big smile and no 'high' from thc.
anyways, just wanted to put in my 2cents on my experience with smoke-able hemp. I think it'll be a great product for many suffering from similar problems around anxiety.
life without existential dread is a great life.
edit: I've also been trying out Neuro Art Therapy, and it's been very therapeutic as well, engaging aspects of my mind I haven't naturally trained using art/drawing/prose. Highly recommended for those of us who are ADHD and would like to work on focus/anxiety. I've got some breathing techniques (inhale 4, hold 5, exhale over 6 seconds 4x for one minute of breathing every day, and some basic exercises/stretching) that have helped as well. Good luck, all.
***
Coming soon:
AE Ventures - sooner than soon
*Psychedelic Retreats
*Physical and mental exercises
*Addiction services
Step 3: property found
Step 4: set date
Step 5: plan agenda for participants, food, logistics etc, integration and counseling post-experience
Rawsome. They're based in Fort Worth, but there's a storefront here in Austin.
I guess I'll give an update re the CBD oil since it's been about a week or so.
So, I'm not sure if its a placebo effect or what, but it's really been helping me with my anxiety/panic attacks. Since starting the CBD oil (I got the essential strength tincture, the $54 one) I haven't had any anxiety or panic. It doesn't really make me "feel" anything per se, but the best way I can describe it is this:
I usually feel my anxiety coming through my chest. That's where it starts. It's a slight chest pain here or there, which signals the panic in my brain, and it becomes a vicious cycle. Well, since taking the CBD oil I can "feel" that the chest pain might be coming on, but there's a "firewall" or something blocking it. The pain never really signals, and I don't get the anxiety. I get a similar feeling anytime I think about things that typically give me anxiety. It's really hard to describe but I hope that helps. I'll be keeping with the cbd oil for the immediate future for sure.
CNN is an enemy of the state and should be treated as such.
Curious about it as well. Here in the last several months I've basically developed both anxiety and depression out of nowhere and have really been struggling with them. My wife just a bought a vial of cbd oil for her anxiety so I'm definitely interested in the outcome
Been in almost the same boat as you wangus. Severe anxiety crept up in the past few months. Been trying the cbd gummies but they haven't really helped. Hoping to find a therapist that can get me in sooner rather than later.
I probably need to do the same. I've talked with doctors I work with and they've let me sit and chat with them, but have recommended seeing someone. I'd be lying if I said I'm balking at doing so since it seems most of them don't take insurance. I just keep putting it off which I know I shouldn't.
My anxiety has been bothering me for the last year or so. Going to see a dr today to disucss cognitive behavioral therapy. Everything thing I've read says this helps tremendously if you find a good doc. Plus eating right and exercising regularly which I haven't done consistently lately. Time for a new year's resolution to reboot. I've never done a new year's resolution but now seems like the perfect time.
I have some interesting history here. I can tell you some horror stories of when I was a teen, but I would rather not revisit those memories much now. Teens are brutal and I was bullied - I'll leave it at that.
I had two periods of intense panic attacks when I was in college. That was 20 years ago now, and while I still have anxiety, it hasnt been that bad since then. Interestingly enough, most people don't know my inner anxiety demons today. My heart goes out to you that experienced panic attacks, it was one of my more traumatic experienced to this day.
I would say that there's nothing wrong with seeking help. I did this once in college, and it was very useful. I am very independent so it took me a lot to reach out. Outside that I would add:
Meditation helps me a lot. Not the wierd spiritual kind mind you. There is an app called Headspace that is great. It can put you on a schedule, etc. Try it out if you haven't already. It helps me.
CBDs helps me, but they don't help everyone. Very calming effect on me. I take a gummy a day, usually at night before bed. It is worth a shot. If it doesnt work, no harm, move on.
Curious about it as well. Here in the last several months I've basically developed both anxiety and depression out of nowhere and have really been struggling with them. My wife just a bought a vial of cbd oil for her anxiety so I'm definitely interested in the outcome
The same here. It just came out of nowhere. I don't think I've been depressed but I've had major anxiety. I think mine stems God blessing my family with good jobs and great kids. I come from a very humble background and we didn't really have much. We only had the basics. It's like I'm waiting for the other shoe to fall with that being my health. I'm scared of dying and leaving my family. I've gone to counseling and was suggested to start anxiety meds. I've read that you can't even drink beer with them. I don't drink everyday but it's nice to be able and drink a beer and feel normal. This is the reason I'm looking into CBD oil. I just hope that it doesn't fail a pee test. I also need to get back to working out. I hope you start feeling better.
