Do i have anxiety? (18 years old)

Mental health
1

Hi, I appreciate it if you take your time to read this

So ill start my story simply explaining my history, at age 16 i moved countries and lived alone and attended college; i was one of the youngest people in my college. i did not feel stressed and was happy. Now suddenly 2 years later (Iam 18), a day before coming back to Canada from holiday, i had an elevated heart rate, around 95-110 resting, it stayed with me during my 14 hour flight and the feeling did not subside when i arrived. So on the first day i arrived i went to the emergency room and did a CT scan, EKG and blood work, (my pulse was 150 at the ER and tingly hands). They gave me the all clear, i went home tried to relax but the feeling did not go away, so the next morning i went to another emergency room but they did not find anything, i did the same tests. i visited around 4 or 5 more clinics and doctors after that, i did an Echo and stress test and had a 48 hour holter test, it was all good apparently, i was prescribed Xannax (0.5mg), Ativan, and Serax (15mg) by different doctors but the feeling did not go away.. now im sitting here and wondering what could i possibly do to improve my "condition" and how come the anxiety medication didnt make me feel better? i should note that sometimes i feel like im short of breathe, miniscule weird pains in chest, sweaty palms and any sound scares me, i saw a therapist for 2 hours but she didnt help just made me talk and talk so i did not return. Did anyone ever experience this? and if so how long did it last? and how did you manage to fix it? 

I greatly appreciate any support possible and thank you for reading my story.

2

Hi Joe

Welcome to the therapy room .

let me assure you straight away your in amongst the real experts of what Anxiety / depression and mental health isssues all mean and we all have some understanding and different eperiences in here of how our physical bodies will react one way or the other to what is Anxiety and its side affects.

You are no longer isolated in your feelings, you now have a whole new family of friends to support you at every turn.

And to give you some advice and direct you and believe me try to listen and work with the advice and this will help you to find what works for you personally .

Let me say you are so young, i can imagine you have had a tough young life and i would not be surprised if you have often had to cope with so much at a young age and make decsions for yourself without any real support.

Your amazing to comeinto this support room and to open up as you have and share a little about yourself and what has been going on recently.

Your concerns are our concerns now as we all now how terriying and frightening it is when anxiety sets in and starts giving our head messages there is something seriously wrong only to take ourselves or be taken by ambulance to the ER room (A + E ) here in the UK to be fully examinded and told alkl our obs and scans/ xrays are fine.

That doesnt mean in real terms that actually everything is fine , it just means that those worse fears our head is playing into our minds (one of the major side effects of true anxiety) does  to us and convinces us we are dying or there is something seriously wrong.

Do some research by googling understanding anxiety if you wish as this may give you some insight as to what is actually happening to you in your youthful and such young life.

But also i strongly advise you make this room your space for therpay and gaing a much richer and wider understanding of living iwht anxiety and be assured you will gain a wealth of knowlege and will slowly learn what is head games (anxiety ) telling us lies in our monds to try to convice you of the very worse.

when in fact it aint that at all.

I could say a huge amount right now

But i want to encourage you to find your way in here and really do make this your therapy room and feel right at home with freinds and comrtades here who have a greater knowlege and lean on us here as one dayin time you will be the one others can rely upon to leran on you to get support back from what you have learned  through ohthers real life challneges that Anxiety brings to us.

I was with the paramedics twice on one day 10 days agao.

My life felt like it was over.

I am slowly learning to appreciate what anxiety is all about and trying and tlearning to listen to what others in here know can work to bring me back to reality and find my well being again.

Just one other note

I am very well travelled over a number of years and i adore canada, especially the awesomer City of vancouver.

Ill be back there one day soon I hope

Hugs you new bud

PJ

 

3

Hi PJ

I greatly appreciate your words of support and the time you have taken to reply. As bad as it sounds it does make me feel better that other people are also experiencing what iam going through although iam at a much younger age.

I hope your condition is getting better, if you dont mind me asking what happened to you 10 days ago? and if you have ever battled anxiety what did you do so you can try to improve your condition? i have had the symptoms for around 2 weeks now btw.

I just wanted to let you know that seeing your reply has made me feel better and to know that i dont have to ride this out alone and can always seek out support from other good people like you.

