root cause of anxiety

Treatment and medication
1

it seems there are several posts here mention anxiety and that it can be worse on Mirtazapine.

my opinion is that the root cause of anxiety comes from feelings deep in the unconscious part of the psyche, particularly anger and rage that get repressed by the conscious mind, because they're incompatible with how the conscious mind wants to live life. In my case (2 1/2 years of Repetitive Strain Injury) I believe that instead of anxiety being a symptom, my brain started the process of creating physical symptoms - what is termed a mindbody equivalent ( using the term \"mindbody\" to emphasise the innate relationship between the two, something that modern medicine has huge problems with)

I found I only started to get physically better recently using analytical self-psychology (NOT CBT) after Dr. Sarno (see Google) BUT mentally, I turned into an emotional basket case, flipped out, and that's why I have been on Mirtazapine and now trying to withdraw. problem is, it was having such a sedating effect, the physical symptoms seemed to be there more in the mornings and I was starting to get anxious as well.

I am wondering whether anyone else feels that Mirtazapine has the effect of blocking the unconscious mind even more, therefore causing more anxiety. (Think there would have to be caveats around the effects of different dosages, and we know. It affects everyone different anyway) Anyone care to comment on this theory?

2

I'm not really sure what you are trying to say except that you have found a cure for your physical symptoms but have been left with anxiety from taking mirtazapine. You are not sure whether this is a symptom of coming off the mirtazapine or whether the mirtazapne was hiding the anxiety? I believe that for me anxiety was just one symptom of my depressive illness it's cause well who knows probably to do with agitation and inability to sleep. Anxiety when withdrawing from mirtazapine is different. It could be a symptom of withdrawal or it could mean that the old symptoms that led you to go onto mirtaxzapine in the first place are returning. Perhaps someone who is more learned than me can come along and unravel your post. I hope you can get some answers to your questions.

3

Hi there Mr X

Your posting as read above has been reported due to the uncertainty of the manner of expression you are trying to address? It appears that fellow readers assume you are clinically minded or a doctor due to your terminology? in other words readers are baffled by what you are saying? I hope this does not offend you in anyway but I just thought I would point out your wording has been confusing? Please chat freely as you wish but think of those that are wanting to reply to you.

Kind Regards

4

Sorry about my earlier post. It was written using voice dictation software and I tried to cram way too many points into 1 post. Let me explain properly so if anyone was baffled by it, hopefully it'll make a bit more sense....

I'm not a doctor, I've got a biochemistry degree and have had Repetitive Strain Injury for 2 and a half years. I tried every physical therapy, went to a specialist clinic in India for 3 months, studied lots of books, everything. I had times when I was very down and thought about suicide a lot but managed to avoid medication. It was only when I met someone in the pub who overheard my conversation and told me she had exactly the same problem for 2 years and suddenly cured it in 2 weeks using the advice in books by one Dr. Sarno. Look him up on wikipedia.

And it was only because I met this person and questioned her in detail for an hour that I became prepared to study one of his books and follow the self-treatment in it. (I already had the book sitting on my shelf for a year but had regularly discounted the possibility that my pain was psychosomatic - at the mention of that word, most people including myself stop being open-minded.) It was the only thing that helped me start getting better physically. The 'treatment' is merely thinking about and writing down every little thing in your life that could cause you pressure. The side-effect of which was that I became an emotional basket-case and got relatively very depressed and finally asked to be put on meds.

That's as short a background summary as I can do, sorry!

I guess in order for anyone to relate to what I'm saying, they need to consider the following points, and this is MY OPINION, sorry I didnt' explain properly earlier. Please feel free to shout or ignore:

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Since Freud, psychologists see the psyche as made up of conscious, unconscious and subconscious.

Most depressive illnesses stem from what's going on in your psyche.

It's mostly the stuff we can't consciously fix that's responsible for the depression or we'd probably fix it, so it must be stuff going on in the subconscious that's messing up our heads!

(Modern medicine has huge problems with relating mind to body when they're really not separate at all.)

Dr. sarno believes that anxiety, back pain, RSI and certain other specific illnesses are equivalent to each other and caused by a troubled unconscious.

(We've got to put our faith in doctors, my experience has proved to me I've got to do my own research - isn't that why we're all on this site?)

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So, the original post was about how I noticed that there are several posts that mention anxiety and that it can be worse on Mirtazapine.

After a couple months, I started getting worse physical symptoms in the mornings with mirtazapine but I was too dazed to be consciously anxious. I felt that maybe it was blocking my unconscious thoughts more, therefore making me more anxious.

Crikey, that's a rambling post. Anyway, if anyone would like to comment, I'd appreciate it.

5

Hi There SES/Any other mod,

feel free to delete this thread - I think maybe it's not appropriate here, I don't have any objection to that and as no-one posted a reply... Gonna go find a Dr. Sarno forum. What do you think?

6

Hi Mr x, I don't find anything wrong with you posts personally. Very deep though. What i'm not clear on is whether you have found Dr. Sarno's stuff useful or not. How does it turn you into an emotional basketcase? I'm just interested. I'd really love to be able to stop taking M. I think it probably causes more negative effects in my life than I even realise. I have struggled on a lower dose an thus increased it a little with the plan on reducing it more slowly. I think CBT has helped me some what but feel I have gained as much as I can from it and am certainly interested on other methods.

