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Mental Health Anxiety Disorders MEGA thread

Panic Attacks?

Good morning, has anyone ever experienced severe panic attacks? it seems with me that its getting progressively worse, and this is after taking medication and currently in therapy.

i was on invega sustenna for a littlebit (in the coming of invega thread) maybe that had something with it getting worse.

does anyone have any tips?

this has ruined my life for a long time and i am tired of dealing with this.
 
HinSymbolicone09 - I was looking at side effects for that medication and increased anxiety is one of them. You may want to mention this to your doctor. In the meantime, somethings you can do to try to decrease anxiety is to eliminate caffine from your diet, try to get 8 hours of sleep each night, eat healthy and frequently (try not to let yourself get too hungry). Google breathing techniques for anxiety. Sounds silly, but they really work and have helped me tremdously at times. You may want to try meditation and yoga as those also help. While you are getting this sorted out, try to avoid stressful situations if at all possible. I know this is easier said than done, but when you feel anxiety building try to analyze what is actually stressing you, and if there is anything to do to change it. Also consider that the feeling is temporary, and try to focus on other things when you feel anxiety building, to try and stop the adrenaline reaction before it starts.

Sorry I don't have better advice, I have no experience with antipsychotics, but inhale a lot of experience with anxiety lol. The above tips have helped me throughout the years. Good luck and I hope you feel better!
 
Panic attacks are a soul destroying, trauma enactment of the mind and soul. You are an amazingly, strong person to get through one, let alone many. Compassion is the only aid - compassion and an ability to share your experience with someone (anyone you trust who is empathetic to your situation). After an attack on yourself, by your own mind; you need to recognise and acknowledge the hell you have just been through - all the vestiges of tremendous, pain that have emerged to taunt and bully you into hell - and you have just got through it!

Love yourself, appreciate yourself for that. Our minds are processing some serious abuse and need us to be on OUR side - it's difficult but you got to choose to be kind to yourself despite the desire to re-victimise yourself, into the trauma - reaching out to someone else, sharing it, is a panacea - it wants to keep you ashamed and isolated, so it can use you to keep it alive(obviously its not an entity independent from you but it is a power that comes from abuse of your being, from a time when you didn't understand it's dynamic)...Now is the time to tackle that abuse that inhabited you and expunge it by elevating your own being and loving it unconditionally - it will heal and empower you.

Keep on working on yourself and being loving to yourself - you deserve it but you have to learn to believe it (the truth).
<3
 
Im curious what kind of therapy you are receiving? I too suffer from panic attacks. I can go years without any, and then bam, they start back up for a while.

Also, are there certain things that trigger it?

It's all about how much you feed the fear, sadly. Xanax and CBT has helped. I'm about to start receiving antidepressants for GAD, but I'm hoping it will stop the random times of panic.

IMO, it's about stepping out of your comfort zone.



http://www.getselfhelp.co.uk/panic.htm <-- maybe this will help?


I wish you the best of luck ♡♡
 
crunchyplanets said:
Im curious what kind of therapy you are receiving? I too suffer from panic attacks. I can go years without any, and then bam, they start back up for a while.

Also, are there certain things that trigger it?

It's all about how much you feed the fear, sadly. Xanax and CBT has helped. I'm about to start receiving antidepressants for GAD, but I'm hoping it will stop the random times of panic.

IMO, it's about stepping out of your comfort zone.



http://www.getselfhelp.co.uk/panic.htm <-- maybe this will help?

I wish you the best of luck ♡♡
Click to expand...

Be careful with the Xanax. It works great until it actually begins to make your anxiety worse, which inevitably happens. Increasing dosage seems to increase the levels of anxiety it will produce, and dosage increase is necessary because tolerance builds quickly. Having to get off them brings you to levels of unimaginable. I started on Xanax for anxiety and wish I had never taken it. I had no idea what anxiety was back then lol. Good luck!
 
For me personally, I don't really think that tolerance to benzodiazepines (Xanax included) builds particularly quickly, at least not the anti-anxiety properties. Tolerance to the hypnotic qualities develops fairly quickly but the anxiolytic qualities persist for a long time.