Is it normal to have anxiety conditions although you have no conscious thoughts of what you may be anxious about?

4

let me respond to you in around 15 minutes

its 11.20pm in London i just need my late evening walk.

Hugs Joe.

why average joe what about amazing joe ?

lol

PJ

5

Haha good point!  hope you have a great walk! 

appreciate you replying quickly and your support.

6

amazing Joe

it getting late here lol

Joe i started with anxiety 2 1/2 years ago while i was having awful problems in my home with hatered and wicked neighbours, it went from mild to wild (acute anxiety) and thats what i am dealing with today.

i dont need to have this on top of my physical health needs and i started to neglect my health issues

I am with advanced HIV (28 yrs of surviving what should of killed me 12 months after being told i had HIv which i didnt even know what it was , and had only just had sex 1 time.

I have acute lymph node issues that puts me ito hospital every 6 weeks, its so painful i just sit and cry .

My liver is damaged and the diazipam I need to take when anxiety strikes is making the liver situation much worse.

I have empysema of the lungs ect ect.

And now I have anxiety along with bouts of depression which started when my loving partner of 5 years aged just 39 and perfectly healthy ect just dropped dead in front of me with no warning.

Life must go on, we only have one go at it.

I have had a lot of self loathing and relationship especially family relationship breakdowns to deal with, i know what isolation and being completley alone and on the floor unable to pick myself up due to the emotional pain and distress I have found myself in.

Anxiety hasa real serious side effect in our monds and it wants us to believe we are in a really serious situation it tells us we are dying, it tells us everything is hopeless, it tells us lies and this is what we all in here are dealing and learning one step at a time how to deal and cope with what our head is telling us.

And much of it is lies and places us in fear and terible anxiety

You are young , and you do not have to find yourself having to go through the extremes of anxiety I have come to know.

And what you have now is family to turn to in here

you will see there are some amazing people in here

and they are going to be your support netork.

I may have an incident n the next 10 minutes and my head has gone my body wont stop shaking all the lights go out but what brings me back is to come back inhere tellit like it is and before you know it your new freinds, your new family menbers from all over the world are messaging you with thoughts and prayres with words of wisdom and giving you tips on what to do at that time and how to simply cope

Welcome to this home

You have made it home mate

PJ

7

Hope you have a great nights sleep!

Wow, you are a  very strong individual! it seems like you are handling whatever life throws at you and you just keep on fighting like a soldier.

I thought i had it rough and was stressing, I offer you my most sincere condolences for everything that has happened to you, i can only  imagine it has been really tough for you but it seems that you are a very strong individual who is coping with life no matter what, i wish i could help you in some sort of way to take away your pain and suffering. I greatly appreciate your support and the time you took to consolidate me on my problems although you have many to bear with on your own it lets me know that there are still good people out there in the world who will genuinely care about you regardless if they know you or not. You are a great and very brave individual and i wish you all the best in life and hope all your conditions improve/ get treated and you do not have to experience any suffering. Iam sat here complaining and i realize many people have it much worse then me but still are very strong individuals just like you!

I hope you have a great night without any bad incidents!

I wish you all the best PJ you are a great person and amongst the strongest i have ever come across. God bless you.

 

8

And you n me are comiing from the same ground my friend.

Find all your strength inside and what i have today is learned from wat i have experienced .

I cant stand the way the world is today , its all about me, me and more me, freinds are all around when things are up but within months they are no where to be found when life throws the hard stuff at us and we find ourselves on the floor in isolation.

I am always grateful I have foud this forum.

it truly has become my home, my sanity and provides me with the counselling and support i have been begging for  here for 3 years and couldnot get due to govt cut backs.

I am going to take this journey and ride the rough road and get myself and my loving mate and carer through this crisis and then I am going to go back out into the world and bless those who are hurting .

I am told i have immense sensativity and I can pick up things in people with just one look .

I expereineced this even tonight with a man in his 40s standing in the doorway of out local church of england.

I knew that man was hurting seriously bad .

I went and said just a few words to him to have him know I saw his pain and then gave him my number

he was kinda shocked lol and i hope he does phone me.

men need to be open and talk through thier feelings , it really brings out the man in us and those qualities of being in touch with our lives

Nite Nite

PJ