Please help me be myself again :/

Mental health
1

I'm not quite sure how to start this but hopefully it's not to confusing

Okay so to start off, January 6th of 2016 I had surgery on my back at 19 years old for a herniated disk that was pinching both my sciatic nerve that. I was In alot alot of pain as my surgery took almost a year. But to numb the pain obvcours I chose the wrong way to cope with the pain and would just drink the pain away almost everyday.

I know that was the worst way to do it but pain meds just did not work at all but anyways the 6th of January I had my surgery everything went well was in recovery over night and the next day i was on a plane and flying back home. About 2 days after my surgery I had a beer at a family members(take in note i went through recovery with zero pain meds at all so I was not mixing meds and alcohol) but anyways I then started to feel wierd my 2 of my fingers on my left had got numb and my thumb was so weak i couldn't even light a lighter (i smoked cigarettes at the time) and so I went home and texted my girlfriend what was going on. My girlfriend is a nurse so she then started asking me a bunch of questions (worried if it was a stroke) so that started to worry me I guess i then started to panic I went feeling really hot and lightheaded full body shakes, I got a ride to the ambulance station as my small town has no hospital. They checked me out told me i was not having a stroke but my blood pressure was like 200 over100 so they took me to the hospital for that (1 hour ride) as I got to the hospital my blood pressure had dropped back to normal 134over83 or something like that. As I just had surgery the pumped me with fluids and sent me home saying It was probably just from walking around to much to early after my surgery. And probably a panic attack

OK so from that day on. Now every day of my life Im super tired all the time I cannot sleep a good night sleep of my life depended on it. I have absolutely zero energy major bags under my eyes im grouchy basically every minute of my life. I freak out over things normal people would just brush off and its affecting my relationship. im really tense in like my shoulder and neck area and light headed witch im not sure if the tenseness is whats causing that, I dont know why I'm so tense, I will notice it I will relax my shoulders and neck to normal and 30 seconds later if i take my mind off of relaxing im right back to being really tense il relax again and 30 seconds go by and im right back to being tense again.

I don't feel like myself anymore I dont know whats going on. I work a good job and have the absolute best girlfriend in the world we have 2 beautiful dogs and all this is stopping me from doing alot of things with them. I used to be an outdoorsy guy I fish, hunting is my favorite thing to do in the world and camping I got a nice 22 foot pontoon boat we have 2 kayaks, a cottage in the middle of nowhere with absolutely nobody around me for miles and miles and I don't do anything anymore im never ever in the mood to do anything. My lovely girlfriend allways wants to go fishing or hunting or camping or go kayaking and I just brush her off and im really starting to feel horrible.

I need help I need go figure out what's going on because I don't feel like myself and I can't live like this anymore. I'm 21 years old. This is where I should be doing everything I dreamed about doing

Is it stress? Is it anxiety? Is it depression? Could it be alcohol withdrawls? as I do drink more then I should

I have a list of my symptomes for my doctor that has a crazy long waiting list to see. il copy paste them bellow just to understand them more

Weak

-Dizzy spells

-'Floating' feeling all the time

-Tired and week with little activity

-feel like fainting and weak everytime i get up (dark tunnel vision)

-Major trouble sleeping, and allways tired no matter how long i sleep

-irritability

-bad pressure in head

Please anything that could help you understand more to help me out just ask any questions i will gladly answer them

Any help and tips is greatly appreciated

2

Hi Joshua you are suffering from anxiety brought on by the stress of surgery and too much alcohol.Your symptoms are very common anxiety symptoms.You are probably feeling very confused and frightened right now.l would advise you talk to your girlfriend about your feelings and how you are feeling.See your doctor and arrange for a therapist to help you cope with the anxiety.l know you have no energy or motivation but getting out in nature and doing exercise is good for releasing built up tension.Try to use relaxation that you can Google on YouTube for sleep and anxiety.Also cut back on your alcohol as it can make you more anxious.

3

Hi Josh, Marleen is right, your symptoms do sound a lot like anxiety but you could be muddling in some depression with it, the lack of energy or motivation sounds like depression but it can be brought on by anxiety that's not been treated.

It will only get worse unless you can either pull yourself out of it or go see tumour doctor.

Hope you're feeling better soon .

D x

4

Sorry was supposed to say go see your doctor, not Tumour......dont know why it autocorrected to that???

5

Okay thanks alot for the reply it used to be so bad I actually went to E.R like 3 times for. I have somewhat learned to cope with it now it's just the garbage sleep so I'm tired 24/7 and the grouchyness and and not feeling like myself thats never going away I got passed the panic attack stage I used to have

6

Hi,me too.. I can't function well,I cannot live my life to the fullest,lack of motivation... I used to be so outgoing and chilled out...I'm kinda lost and living in my own world... I understand what u going through.

7

I'm living my life in fear too... all I can suggest is stay calm and try meditation... I'm kinda sailing on the same boat and avoiding medication and all...life isnt easy as I'm suffering from OCD and anxiety too.. I pray for u.

8

Well that is positive although you can't see it yet.Set yourself small goals like going walking for a short distance building it up slowly.Get back to what you used to enjoy.Slowly that enjoyment will come back also it will distract your mind.Anxiety takes pleasure out of everything however you can get it back Talk to an anxiety therapist and work towards getting your life back .

9

There could be a lot of things at work that are making you feel like this and it can be difficult sorting them out as they all work together. The first was the time in spent in pain, and I know the pain of sciatica, its soul destroying. This really wears down your coping resources and lowers your mood. I wouldn't worry to much about using alcohol, the important thing is how much your drinking now and if its not to much you will have dried out from that. Having said that it may be that the withdrawl during your recovery added to the background anxiety. Then after your surgery you are bound to be anxious for a while and this makes your more likely to panic as stress builds up.

If you principle symptoms are panic you might need to be careful about relaxation training, people become much more aware of their body and that can start the anxiety. A few ideas that might help; I think I would concentrate on the sleep problems first, if your constantly worn out its hard to do anything. Do a search using the term sleep hygiene you should find lots of ideas to try, try not to worry to much about how long you sleep and don't be to worried about taking naps if your tired (though the sleep advice will tell you not to).

Improving your general health is always useful but try to get into a routine of doing things, like going for a walk at particular times, not when you feel like it. There is no need to push yourself, do what your comfortable doing.

Remember that stress builds up, all the little things add together, remember that if something doesn't matter, then it doesn't matter. The idea that you need to discuss things with people is important, ask for their help, it avoids all sorts of problems. Then find out more about anxiety and start to study your own, think about times you feel ok and times you don't what are you doing at the time, think about the symptoms you experience. Keeping a diary is a good idea though it can feel like an effort. Its the old maxim about knowing your enemy. If you don't feel things are getting better, though I suspect they should, with time and effort, look for a CBT therapist, they have the best results in helping people and the therapy tends to be short term. Best of luck.

10

Thanks alot for taking the time to write such a nice paragraph il deffinetly be trying what you have said and see how if that helps witch I do feel like it will