With that being said, once you actually do develop a tolerance to it, it takes a long time for tolerance to go down
 
Benzo tolerance (for many people, not all) can increase each day. The second day you take it, you need more.
Benzos are the only thing that work for my panic attacks (which are almost daily). I don't take them each time. I just pass out in my bed usually.
 
llama112 said:
Benzo tolerance (for many people, not all) can increase each day. The second day you take it, you need more.
Click to expand...

So, if that's the case, a 0.5 mg dose would need to become a 1 mg dose the next day for a patient? And a 2 mg dose the next day? And before the first week you're headed for a full blown blackout?

As far as I know that's not the case for most people who take benzodiazepines for therapeutic purposes...iirc most alprazolam patients actually adjust their dose downwards, not upwards
 
Not sure if this'll help at all, but my experience with panic attacks came from eating certain foods.

Take soy for example. I have a pretty bad allergy to it. Not life threatening, but enough to give me anxiety and sometimes panic attacks after eating too much of it.

And caffeine. Even a mild dose of caffeine is enough to give me incredible anxiety. One Rockstar energy drink is all it takes to give me a series of intense panic attacks that'll last the entire day... one attack after another.

Sometimes it's diet, sometimes it's medication, and sometimes it's chemicals, food additives, coloring agents, carbonation...
 
Burnt Offerings said:
So, if that's the case, a 0.5 mg dose would need to become a 1 mg dose the next day for a patient? And a 2 mg dose the next day? And before the first week you're headed for a full blown blackout?

As far as I know that's not the case for most people who take benzodiazepines for therapeutic purposes...iirc most alprazolam patients actually adjust their dose downwards, not upwards
Click to expand...

I have known several Xanax users who have been on it longterm and have had to increase their dosage overtime. I also found this to be the case, I started at .5mg and within a year I needed 1 my to touch my anxiety. I had discussed this issue with my doctor at the time and he said it was normal, something that happens to a lot of people.
 
You make a great point with the xanax. It could really help with rough patches though. I took it as needed. I should of mentioned, sorry. .5mg, for about 6 months, 3 times a week, sometimes 4. It really helped. I occasionally take them now.

Everyone is different. I was really really bad everyday during the time I took them, but I made sure not to take it everyday.
 
Anxiety. Will it ever go?

So I posted a few threads in the MDMA section before and figured that I would also benefit posting here too with less judgement. I'll give the background story and I'll leave a TLDR at the bottom for those who don't want to read a huge paragraph. There's so much that I want to get off my chest though that I would appreciate anyone who takes the time to read it all.

So I've taken untested MDMA 6 times over 3 months from October last year through to New year's eve which was my last roll. I never did too much the first few times but the last time I dabbed just over half a gram which left me feeling pretty bombed at the end of the night with me even hallucinating things morphing just before I went to sleep. Woke up the next day, felt worn out but otherwise fine with a bit of an afterglow. Few days pass, and I still feel a bit 'different' as if the afterglow was still with me, but it became a little bit unsettling as to why the feeling was still with me, things just felt different to before and my home felt a bit alien to me. However, I didn't think anything of it though and got on with it. Nows here where it all kicks off. A week later at about 1am on the 8th Jan, I'd just gone to bed and and as I'm closing my eyes I become strangely aware of my heart rate, it seems to be beating a bit quicker and harder. The more I focused on it the quicker it became until before I know it I get the fucking horrendous overwhelming feeling of panic that I was dying. I later realised that this was my first panic attack, and as I'm sure anyone whose ever had one and not known what it was, the first one is by far the worse one.

After that night the rest of the symptoms seem to set off each other off like dominoes. Anxiety, occasional panic attacks which occur when ever I become too introspective, depersonalisation, derealisation, eye floaters, insomnia(probably due to anxiety) etc. etc. I'm now a few days away from the 3 month mark of recovery, and over the last few months I've definitely managed to cope with most of the symptoms most of the time, I've even had times where I've managed to take it out of mind and feel normal. But it always comes creeping back again and I'll feel like nothings changed at all since that first panic attack occurred. I find going to sleep the most difficult as I get left with my thoughts and I'll keep self-checking to see if I feel better only to feel the dread of a panic coming back and I'll have to quickly try to shut my mind off again. Also whenever I start trying to catch up on my uni work which I'm already lagging behind with, I will feel it creeping back in and not be able to concentrate on it.

