Anxiety

[Razor]

What level of anxiety is "normal"?

 

Cause I'm a total freak. I worry. And then I worry about worrying. And then I worry about the people who are involved in what I'm worrying about. And then I start to think they don't really like me, or they're using me, or something like that. I worry that people have some terrible ulterior motive for speaking to me.

 

I second guess everything I say. I have to actually formulate each sentence in my head, scan it, and then say it before I can do anything. The only time I don't do that is when I'm around small groups of close friends, and even then sometimes I still do. I drive myself up a wall sometimes obsessing about the same thing.

 

I'll go to great lengths to avoid situations that make me nervous. I don't like meeting new people, especially by myself. Even while I'm talking, there's a billion thoughts running through my brain. When something happens, I automatically assume the worst.

 

So, anybody else crazy like me? Or a little less? Or, heaven forbid, a little more?

 

Discuss.

[AFriendlyFace]

I used to be quite a worrier. I suppose I still am to some point, but I'm much more relaxed than I used to be. My top 5 things to worry about:

 

1) Auto accidents/deaths (be them my own or anyone else's)

2) Running out of time (I never feel like I have enough time to do everything I want/need to do. On the bright side I'm never bored)

3) Growing Looking older

4) Being stuck somewhere and needing to pee (this one is actually rational considering that with the amount of water I drink I need to pee at least once an hour)

5) Being cut, bruised, or breaking anything. (I actually don't really care about the physical pain but I can't stand anything to leave a mark, and God forbid I get a scar.)

Edited June 11, 2007 by AFriendlyFace

[JamesSavik]

Razor

 

G&L people have more anxiety problems than the general population. The reasons for it are pretty clear. When you've got a bunch of religious kooks damning you and psychos bashing other gay people, there is a basis in reality for that fear. Talk therapy is usually pretty good about easing anxiety but it can escalate to panic or anxiety attacks.

 

Anxiety disorders are tricky. Plain Jane anxiety is as common as rain. Everyone suffers from it at some point. It usually goes with depression and is often treated with the same drugs. The problem is that anxiety problems can become layered. If you were to experience serious trauma like an assault, you could possibly develop Post Traumatic Stress Disorder which is a real booger to diagnose and treat.

 

In many people, PTSD is often mistaken for situational anxiety- or that you are worried about something specific. PTSD is at the extreme end of the spectra of anxiety disorders. It is state of extreme anxiety that doesn't go away. It is characterized by a state called hyperviligence which is like expecting an attack at any moment. People might call a person suffering from hyperviligence as jumpy or twitchy. People with PTSD have all their defenses "turned on". PTSD sufferers usually have sleep problems and chemical dependency is almost to be expected.

 

PTSD is classified as simple or complex. Simple PTSD is precipitated by a single traumatic event like an assault, accident or disaster. A good example is the thousands of New Yorkers still suffer from PTSD as a result of the 9/11 attacks. Many people locally have Katrina related PTSD.

 

Complex PTSD is caused by a series of traumatic events that occur over an extended period of time. You see this in soldiers who have been in combat for extended periods, prison inmates or people who were emotionally, physically or sexually abused as children for some time. Many gay people end up with PTSD that they acquire because of abuse that they suffer in primary and middle school.

 

Anxiety disorders are almost always at the root of chemical dependency problems. People that suffer from PTSD often self-medicate with drugs or alcohol in an effort to "feel normal". PTSD sufferers are high on their own Adrenalin- sometimes for years at a time. The only time that they can "turn-off", their only relief from that state, is to be drunk or high.

 

In PTSD sufferers, drug and alcohol use very quickly becomes chronic. Typically we see addicted PTSD sufferers who get smashed at night to "turn off" so that they can sleep. Otherwise, some PTSD sufferers go for days at a time without sleep until they collapse of exhaustion.

 

PTSD can become dangerous. In most cases the victim will have flashbacks of the trauma that triggered their condition. Sometimes with sleep deprivation and other cumulative effects of the disorder, PTSD sufferers can experience visual and auditory hallucinations. If the original trauma had the victim fighting for their life, they will be fighting for their life with the same gusto in the flashback.

 

 

Perhaps that's more than you wanted to know about anxiety problems but you see, I'm kind of an expert in them. I was outed in 7th grade and my whole high school experience was a constant battle. I picked up a hard drug habit that lasted until I was 21 when I kicked coke. The drugs were gone but PTSD was still there. In the eighties and nineties, I watched helplessly as so many of the people I grew up with, including the love of my life, died horribly of AIDS. I started drinking and using soft drugs ~97 to cope.

 

I've been clean now 3 years in October. Putting myself back together again hasn't been at all easy. I'm working hard with my shrink but its a given, I'll probably never be completely be free of PTSD. I still have long sleepless nights. I grieve over who and what was lost. I seethe in anger. I wonder if I can ever come back and fight the urge just to quit.

