Several months ago I started to feel more stressed than usual out of nowhere. I'm almost 40 years old and never had any mental health issues. I figured it'd eventually pass, but I felt worse as time went on. I felt really anxious at times and had some fatigue. I decided to go get some tests done and my results were normal except for a viral infection. I had a mental health assessment and they gave me information for counseling or crisis. My PCP gave me a prescription for anxiety attacks as needed. I've tried everything to feel better again. I usually keep my self busy spending time in nature, fishing, exercising on my bike, etc. Physically I feel somewhat better than I did before. I still struggle with anxiety everyday though. It's usually worse when I wake up in the morning and tapers off by evening. Occasionally I'll get a low feeling mood throughout the day. I've had other symptoms such as getting the shakes, chills, hot flashes, spots in vision, ringing in the ears, etc. Then I start thinking about how bad I feel a lot. I've been getting random thoughts, memories, or words that pop up from out of nowhere. Then I start trying to diagnose myself on Google and that makes things worse. I'm concerned that I'm developing psychosis or schizophrenia. When I sleep at night my dreams are really vivid and I wake up a few times. Sometimes it's hard to get a good nights sleep. I just wish I could figure this out and feel myself again.
hey chris, sounds like how I was 2 years ago. I was a complete mess. started with feeling low so I went do my doctors for help and they put me on antidepressants (citalopram) this gave me all kinds of side effects, hight anxiety, constantly crying, shake, black outs, feeling of going insane. this continued for a long period of time as I tried different medication. I finally settled on venlafaxine and mirtazapine, these took a good while to take effect and still had all the horrible side effects but eventually 6 months ish) I started to settle. my mood eventually lifted and they controlled my anxiety enough to let me work on myself again taking small steps like going to the shop alone or driving alone in my car or just being alone for a short period as I constantly felt I needed to be around someone. I dont like replaying my story or giving full details as I dont like to scare people with the length it took me to get better and what I had to get through before getting better but better days will come for you, nothing ever stays the same no matter how stuck you feel right now. the vivid dreams will be the medication as I still have them now and I’ve been on my meds nearly 2 years also have night sweats at times aswel. maybe ask your doctors for a small dose of diazapam to see you through this rough patch and take at your worst times. I still carry diazapam around with me to this day as a crutch, more peace of mind if I know ive got it to stop my anxious mind. peace, love and good vibes to you, leanne x