Overcome this anxiety. I dont know how to help myself. I didnt get a chance to share in group therapy today because the social worker is an idiot. I’m so pissed.
My anxiety is through the effing roof and I cant take another benzo. I start school tonight and I’m a hot effing mess.
Oh no how long have you had this much anxiety for,?
I’ve had bad anxiety my whole life, but I recently realized just how severe it is.
Are you on an antidepressant?
Those are supposed to help with anxiety.
You mentioned your going to therapy is that helping?
Calm down a bit and you’ll feel better. You can share this at your group therapy tomorrow.
What do you mean you start school tonight? You at school at night? Sorry i dont get it
Yeah I’m maxed out on cymbalta, and I also take an ativan when needed. Even the ativan doesnt take me below a 7 on a scale of 1 to 10.
I’m in a constant state of crisis. I’m trying the few dbt skills that I’ve learned so far, its helping a little bit.
Im going to college, and my class starts at 7 pm.
I used to feel like that until my doctor switched me to klonopin twice daily.
Its not great to take benzos long term, but its really helped me.
Yeah it is, I just really felt the need to talk today about how overwhelmed I am, to see if anyone could give me a different view point or some different insight.
I’m probably more upset that I didnt get a turn more than anything. I’m going to do some breathing exercises to calm down.
I’m sorry you struggle too. My pdoc doesnt want me to go higher than 1 mg up to four times a week. Probably for the best as I have a very addictive personality.
There’s YouTube videos on meditation for anxiety those helped for me.
I feel ripped off. I’m paying out of pocket for this partial hospitalization, and I dont feel like I got my money’s worth today. My insurance wouldnt cover any of it.
I’m feeling a little better. I’m at school and everything is okay.
That’s great @Squanchy. I hope you have a good time at school. I have experienced extreme anxiety at school, luckily I had a good friend there and understanding teacher.
This is good insight. I dont know if you’ve had CBT therapy yet but I highly recommend it it is excellent for anxiety and helped me tremendously back when I suffered with debilitating anxiety. CBT will teach you saying things like “no one will ever be able to help me” is a thought distortion, I forget which one maybe catastrophizing. Then it teaches you how to say, oh I was just upset I didn’t get to speak in group today.
I used to have a lot of issues with that, I’d experience a minor setback and freak out like it was the end of the world, life was terrible and would never be good for me, etc. Its all about fixing your thinking (and of course finding good meds that help stabilize you, idk what you’ve tried there)
Some things I do to calm down are:
Put an ice pack on the back of your head. This will cool down your brain and reduce activity in your limbic system, where emotions happen.
Do a task with simple, clear steps. I like baking. I follow the recipe, and it’s easy enough that I don’t get frustrated, but it requires enough concentration that I don’t have room to think about other things. Cleaning also helps.
Engage your five senses. This will remind you what is real and what isn’t. Listen to soothing music. Smell something pleasant, like an essential oil. Suck on a hard candy. Look at pictures of things you enjoy. Feel something with an interesting texture, like a piece of Velcro or a stress ball.
Try to levitate something with your mind. You obviously won’t succeed, but it gets you to focus all of your attention on a single point outside your body, instead of on your thoughts. I like to use this on airplanes or in public places, because it doesn’t require you to move at all. It looks like you’re just daydreaming to observers.
My anxiety used to be unbearable. Like @Anna recommended, CBT has helped me a lot. So has my gabapentin PRN, but with anxiety meds you’re really masking the problem as opposed to dealing with the root cause. My therapist said that long term, meds aren’t an effective solution for anxiety. But having them for the beginning really helped with getting things under control enough to start working on the root causes in therapy. It’s mostly a lot of reality testing and exposure therapy.
Emotions Anonymous (AA offshoot) has free online meetings. Here’s their schedule:
Good for those who can’t get the support they need locally or who have trouble leaving their home. Give them a try. I attend a lot of AA meetings this way, very helpful.
you can try seven cups its a free e counselling site where you can talk to a listener about your problems.