Battling Heroin Addiction and Anxiety

[shiimarie]

I have been battling a heroin addiction and anxiety. I have done an abundant amount of research on having dreadful anxiety while being high on heroin and all the answers I have gotten is about how people have anxiety while going through heroin withdrawals and how heroin helps reduce an individuals anxiety/help with panic attacks.
My story;
The past 3 weeks I have been dealing with awful anxiety symptoms such as; Feeling dizzy, feeling faint, restlessness, feeling unfocused, and nausea. This is an all day event and several time through out the day I will feel a panic attack coming on. I will have pressure starting from my nose, to my head, down through my neck and into my chest.. minutes later it will start getting tingly and start getting numb and then I start hyperventilating. This only last for 10 minutes and then my whole body will start shaking/shivering violently and I'll be quivering my teeth but I don't feel cold or have chills in any way.
The thing is... Is when I'm going through withdrawals or completely sober, I have no sign of anxiety at all and I never have. I've been using for about a year now and it hasn't been until the past 3 weeks that when I smoke heroin, a sudden fear comes over me that will last with me through out the whole day. The fear has nothing to do with my surroundings. The fear is that I'm going to die, something is wrong with me, my health. I don't know how many things I have diagnosed myself with; heart attacks, lung problems, seizures, etc. I have been to the hospital 3 different times over these symptoms and since I am 22 the doctors say that I am young so they don't see anything to serious going on and it is just anxiety & won't run any other tests.
Also, I want to make this a point: I have nothing stressful going on in my life at all and I have no reason to be anxious what-so-ever.
I know the simple solution would just to stop smoking heroin if this is causing this big of impact on my everyday activities but it's much harder said than done so please don't judge. I have limited myself and I am not smoking as much as I used to. When I stop, I get withdrawals.. so I've been smoking half Bs through out the day to help with the sickness.. but even smoking that much causes this bad of anxiety. Smoking has never ever caused this to happen to me before, its all new and recent...
I should also state that about 4 weeks ago, I started having problems with my chest (this is when I thought I was having heart/lung problems.) I was thinking it was due to how much heroin I was smoking a day so until I went to the hospital thats when I started getting anxiety about using heroin.. thinking it was damaging my lungs... Turned out to be heartburn.

Could this heroin addiction be causing some serious problems with my health, could the heroin just be affecting my body differently than before, or since my experience I had 4 weeks ago, thinking it was the heroin abuse (even though I know it's not now); Could that be playing tricks with my head? There for, it's all in my head...?

I'm so scared right now and would like your guys' thoughts on this situation, some feedback, or hopefully/possibly some stories from your personal experience!
Thank you!

 

[shiimarie]

Please anybody.....

 

[T. Calderone]

I'm going to move this to The Dark Side, in our recovery support section.
You're going through a lot I see, and we're here to help. Hang in there!

 

[shiimarie]

Thank you! I read a lot from www.bluelight.org that's where I get most of my answers from!
Whenever I'm dealing with anything 'drug related' I turn to this website... but I haven't found anything quite close to what I'm going through so I finally registered here. This is my first post ever so I wasn't sure where to post or how this website works.

I'm more concerned about my health and the anxiety that I have while I'm using rather than the health problems I'm having while withdrawaling.
I'm not necessarily trying to get clean. I'm trying to not use as much since this anxiety is so bad when I do.. I would like to be able to use with no anxiety symptoms.
Why I say not 'necessarily' is because I love the drug.. I wish could use without feeling so dreadful. This dreadful feeling could be a sign that I should just get clean.

Summing it up;
I've been gradually getting myself off of heroin, only because smoking (any amount) gives me a dreadful amount of anxiety. If it wasn't for this anxiety I wouldn't stop using just because of the greatness I feel, the closeness it brings me to my fiancé, etc. Although I've been wanting to get clean because I miss waking up in the morning, clean, being able to be productive, and not have to count on drugs to get me though the day, my mindset isn't strong enough to quit because I love it so much.
In order to get yourself to quit for yourself.. to quit cold turkey... you have to be determined to want to get clean, you have to have a clear head of why you want to quit, what your going to do to be able to quit, and pull yourself forward to want to do it for whatever reason,. My only reason is the awful anxiety... I want to get clean, but I'm not fully determined to be able to do so.. It sounds complicated and it is complicated.

I apologize if this post pissed you off because of how unclear the message is.. because of how badly I contradicted myself.. but my mind is not clear on this whole addiction thing. If it's not clear enough I'll put it this way; I am a fragile mess.
If this post that I have posted fits better in the recovery support system I can see where your getting at that. In my feelings, I'm not trying to recover. I'm trying to seek advice on having anxiety while I am using.

You know this site WAY better than I do, wherever you feel that this thread will get more people to comment to help me out, give me advice, give me feedback, or tell me their personal experience... please put me there I really beg you!

Thank you T. Calderone!!!!!

 

[sogno]

it's probably anxiety and hypochondria. I had very similar problems when I started smoking h. I thought all the time I was going to od and to be honest it wasn't a very fun experience...

 

[neversickanymore]

Hey shii.. and welcome to TDS as well.

From reading about your situation its really interesting and im sorry you are experiencing this.

I'm just going to throw out a few questions. Answer them if you like and are comfortable with doing so. I only ask them to try and explore possibilities for what is going on here. For many years I had very bed anxiety, social and generalized so I have a perfect picture of how miserable it is.

There are also things that happen with the onset and development of addiction. What you are experiencing may be this.. so anyway Im just going to throw these questions out there for you to contemplate and share if you want.

Are you in this addiction alone, that is do people know about this. Most of us hide this from many people. Does the thought of someone finding out about your struggle frighten you or would it make you embarrassed or feel shame?

How does the idea of possibly facing a struggle with substances sit with you?

Are you a shy person or have you kinda turned into a shy person lately?

Does or has criticism started to hurt you allot?

So I do not mean to turn you off or pry into your personal things.. And im sure as hell not judging, infact im the least judgmental person on the planet. just trying to help you to sort out whats going down so you can address it. The twenty questions approach can make it seem to us like we are being interrogated. Nothing is farther from the truth.

Since your new to TDS this forum is fully supportive and does not allow anybody to be harassed, intimidated, put down or bothered. I just mention that to kinda let you know that your in a safe place where you can feal free to open up and just as free not to as well

Allot of smart and supportive and wise people here and on Bluelight in general. I hope we all can help you get down to the bottom of this and I think we may have a really good chance.

 

[Pilll_head]

I totally relate to how you feel. I have pretty serious anxiety problems and when I start getting anxious over something the presenting symptom is usually diarrhea. That's lots of fun, let me tell you...