Hey everyone, sorry if this is long but I'm incredibly desperate for help. Im hoping theres a doctor or someone educated who can help me, or literally anyone. Ive never written on a forum before, but im at my wits end. I have what i think is severe anxiety and panic disorder but i can never be sure if its something physical or not. I was completely normal, outgoing and happy until one day in summer 2020. I woke up and had a massive panic attack. Chest pains, shaking, sweating and dizziness. It lasted hours. Couldnt eat, couldnt breathe. I took my blood pressure and it was normal. On the outside i seemed normal. The next month I had these severe panic attacks everyday, all lasting hours. I pretty much never got a break. It was like a month long panic attack. I went to the ER twice where they gave me an ECG and did all the usual vitals stuff and told me I was fine. They even did an xray on my chest for my chest pains. They gave me a temporary ativan prescription, chalked it up as anxiety and let me go. The ativan did help but after it wore off and i developed a fast tolerance to it, i still felt the same. During this time, i couldnt do anything without feeling like i was dying. I'd spend hours on google convincing myself i had cancer, heart disease and more. I have become a massive hypochondriac. Now, i still suffer from these strange panic attacks. Although they arent as severe, they linger and last for days. They occur when i am alone, laying down, doing nothing. Never socially, & nothing ever causes them. Everyday is a new symptom. Chest pains, some more severe than others, occur even when im not feeling inherently anxious. This is the most common symptom i have which is why i still have myself convinced its something more. Body pain, stomach pain, extreme dissociation, shaking, feeling cold are among my other symptoms. Not only that, i have found myself extremely paranoid. Things scare me easily and something as simple as a shadow or light flickering can trigger my paranoia that im haullucinating or that something is wrong. I am a shell of a person. I cant enjoy anything anymore. My personality has changed completely. Others say they relate but it never sounds as extreme as me. I just dont understand how this came on so randomly after 21 years of my life, with no history of panic attacks except a handful of social anxiety related incidents. It is incredibly hard for me to see any kind of doctor right now due to covid. i dont have a family doc, the clinics dont believe me, and the ER is a hassle (waiting 6+ hours). A bit of info about me: Im 21, female, diagnosed bipolar, not on medication although been prescribed a few before. Mom has a history of thyroid problems (one thing i was considering was wrong with me). Drank heavily for a while but was never addicted. History of occasional drug use. So please, if anyone knows any advice or anything to help me, please reply. Do i really have cancer or an underlying condition or is it panic disorder? Again, i am desperate for help. Thank you in advance
Hi Jayna,
Firstly, you are not alone, and you are experiencing what may of us do. Let’s put it like this - I am a 45 year old fairly successful guy & in the past 2 weeks I have had lymphoma, a heart attack, IBS, costochondritis, and gall bladder disease.
The only common factor to all of this is anxiety. I am in a constant loop of…
Ache/Pain
Prod the area a bit
Look online for reassurance & then see a word like cancer
Get more symptoms related to that
Last 2 weeks I have felt unable to get warm, has sore areas where lymph nodes are, had back pain, chest pain, stomach pain, constipation & a feeling like I’m on some sort of meds that would slow me down. You could literally have told me I’d won the lottery & my response would have been “cool” and that’s it.
This has been going on for a while & (not wanting to tempt fate) I’m still here & I bet I would pass a medical. I once years back ended up in A&E and ended up with the doctor saying “get a holiday mate”.
This last point might in a strange way be reassuring - in my day job I work with a load of doctors. One of them once told me that some of them consider that the bigger the health history of someone, the least likely it is that something life threatening is wrong. They told me that when I was having a tough time helping my mum through a similar bout after she retired. She was referred to a chest clinic, cardiac, bowel etc & eventually was diagnosed with severe health anxiety.
My advice:
- Get off Google. This is super hard & I am borderline OCD addicted to it.