7

Hi Mr X, okay I am a bit confused. Your symptoms started ( correct me if I am wrong) due to rsi, or your symptoms caused the rsi(Either way) which ever came first , on mirtazipine your physical symptoms have become heightened, and therefor its increased your anxiety.....so then its become a cattch 22, (Talk about repetitve brain injury!) Have I missunderstood. Idont know. Alot of illness are balanced by transmitters from your ANS to tyour brain and sometimes these get off-set, and we become ill. Really freud smoked to much weed and we could probably do without his phalic take on life :lol: :lol: :P (That was a joke guys).

So has Dr Samos take/theory helped?

So, mirtazipine put a block on your natural doing, ( as you were consciously dazed) but unconsciously you wanted to do, in turn mkaing you wose and your repetitve injury worse....to a heightened level of anxiety. God, my point If I have understood, (dont worry mr x, I am a bit slow) so fdont be put off in posting, is that theri should not be stigma attached to having a psychosomatic illness. The whole entire body ( including nerves has to be understood, and not enough research has been done to fully understand the brains activities and that involved with our autonomic nervous system ( well from what I can gather). freud.....did you leave any weed behind????? :lol: :oops: :oops: :oops:

8

TonyTony,

thanks for your reply - I did find Dr. Sarno's 'mindbody prescription' incredibly helpful - it was the only thing that worked, after 2 1/2 years and several thousand pounds worth of physical treatments. If you have RSI, back pain, anxiety I would definitely recommend it. The best thing though was being able to discuss the book's theories with my acupuncturist/trigger point therapist who's got 30 years experience of treating people like me - it greatly added to the anecdotal evidence I was collecting.

Tiny Tears,

LOL and yes, I think you understood me perfectly. I do think generally, people think psychosomatic means - 'making it up' or 'fake' or 'not actually there' rather than 'real symptoms.

Anyway, I'm on another book now - David Burns' 'Feeling Good Handbook' which is all CBT. It's a bit annoying but actually a lot better than I expected because so far he does emphasise the importance of sometimes feeling down and vulnerable and how it's often best to accept those feelings rather than fight to change them. (Strikes a chord with buddhism, sri sri ravi shankar, various eastern philosophies) Presumably people on here aren't just on mirtazapine, they're seeing a psych or reading self-help books as well, aren't they?

:wink:

so I ended up drawing a little baby diagram with notes to explain it to myself - will try to post it.

P.S. - imo, some of my RSI symptoms were nothing more complex than a pavlovian response becoming hard-wired into my autonomic nervous system - e.g. touch a keyboard -> pain . It's illogical but not so hard to undo once you know.

9

Hey there I read Acceptance and Commitment Therapy by Steven C. Hayes and it was pretty good. I did some CBT on myself before but found that I had to re-evaluate every little thing and my anxiety didnt go away. My anxieties started dissapearing when I was doing ACT on myself, but it really asks you to commit to living your life no matter your illness, and well, it hasnt been plain sailing and it's actually been really hard at times. I am actually on Mirtazapine now but this is because it got too hard about 2months ago, I wasnt on anything before and my anxieties were slowly disapearing but I made some big changes to my life but it was a couple of steps too fast, but I agree with what ACT is saying in the sense that it might be that I will never ever know the root cause of my anxiety and depression...I mean it's probably not even me, it could just be that I was fated to get this because I've either made some wrong choices in my life, or I've got the wrong genes or I've had a bad upbringing(who hasnt?), or I just cant be bothered anymore with everything, but either way I've got this anxiety disorder now and no amount of thinking is going to solve it because whatever solution I find Im still going to be thinking \"is this going to rid my anxiety?\" and this double thinking basically CAUSES anxiety disorder. One of the best things about ACT is that it tells you to ignore your internal chatter, and it's actually this internal chatter that causes so much depression for me, and instead of always trying to find out the root cause of your depression, just do your best to pursue the things you value most in life. Medication is there to augment the quality of your life, and some might say you're depending on it but hell, as long as I feel as bad as I do I'll keep taking it because things would be far worse without them. I might be on medication forever, but forever thinking about what is the cause of depression and getting more depressed about the fact that you're thinming about it so much means I'm not living my life and this is an even greater price to pay. I mean maybe one day I'll know what caused it, but maybe by then I'll be living a more happier life, and probably only then could I look back reflectively instead of getting depressed when I think about my depression...

But Im sceptical of all these methods. I mean thinking that you have a psychosomatic problem is fine as long as it REALLY IS psychosomatic, but going through everything in your life that has made you feel depressed will completely overburden you, you wont be able to see anything else. Medication is pretty psychosomatic dont you think? I can't be bothered to keep thinking about the cause of my depression anymore, because it just makes me even more depressed. Non-depressed people don't think about their depression, why should I? Maybe my brain is too big, it thinks about too many things, maybe I have negative thought patterns conditioned into me since I was a child, maybe I was dropped on my head, some people don't even have 2 legs...so many things and so many reasons...f*ck em all you know, the fact that I am depressed, that I have to take medication the fact that I am anxious about the stupidest things doesnt make me less of a person, at it's least I can become a stronger person, you dont know hardship until you realise that even you have to overcome your own mind in order to live..