I've been on Lexapro for almost a week now. Taking 10mg right now. Yesterday was the first day I felt off with it. I felt antsy, like something was just off.
Any of you take CBD oil with your meds? I take my pill at night.
New here. I don't have any good doc recommendations but my anxiety is almost completely gone. I've been on the carnivore diet since July and also cut back significantly on caffeine. I think my two big cups of coffee a day was a big factor.
CBD oil helped as well but felt like it masked issues instead of resolving them.
Prayers for all of you dealing with anxiety. It's awful.
My wife (who has actual diagnosed anxiety) and I are going to try limiting social media to an hour per week. I truly believe it's the cause of a lot of anxiety in society.
My wife (who has actual diagnosed anxiety) and I are going to try limiting social media to an hour per week. I truly believe it's the cause of a lot of anxiety in society.
I've barely gotten on social media since my panic attacks.
is this legit or you being funny? I've read a little into this, would love to know more and possibly your experience with it if you don't mind sharing.
My anxiety is absolutely crushing these days. When I get home at after work I am nothing but a sack of potatoes and have absolutely nothing left for my wife & kids.
I don't know if what I had would be considered anxiety, depression, or a confluence of emotionally taxing events that led me to eventually go from being a person that didn't have issues with anxiety or depression to a person that spent a decent portion of most days with tears in my eyes trying to hold it together for several people including myself. This lasted for over a year and I got desperate. I didn't want to go on anti-depressants because I was concerned (rightly or wrongly) that if I did go on them I may be on them for a long time due to withdrawal symptoms that could be pretty severe. If this didn't work I would have gone to see a psychiatrist to get a prescription and therapy.
I acquired some psilocybin mushrooms, bought a gel capsule kit, made pills that were .05, .1, and .2g content with organic cacao as a filler. The protocol I followed is called the Fadiman protocol after James Fadiman (a psychilogist BA from Harvard, masters and PHD from Stanford), which is basically taking a microdose (one tenth of what would be considered a recreational dose, for psilocybin it's .1 to .3mg) once every 3 days.
I took the first .3g dose on July 3rd of this year and I won't say it was the first day that I didn't cry in a year (There had been many days), but it was one of the few days where I didn't feel like I might. I continued doing that protocol for about 2 months, took the month of October off and then started again in November and stopped the first week of December. Over those months I decreased my dose from .3 down to .05g. I haven't done it since, and don't feel the need to.
To give you an idea of what that protocol is like: Day 1 it takes about 30-45 minutes for it to kick in and the easing of emotional tension and obsessive thinking, if you're that kind of person, is obvious. Basically the best way I've heard someone describe it is you get to watch the watcher, in other words you have your lizard brain that under normal circumstances thinks uncontrollably, but while on psilocybin you can think those thoughts, but it takes effort to string the thinking together, and stopping the thought takes none. So you can ponder the reasons why something makes you feel a certain way without getting lost in the feelings. The first day can be a little tough mentally if you take too much (this didn't happen often once I got it dialed in). The idea is to not have visuals and I only made that mistake twice in 2 1/2 months and they were mild and subsided in about an hour.
Day 2 held all of the benefits of Day 1 without any of the risks. There's more clarity on Day 2.
Day 3 is basically back to a normal day where I still had breakdowns or struggles, but over time I began to pull the stability of days 1 and 2 into 3, because I could recognize how useless those thought patterns were and the "on" days help you practice controlling those thoughts.
It basically feels like forced/easy meditation.
Not really advocating for it, but it really did help me.
Hey Ben, still having success with the CBD from Rawsome?
Update for everyone following the thread. Sorry I didn't see this notification for some reason.
So I last left this thread in October talking about how I was trying the CBD oil recommended by my Doc to help with the anxiety (also a magnesium supplement). I felt like the cbd oil helped a little bit especially right at first, but after maybe two weeks of taking it I didn't notice any effects negative or positive.
Anxiety was still terrible and interfering with most everything. Guess it didn't help that in November I also started a new job that is a huge change.
As I mentioned elsewhere ITT, I hVe severe chest pain associated with the anxiety. Dr put me on Propanolol, a beta blocker/blood pressure medicine, to help alleviate the chest pain and high heart rate. I will say that it helped these physical symptoms. But I was still getting anxiety.
Just saw a new Dr on Friday, same branch (but I moved) so she had all my notes. I've tried it all - lifestyle changes (less caffeine and alcohol), working out (which I did even before anxiety came into my life), eating better, supplements (cortisol manager, CBD oil, magnesium and fish oil), breathing exercises and meditation (bought the Calm app), therapy, nothing - NOTHING has solved the issue completely. It was either a band aid or it did nothing.