- Get a good solid list of symptoms of anxiety - when you feel pain etc, look at that only as a reference point. I’ll make a bet that much of your stuff will be on there.
- Look into CBT. It worked moderately for me but I didn’t really give it 100% which is a regret.
- Know that this will pass/change as you move between phases in life. I suffered in 2008 (changed career), 2011 (bullied) and last couple of years (got a good but super pressured job). It will come again I’m sure once I’m past this patch, but all we can do is make sure we’re armed with as many tools to reduce its impact.
- Go easy on yourself. This isn’t easy, it doesn’t mark you as “weak”, and you’d be astonished if you knew how many people suffer. I have seen figures of over 6% with generalised/health anxiety - so the same % in UK as redheads. Hardly unusual.
Take it easy.
Hi Jayna
Well it’s panic disorder. There is nothing wrong with you apart from having anxiety which cannot harm you in any way (but it feels horrible). I was in and out of ER for years with every illness and disease I could think of and when the doctors did all their scans and tests and told me I was fine I thought they must have missed something. They hadn’t! I’m perfectly healthy and fine even at 67.
One of the things that helped me was realising that I was projecting all my fear outside of me. ie. I thought something terrible was going ‘to’ happen to me. Big victim and self-pity mode and there is nothing wrong with that BUT I needed to realise that what I was really afraid of was…fear itself. I hated feeling fearful. I hated having the racing catastrophic thoughts, the racing heart, the shortness of breath, the sweating, the tense muscles, being ever vigilant for something to strike me down, the feeling I was going mad or going to die etc. None of which ever happened!
If you can see that it is fear of fear that is the problem (and nothing else, really) then you can start to slowly do something about it. You are suffering from nervous arousal, that’s all, a very, very common difficulty for thousands of people. The more we obsess about it, the more it stays. Our nervous state is on high alert and we need to just ease it down a bit. We need to do things that are kind to our nervous system to allow it to wind down. Then we will find that we are the same person who went into this state. You will be okay. I know it seems impossible now but you will be okay. You just need to, stop googling stuff, find some nice relaxation meditations on you tube (there are many, just put in panic attack) and do them daily or hourly if you have to, go for a walk and look about you, name the things you can see, write a letter of forgiveness to yourself for being this way (temporarily), have a nice warm bath, distract yourself with something you enjoy doing and generally be very, very kind to yourself. Try to stay of the booze and the drugs, they will make it worse. Take up yoga or meditation if you can. The point is not to fight the anxiety but to allow and befriend it. This is the only way it will go away. Imagine it as a rather ugly monster who is trying to get your attention because it is lonely and needs a friend. Soothe it and calm it, don’t run away from it. Allow it in, it will do you no harm. Make peace with it. Every day say " I accept and allow these anxious feelings, I accept and allow these anxious thoughts". Let it be. Also try not to pay much attention to what your thoughts are telling you. They are not telling you anything real or true, just let them witter on like a demented old grandmother. No problem. Even the intention to turn ‘towards’ your fear rather than run away from it will do the trick but it won’t happen overnight, you have to work at it (gently and easily) but it does work. I had an anxiety disorder for 30 years, including 2 stays at psychiatric hospitals (entirely not needed) but now I have been completely anxiety free for over a year. I am my own self again after being a self-inflicted nervous wreck. You will come back to yourself. One of the main features of anxiety, an entirely natural defense system of the body and not an illness by the way) is a loss of connection … to yourself, other people and the universe. This is the feeling of depersonalisation.
Anyway I have whittled on for a while now and I hope some of it helps. I do feel for you and I know it feels awful but be kind to yourself and give it a little patience and it will go away and you will be okay again. Blessings and Love xxx
HI Jayna,
First and foremost, your going to be alright. I understand what your going through…believe me
I was feeling the same feeling recently and much older than you. Have you had the opportunity to talk to your Doc about your hormone levels. hopefully, they can find the best solution for you. I wish I had better answers for you…keep talking deep breath❤