For me it feels that my anxiety is stemming from the fact that I'm anxious that I will never feel the way I was again because I've become too sensitised to how I feel all of the time. I am trying my upmost best to stay positive that I will get through this, but I can't help coming back to the feelings of hopelessness again.

If anyone can relate I'd love to hear from you and how you're doing. If you've been through the same and recovered I would especially love to hear from you. This is hell and I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. I was extremely foolish and naive about MDMA and at the same time extremely unlucky to have this happen to me and not any of my friends who were taking the same if not more than I was.

TLDR: 3 months in from last roll and have been suffering anxiety ever since, some days good, most days bad. Worried that I will never truly get rid of it as the thought of it alone is enough to bring it back on.
 
Sounds like the problem is a negative thought cycle, involving being worried about anxiety, which in turn brings upon anxiety, which in turn makes you further worried, etc. Gotta find some way to break the cycle I suppose. I have dealt with the same kind of phenomenon in my own life and I know it's not easy.
 
Symbolicone09 said:
Good morning, has anyone ever experienced severe panic attacks? it seems with me that its getting progressively worse, and this is after taking medication and currently in therapy.

i was on invega sustenna for a littlebit (in the coming of invega thread) maybe that had something with it getting worse.

does anyone have any tips?

this has ruined my life for a long time and i am tired of dealing with this.
Click to expand...

When I was getting severe panic attacks, I was a very unhappy and depressed person. I had an awful job and worked in a toxic environment. I had trouble at home, with relationships, and with money. I was given Xanax for panic attacks and that worked for awhile, but it was only a bandaid for the real problem.

After trying to kill myself (drug related) and going into 51/50, I had to really evaluate my life. I quit all drugs and alcohol cold turkey. I was given anti depressants for while (Celesta and Seroquel). It worked great for me. I had a great therapist who made me understand where my pain was coming from. Let me tell you, when you confront the demons of your life and make peace with what you cannot change, EVERYTHING CHANGES.

Although I've made some healthy changes in my life (eat healthy, exercise regularly, quit smoking, surrounded myself with good people), I still have General Anxiety Disorder. I don't get panic attacks anymore but the GAD is always going to be there.

It drives me crazy to think that after all the good I've done to make my life better, I still have chest pain and breathing problems due to anxiety. I take Ativan for that now. (In my opinion, Xanax is good for two things: partying and panic attacks. Ativan may not be fun, but it works miracles for anxiety. Not to mention doctor's have no problem prescribing that to you since it's non-addicting.)

Maybe you should talk to the therapist about giving you a different medication. Are they prescribing that to you just for anxiety?
 
moohahamary said:
Ativan may not be fun, but it works miracles for anxiety. Not to mention doctor's have no problem prescribing that to you since it's non-addicting.)
Click to expand...

Ativan belongs to the drug class benzodiazapine, and Ativan can be addicting with long term use. I recommend to anyon considering going of this medication to research addiction potential and withdrawal symptoms.
 
Is it my anxiety?

The past week or so I've been feeling very faint as if I might pass out. My heart races slightly and I get very warm sometimes break a sweat. I also feel quite sick. Yesterday for eg. I was on the bus home. I have generalised anxiety disorder by the way, so I'm always anxious. Anyway yesterday on the bus out of nowhere I felt like I was going to blackout and I wasn't sure whether or not to get off the bus quick before I threw up. I was very warm and my heart was racing slightly. Does this sound anxiety related atall?
 
are u prescribed any medications?

it sounds like its something worth telling your doctor.
 
I currently have 1x 20mg Citalopram a day for depression, up-to 8x 50mg Tramadol a day for back pain, 2x 500mg Naproxen a day for back pain, 1-2x 3.75mg Zopiclone a night for sleep. All of those are prescribed, I self medicate with Diazepam for my Anxiety as the Citalopram is only really working for my depression and not touching my Anxiety, I also use the Diazepam for my back pain too. I have a Psychiatric Nurse appointment tomorrow so I'll mention it to him. I'll update the thread if we figure out what it may be.
 
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