I'm embarrassed to admit this but she prescribed me Lexapro. It's been over a year of trying different methods and nothings worked so I'm willing to try this now. No Xanax prescription just the lexapro. It's been two days and no side effects at least yet, although this thread has me a bit worried. Can come back and update after I've been on it for awhile, will be following up with the Dr in 3 weeks about it.
CNN is an enemy of the state and should be treated as such.
Lexapro helped me for a bit, then the effectiveness wore off, and now doesn't do **** for me.
I've bout decided if I don't find a natural/habit way to address my anxiety, then I am up **** creek on beating anxiety if I depend upon drugs to solve it for me.
Regular lurker, one time poster on this thread. My one and only comment is back on page 1 almost two years ago.
I do not suffer from anxiety, but my wife has for the last 20 years or so. She specifically suffers from an acute phobia called Emetophobia. This pertains to the fear of anything revolving around vomit. This bleeds over into her being a moderate germaphobe as well.
A couple of years ago, as my post talks to, my wife had a very spiritual moment in which she felt complete relief of her anxiety almost overnight. We've both been Christians for a while. She felt as if she completely surrendered herself to the Lord and found herself with physical and emotional relief. We both believe God took this away from her. Fast forward to about a year ago, she started having more anxiety, not too severe and it was manageable. One of the biggest triggers for her is unfortunately our 5 yo son. As you all know kids are walking germ carriers. We thought for the longest time our son was immune from the Norovirus. Our son made it past his 5th birthday without throwing up. A week before Halloween last year, he had some kind of bug and spent about a day vomiting. It wasn't too bad from my eyes, but that started a tailspin that my wife is still trying to get control of.
Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshiped. And he said, "Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD." In all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrong. - Job 1:20-22
She's not on any medication, although she is prescribed something which I'll have to check. It's not one of the main ones you guys talk about, if I remember right. She takes it when things get severe and usually only at night. Last year she also saw a therapist and we both thought it helped. They dabbled in some different coping mechanisms and a little bit in immersion therapy. I honestly think they should have continued with the immersion aspect. In the last month she's gotten some quality CBD drops (we live in CO) that she uses daily under her tongue. I think it it provides some relief but it's definitely not a cure by any means. I've joked (but lately not really joked) about her actually incorporating some ThC products since she's a stay at home mom and it's legal. I'd much rather her do that then get hooked on some of the medications out there. Her plan in the coming weeks is to start seeing a psychiatrist, get blood work done and some gene testing. I think medication is on the horizon to help her get back on track, but that scares both of us. She also has an appointment to see a Naturopathic kind of doctor that has had some good reviews up here. She has history in her family involving anxiety, depression and a case of suicide.
I am at a loss of my role in all of this. I do believe that the spiritual element has to be paramount because of our belief that God can take this away from her and because of the breakthrough she had before. So prayer is #1 right now in fighting this together. I always share my support when I can. But I usually don't know what to do when she's at a real low. I'm not sure if anyone can share how their spouses, friends or family have been hurtful or positive in the past, but if you have anything specific, I'd love to hear.
I pray for all of you in this group as well often. I can't really relate to anyone here personally but I know what I see from my wife, and it hurts to watch.
10, your wife sounds just like me. I also suffer from emetiphopbia and have been since I was probably in the 4th grade. It was always manageable growing up but it wasn't until I had a child and she got her first stomach virus at 8 months old that my issue with this phobia went into overdrive and I had to seek professional help.
I tried lexapro, rexulti, buspar, and am currently on Viibryd. The rexulti really helped but it made me depressed so I had to switch to buspar which unfortunately offered no help at all. I have been on Viibryd since late November and I've noticed a big improvement.
I actually go back to my psychologist tomorrow and am slated to begin seeing a therapist once we get everything scheduled. While the medication has been really helpful for the anxiety, I still believe I need to work on some CBT to help my thought processes when I encounter triggers.
I am sorry your wife is dealing with this. So many times I've cried wishing I didn't struggle with it, especially when my daughter is sick. Mental illness is such a cruel thing. I am fortunate that my husband is supportive and he is a really big help to me when I am really struggling. I hate it for him too, and I'm sure your wife has guilt like I do. Hang in there. It can be a frustrating process to find the right combination to find relief, but I have faith you'll find it again just as I will.
If you have any questions or want to talk I'm here lurking just like you
ETA: reading your post gave me comfort that I am Not the only mother out there who struggles with emetophobia, maybe it would help your wife too to know she is not alone in this. Send her my support.
