Mental Health i have left my house less then 10 times this year Extreme anxiety / agoraphobia

[rubenr4g]

ive lost control of my life and i need help. since 2011 ive had extreme anxiety which i think comes from a story that i feel is necessary to tell in order for someone to hopefully to help me.i started doing drugs at the age of 10, using every day since 14. ive used and abused almost every drug, mainly cannabis and mdma. i was a daily cannabis user from 15 to 19 till it started giving me panic attacks. strangely at 19 other parts of my life started falling apart. i fell in love for the 1st time and got my heart broken, was addicted to drugs, flunked college because of my addiction, lost my job and my father was dying in the hospital. all on top of a new found anxiety that was very strong, so strong the anxiety eventually lead me to anorexia. i was scared to eat, irrationally thinking people would poison my food or something of the sort. i figured the less i ate, less chance of being poisoned. i went from a 150lb 5'7 guy to 90lb dying mess, family members thought i had cancer!. this led me to the hospital where doctors told me i was soon going to die if i didnt start eating. i did, the fear of death let me eat again but the fun doesnt stop there. after recovering from the anorexia in 2012 my anxiety was gone for the most part and i became "normal" again. until i started to binge eat from anxiety and ballooned up to 300+ lbs becoming type 2 diabetic and again to the hospital almost dying. today im much better ive lost over 100lbs and "cured" my diabetes but a new fear/anxiety replaced another which i have noticed is a pattern. some form of anxiety is always with me. now i am scared to leave my house, from what i guess is fear of becoming sick far from home and feeling terrible as my diabetes can sometimes make me feel physically ill which in turn makes my anxiety go through the roof. ive been depressed, sucidal and im beggining to lose hope. i want my life back im only 22 and i feel like ive lostr control of my life. something as simple as going to the grocery store has become a dream to me because it might as well be narnia...i need help

 

[herbavore]

You do need help and I hope that you can find some. I'm really sorry to hear what you have been through and what you are going through now. Do you have access to counseling? I'm not thinking of just talk therapy but someone that can really take you down into your anxiety and begin to break it up into manageable, or at least recognizable, pieces and can then give you strategies for dealing with it. Are you on any medications? I have to say, I am pretty impressed with how you have tackled your problems (anorexia and then binge eating are two things that are very hard to recover from). It seems like the anxiety just keeps looking for a new form to take.

 

[Uber_Penguin]

I'm confused, didn't you say that since you lost weight the diabetes is in check? So how would that make you sick? Are you sure the things you listed are what's causing your anxiety, or do you just feel general anxiety and aren't entirely sure the cause?

Ok, well here comes a dose of armchair psychology: I doubt the things you listed are what's causing your issues. To me you've got what appears to be a pretty heavy amount of anxiety over the notion of losing control of yourself or your environment: drug use, eating disorders, agoraphobia, each one of those things just alone would suggest to me that a person feels out of control, ESPECIALLY the eating disorders, but taken together that's a pretty god damn strong indicator.
And a lot of times the feeling of lack of control is a fairly subconscious one, but I know it well because that tended to be why I was fairly agoraphobic and liked getting fucked up so much when I was younger: when I was in my house I was in my own territory; nothing bad would happen, there would be nothing to stress me out, nothing unexpected would occur, I could completely control my environment. Similarly, drugs allow you to control you mood, but even more so they're just something you can control; no one can tell you how much you can take or what you can do with them, it's all about you and what you want (although instead of just quitting weed due to the anxiety it caused me, I just eventually found opiates. If I was smoking weed every day despite not enjoying it much, it goes without saying that finding something I REALLY enjoyed didn't turn out well). The same goes for why eating disorders tend to develop, especially among young females with a strict, high pressure home life with very high expectations; eating is one avenue where people can usually control, in general nobody can tell you what you can eat or how to eat or when. Of course obviously there's a reason it tends to be more common among females, because body image also tends to help push them in that direction, but it's still ultimately about control.


Now, what to do about it? Well, dealing with it isn't exactly simple and there's no way that will work equally well for two people, but I guess I can at least say that for me the entire agoraphobia issue A) got a bit better with age (I'm only a year older than you, but for me it started earlier too), and B) got better through cultivating self-esteem, recognizing that I'm a pretty awesome fellow who's capable of dealing with whatever in a suave fashion, and if anyone looks down on me it's them who's in the wrong, not me.
I know a lot of my problem was that whenever I went into public I felt out of place, like everyone else knew something I didn't or was somehow just more capable or "normal" than me and just all somehow magically felt at ease, and what really helped me was realizing that no, people AREN'T that at ease. Lots of people are complete balls of nerves and many people are absolutely terrified of looking stupid in public. Many of them are looking at you the same way you see them now. It's kind of like when talking about snakes or something; remember that a lot of the time they're more scared of you than you are of them. And if they aren't, it doesn't matter. Confidence feeds into itself. If you're confident people will respond better to you which helps you be more confident and so on.