 

This place that I'm in is purgatory- just on the outskirts of hell. All gray, all day, everyday. Not quite dead, not exactly alive. Crazy enough to want to forget, too sane to remember. Fighting to remove the curse. Praying that it isn't replaced with something worse.

[AFriendlyFace]

[GaryKelly]

Anxiety = 50mg Zoloft = wheeeeeeeeeeee!

[MMandM]

When my son was killed my doctor put me on Valium. He said I could take two to three 10-milligram tablets a day depending on if I needed to. Two or three wasn't enough so I found two others doctors who also prescribed them to me. At that time I was up to about eight 10 milligrams a day. Then when the doctors cut me off I actually would take the three-day cruise from Long Beach to Ensenada Mexico, walk off the ship and hit about 4 Pharmacy's where I would purchase $500 to $600 worth of valium and simply walk back on the ship and go home. I did that several times and ended up taking 80 milligrams a day for almost two years.

 

Little did I know Valium was one of the most addicting drugs you can take. One day I just decided I didn't need them anymore so I just stopped taking them. About four days without the Valium I got what I thought was the flue. After a week of still being sick I finally went to the doctor. I was honest with him when he asked questions about my symptoms and if I had been taking medication, when I told him about the Valium he was surprised I was still alive and told me I was going through withdrawals. He had to actually put me back on Valium to slowly wean me off the medication. The withdrawals lasted close to 30 days and was one of the most horrible agonizing pain you could possible imagine.

Edited June 12, 2007 by Mark_Marciano

[Razor]

Anxiety = 50mg Zoloft = wheeeeeeeeeeee!

 

 

I took fluoxetine (prozac), and I think that's one of the most terrible trends today. That whole class of drugs is just a bad, bad idea, especially for teens. Sure, if you're a perfect angel and do absolutely nothing but take your pills, you might have no problems. The pills make me feel weird to begin with, like somebody's flipping switches in my brain to make me react in strange ways. Then, at least with me, they react with absolutely everything. I couldn't even take my Ambien with them, because if I didn't go to sleep immediately I would be in dreamworld, but still be awake and talking. Then the next morning I would remember nothing and people would tell me what stupid thing I did. If I got hold of alcohol, there was hell to pay. That's how I got my DUI. I decided that I just didn't care what would happen to me, and nothing would really happen anyway. It made things a billion times worse.

 

It even reacted with some OTC drugs. The amnesia type thing was extremely unsettling, and that happened more than once. I do NOT like not remembering what happened to me.

 

They also made me hungry all the time, and even lazier. I quickly gained back the little bit of weight I'd lost the previous summer.

 

All in all, if I ever go to a psychiatrist and they prescribe an SSRI, I'll tell them quickly there's no way I'm taking it. That shit just makes me even crazier. The best thing I've found is a very low dose of xanax, like .25mg, but that's a benzodiazepine, and like Mark said, those are addictive as hell. Plus they make me feel stupid, so I don't like them.

 

Somewhere I just decided that the best thing to do is slowly isolate the little things that make me freak out and deal with them one by one... it's just taking a long, long time.

 

 

 

 

And the only time I've ever had a panic attack was a very specific situation. It had to do with a bad breakup, high and prolonged use of dissociatives, being in a place I wasn't familiar with, and a lot of other factors. I don't usually cry... I mean, I'm not a crybaby or anything. I get emotional sometimes, but yeah. I spent three hours rocking back and forth on the floor trying to figure out why I couldn't stop crying or breathe normally. It definitely wasn't fun, and that was probably one of those moments when a nice handful of valium would've been nice to have. That's only happened once, and it takes a LOT for me to freak out that way. One was plenty for me.

[GaryKelly]

I have to admit that Zoloft (Sertraline) produced prolific dreams, most of which were anxiety dreams... not finding my way out of buildings, working in offices where nobody knew me or why I was there, or being on air with NO RECORDS to play and having to ad lib like buggery. I told my doc about it and he suggested halving the dose, which is an improvement. I wanna get back to dreaming about large schlongs...and eventually get off the pills. However, after a heart attack 4 years ago, I'm stuck with various blood thinning and cholesterol gizmos. Bleh.

[Graeme]

I'm personally against over-medication. From my perspective, too often drugs are being used to treat symptoms while causes are being ignored.

 

Drugs that affect the mental state of the recipient should be approached with even more caution. Taking multiple drugs should only be done under medical supervision -- drug interactions are not trivial and some are deadly.

 

Having said that, drugs have their uses. It is just that I feel that they are mis-used and over-prescribed.

 

On the original topic, worrying about things is normal. Worrying about things that you have no control over is unhealthy. Unfortunately, it is not simple to control what you worry about. We are talking about the single most-complex organ in the human body (the brain) and it is one that we have only an imperfect understanding of. To try to control what we think about takes time and practise. There is no easy way to do it.

