Hi Victoria;
I have only just woken up and logged on , and was drawn to your story which is and sounds horrendous; the fact that your acknowledge your promlems and are willing to ask for help is for me very much your first steps to recovery, I am not sure what GAD is but once I have woken up with my cuppa I will google it and read up a little about it.
The things about your emotional state are very much my story, like yourself one small incident outside or anywhere can set me off and into uncontrolable tears and fatige , my breathing all goes wrong, my heart is pumping far too fast and I am often on the floor in a mess.
I have a real issue with noise and living 100 feet from the bust Fulham Road doesnt help this with sirens going by every 2 minutes and planes flying above my head, people all over the place and babies cryinh.
My nervous sytem is shot , and for me there is no escape from the hell it has become to me, even when I have tried to move the Housing Association who are not just rotten but evil in so many ways have blocked my move or found other ways to stop me from doing what I ensentially need to do move out to a quieter lifestyle.
I have had 4 years of hell in my housing association flat and this week am facing due to the wickedness of the Landlord facing a 3/4 hr trial before a judge in Court while the Landlord attempts to have me thrown out of the property.
I also happen to live with HIV (28 years), I have liver and lung problems, and chronic lymphodema.
The stress is unbearable at times.
However without going deeply into all my woes and health issues as it is inistelf depressing, I have accumalated the very debilitating illness of severe anxiety.
I am frquently in and out of hospital and even there I am finding my anxoety levels increase while we all watch and see the ruining of our N H S Hospitals and how run down they are, I often will walk out when the anxiety becomes too too much, and sometimes thats not a good thing , I have even pulled the drip out in anxiety and then caused myself to fall and slip in my own blood which is poring out of me.
So what I am trying to say to you here is , living with anxiety is a real learning curve, it requires a lot of support and nuture.
It is so important you get all the relevant help and support you can and often this you find will be a real fight and battle in itself.
As it has been for me fighting for 2 1/2 years to get a social worker, this was refused for the third time just last month.
I agree you should go see your GP and if you feel like your not being heard or misunderstood it may even mean finding a new sypathetic GP who has time for you .
Being relatively new in here I also cannot recomend this site more and more to warriors like yourself who know what the problem is and are learning like us all that the majoirity of mainstream sociaty havent a clue what it means to live with Anxiety and we are very much misunderstood everywhere we go.
Make this your daily bread is my advice and use it like its you re building the damaged section of your home and clock in as I do and use the sight to gain all the knowlege and information and as I have found I am able to slowly get myself on a better levelled thought pattern and those dire thoughts that tells me everything is a disaster start to become actually very small and workable issues that can be sorted out.
I cant confess I am any where near to my old happy go lucky person but I have found that accessing and using this sight is probably more benificial than having any soical worker come in and organize my life.
To have so many others here who understand me clearly and who are able to show me how they achieved things when they happened and to just have some peace and calmness to my day.
I am mumbling quite a lot here
I send you a hug and lots of encouragement right now.
PJ