Now of course the problem with the above is that all that did for me was make me no longer afraid of losing control in public, it didn't remove the anxiety I feel over not being in control of myself in general. Unfortunately I don't have much advice there; right now I'm living an ok life but just can't seem to give up the drugs not because I like getting high that much anymore or feel like I need to to get by, but simply because drugs are one of the few avenues I have in life where I feel like I'm truly doing something by myself, for myself, and am completely in control, but even just getting yourself out of the house is a big step in the right direction. You're never going to figure anything out if you're spending all your waking hours cooped up in your house afraid of the outside world.

So that's my 2 cents. Still I doubt anything anyone says here can do much, I think you probably just need to see a doctor who can work with you face to face. It's not that lots of folk around here aren't rather sharp, I'd trust a number of them over some of the therapists I've seen in my life, it's just that it's hard enough figuring stuff like this out when you're in person let alone online with only a brief description to guide you. Regardless though, hopefully you figure this all out no matter how you go about it. Good luck.

 

[Middleway]

What you are describing is an extremely severe anxiety disorder.

You need medication to start overcoming this. What you are describing is too severe for therapy alone.

Paroxetine or Mirtazapine would be a good place to start. Yes they have side effects but you don't have to be on them forever, just until you can start fighting this thing.
The alternative is to waste most of your 20's as I did.

Good luck

 

[rubenr4g]

thanks for the replies they were great, ill answer u all in one post back...ive spent thousands on psychologist an none of them helped and drugs i feel are what got me into this mess so taking more is really my last option(im gunna have to be in a mental hospital before i pop an ssri or some other anxiety med). the horror stories ive heard are so bad, its last resort for me. what i will say is when i was binge eating my anxiety was almost non existent and i even smoked weed and drank for my 21 but havent used since last june(bday june 10)...and to answer the other question, my diabetes type 2 is in check but i still have it, i couldn't eat a piece of cake or ice cream like a normal person my blood sugar would go super high and id feel sick but if i eat fairly healthy all is well. the diabetes is really a fear trigger for me because 1) i cant binge eat anymore to calm the nerves and 2) i have a fear of getting sick and losing control in public because diabetics can slip into comas if their blood sugar goes to high or low...on better news i walked to the grocery store today which is fairly close to my house but i made it(i havent been that far in almsot a year by myself). the anxiety from the trip was real bad though and i felt bad the rest of the day. i realized as well that i spent most of my life high on drugs, artificially happy and now that i have to deal life sober its daunting since ive rarely felt fear. its like i have to learn to be human again. ive spent hours and hours reading about buddhism, the occult, spirituality etc in hopes i will find an answer to this and it has helped but the cure it seems is far away, some days are worse then others and while i have hope still.. i have fairly frequent thoughts of suicide...im 22 and my old sick parents take care of me and its pathetic. ive already told them if im not better by the end of the year i will admit myself to a mental hospital

 

[herbavore]

You don't have to go to a mental hospital--especially not for your parents' sake. That is fantastic that you were able to go to the store! What was it like? What kind of strategies did you use to combat the panic? That is such a huge step to have taken. You are doing hard internal work to free yourself from anxious thinking--be patient with yourself and don't judge yourself as "crazy". This world is crazy--how we all get along in it, no matter how muddled and chaotic it may feel, is usually sane by comparison. here's a link to a book written by a guy that teaches very effective classes in mindfulness specifically for anxiety and depression. I haven't read his book but his classes are great.

http://www.amazon.com/Calming-Rush-Panic-Mindfulness-Based-Reduction/dp/1608825264

 

[rubenr4g]

thanks herbavore. i just dont see where else to go if i cant leave my house, i cant get a job and cant feed and shelter myself. idk it just worries me. thanks for the book ill get on that...as for how i got myself to the store i took it step by step. using techniques from when i recovered from anorexia(just reassuring thoughts basically) like " ive been outside before and nothing has gone wrong" "god loves me"..im not super religious at all but i just use the word god as a general thing for "good" i guess im more saying the universe loves me but god sounds better lol but yeah every day i would walk a little closer to the store till i eventually got to the front door. exposure therapy . im pretty happy, happiest i been in a long time. my goal is to get to the book store which is 5 miles away.been wanting to go for over half a year!