 

I'm not sure what I can suggest, Razor, but how about looking at calming techniques like meditation? They may not work, but if they don't, they may suggest other things you can try.

[MMandM]

I agree 100% with you Graeme. I over medicated myself to a point I really didn

[Krista]

Anxiety

 

Well I think there are just things that everyone feels anxious about in their own way. I know I felt nervous walking to my car at night when I was on campus and I'd have to take a minute sitting in my car to relax before I drove.. lol. Nothing happened to make me feel anxious when I walked to the car, but just the environment. Anyway, so I think it's ok as long as you don't let your anxiety overcome you where it takes you an extended period of time to recover.

 

There are also just things you shouldn't worry about and those are the things you can't control. It's difficult to stop worrying about things that you worry about, but taking the time to tell yourself that, "Something could happen, yes, but it doesn't mean that it's going to." That helped me during anxious times, getting control of your anxiety is important because Anxiety attacks are terrible.

 

 

 

SO, take a deep breath and think happy thoughts.

 

 

Krista

[GaryKelly]

I'm not sure what I can suggest, Razor, but how about looking at calming techniques like meditation? They may not work, but if they don't, they may suggest other things you can try.

 

I use the old 'piss off' technique. When a negative thought tries to invade my conscious I tell it to piss off. I've practiced this technique for quite a while and it's now an automatic response. The negative thought disappears in a millisecond. "Be gone you demon!"

[JamesSavik]

I took fluoxetine (prozac), and I think that's one of the most terrible trends today. That whole class of drugs is just a bad, bad idea, especially for teens.

 

You are absolutely right about prozac. It sometimes causes strange reactions in teens. There is quite a squabble in medical circles about prescribing anti-depressants to adolescents. Some doctors want to ban the use of anti-depressants in teens except in in-patient situations where patients can be carefully monitored. Adolescent brains are wired differently from adult brains and it is only logical to conclude when you toss a powerful, mood altering chemical into the hormone soup that teens use for blood that odd things may likely occur. There have been far too many suicides and psychotic episodes associated with Prozac in teens to simply be a coincidence.

 

 

I am not against anti-depressants per see but I am against the rather haphazard way in which they are prescribed. Often the medication that you are prescribed is determined more by what your insurance will pay for than your medical condition. There is a very good reason that there are dozens of anti-depressants: ONE SIZE DOES NOT FIT ALL. They are all different compounds and act in different ways. I don't think that doctors should automatically write a script for Prozac or Zoloft. MDs (Medical Doctors) should never just write a prescription for an anti-depressant without referring the patient to a psychiatrist. Psychiatrists are better suited to following how a patient is coping and is much more familiar with psychiatric medications that a general practitioner or M.D.

 

 

I'm personally against over-medication. From my perspective, too often drugs are being used to treat symptoms while causes are being ignored.

 

Drugs that affect the mental state of the recipient should be approached with even more caution.

 

We are in complete agreement.

[jfalkon]

Its interesting how much faith is put in antidepresents. I had a doctor tell me that they are only effective something like 60% of the time. Its not really impressive. The rate improves when there is other therapy used with them but its still not great. That's without mentioning that they can actually make depression worse for some people.

 

Anxiety is something I can relate to well. The idea of going to someone's office on some official business can throw my heart rythem off. Meeting people is not much fun either. Almost anything social bothers me. One thing I've noticed is that at least for me anxiety is like the dark side of excitement. They are simmilar feelings in that they both trigger an adrenaline rush. There is often a component of fear in both. For example, when you are waiting to get on a roller coaster your heart might be pounding. You may be nervous but it feels good. On the other hand, if you are on your way to the principal's office the nervouse feeling can be exquisite torture. It seems like we classify things that make us nervous as either good or bad. The good ones cause excitement. The bad ones cause anxiety. At least that is how I see it. I just wish I could figure out a way to make the bad stimuli seem good.

[JamesSavik]

It seems like we classify things that make us nervous as either good or bad. The good ones cause excitement. The bad ones cause anxiety.

 

 

Anxiety is the state of fear or dread that something bad is going to happen. In that state, powerful things are going on with your body chemistry. In that state of fear and dread, the body reacts with the "fight or flight" response in which the body makes itself ready to or do battle or run away.

 

From wiki:

 

These catecholamine hormones facilitate immediate physical reactions associated with a preparation for violent muscular action. (Gleitman, et al, 2004) These include the following:

 

Acceleration of heart and lung action

Inhibition of stomach and intestinal action

Constriction of blood vessels in many parts of the body

Liberation of nutrients for muscular action

Dilation of blood vessels for muscles

Inhibition of lacrimal glands (responsible for tear production) and salivation

Dilation of pupil

 

 

In people with anxiety disorders, they get stuck in this state for days, weeks, even years at a time.