 

[njirem]

Great job!
It all starts with the first step, and you took it.

The fact you are using thoughts to trick your anxiety is a very positive sign, one can take all the meds there are but without a helping thought-process they're useless.

Undergo the anxiety to find out you'll be fine.

Once on the streets there can happen a lot, sweating, thinking people stare at you, weak in the knees etc.
If you DO follow through and do what you need to do, you will find out nothing happend when you're back home.
Your brain will notice this too, and each time the anxious reaction will get weaker, since you are consolidating yourself going outside, get anxious, nothing happens, anxiety drops.
After a while the anxiety will dimish and get weaker.

I suffer from GAD and what helps me a lot is to imagine the anxiety being a thunderstorm, if i want to go through it and get home, i might get wet or loose my newspaper.
So what?
Just laugh at it.
You are stronger.

Its hard in the beginning but you'll learn if you force yourself through it.

Good luck pal you can do it!

 

[bees_knees]

You qualify for a benzo script, there is also Seroquel. Maybe both. Seroquel nightly or whatevs and benzos when you're about leave the house and for when/if the attack hits in public. SSRIs and related compounds like Mirtazapine aren't that good for severe anxiety, according to one of my docs.

Don't try and fight your way through it too hard and don't be too hard on yourself when you fail, my friend. I tried doing that, just made an ass of myself and caused much undue embarrassment. It's brain dysfunction, and it's common.

 

[bees_knees]

You'll laugh when you fix this and you'll wonder why it was ever a problem. Good luck.

 

[paranoid android]

Anxiety mostly of the GAD and social anxiety kind was once a huge problem for me. There where times i dry heaved in a garbage can outside of a mall at the mere thought of going in there. This got much worse when i gave up drinking and not only did i have to deal with all that anxiety i was covering up with booze but i had to deal with the anxiety that came as a result of both acute and post alcohol withdrawal. Even after a year my anxiety levels didn't go back anywhere to normal so eventually i gave in and saw a psychiatrist. She was actually the one and only good psych i have ever had (just my luck she had to move back to England out of it!) and she reassured me that the weird depersonalization and derealization symptoms i was having where not caused by some kind of Schizophrenic episode brought on by years of alcoholism and drug abuse by rather by anxiety. I was put on clonazepam for it and i seem to be one of the lucky people for who benzos don't crap out on or become a awful addiction for. I am on 6mg's a day (though there are days when i forget to take any) but i have been on that dose now since 2007 i think so that's not bad.

For severe acute anxiety benzos are really the only option. Drugs like SSRI's and SNRI's are no better then placebos for the most part and although tricyclic anti-depressants do help some peoples anxiety in the long run they do fuck all for the short term although the anticholinergic side effects can help i guess. As for using low doses of Seroquel and other anti-psychotics to treat anxiety you are really only trading on the anti-histaminic side effects so you would be much better off taking a anti-histamine that works for anxiety such as hydroxyzine. Drugs like Seroquel are certainly not to be taken lightly as they can cause everything from hormonal imbalances to type 2 diabetes and even low doses that are well below anti-psychotic doses have been shown to carry these risks.

Anyway good luck to you the first step is always the hardest. Trust me once you realize how oblivious people are to the world around them not caring about what people think of you becomes much easier.

 

[herbavore]

Anyway good luck to you the first step is always the hardest. Trust me once you realize how oblivious people are to the world around them not caring about what people think of you becomes much easier.

That is both true and very funny.

 

[Greyhounder]

That does sound like a classical floating anxiety state which is coming out in a series of of obsessive, compulsive type behaviours. The give away is that whenever you manage to stop one maladaptive behaviour or thinking process you develop a new one immediately afterwards as you described. It does mean that targeting the behaviour itself will not help because that is not the problem. In general, obsessive, compulsive behaviours exist as a coping strategy to help combat otherwise pervasively overwhelming feelings of anxiety. They are not actually a symptom of anxiety at all they are what your brain is doing whilst trying to cope with the anxiety it already has.
It will be tough, if not impossible, to 'think yourself' out of this on your own but it is absolutely possible to recover provided that you get the right support. Google CBT and have a read, it really does work if you buy into it and do the work however difficult you find it at the time. If you just turn up and nod at the therapist then it doesn't, it is not something that somebody else 'does' to you, you have to do it all yourself, they just point the way. I don't think your past drug use plays any part at all in your condition, I think that it is probably just another thing for your obsessive thinking to latch on to.
You don't need telling that you are quite unwell and not to start trying to self medicate, that would only make it harder and more confusing but proper treatment will help you just have to find someone skilled enough to do it.
Best of luck mate.