Hi again,

We are more similar than I thought, cause I am in the same position about my partner, I might have written somewhere the exact same words you said- he is lovely and so supportive, but he is not my therapist and I definitely don’t want him to be. I don’t want him to also dedicate his life ‘googling’ anxiety and threat me with fear and caution 24/7.

5-HTP has huge interaction with a lot of medications and supplements, especially st. john’s worth, and when I did my research, some people don’t feel good after using it (though there are many who love it). Inositol has very little possible side effects and no interactions, but you should take great quantities of it (Medical studies say 14 grams per day have same effect as SSRI, but most people are fine with 2-3. But it can be costly). I wouldn’t recommend st. John’s Worth, it doesn’t help with ‘serious’ anxiety, and it has also bad interactions with a lot of medication and ‘calming’ supplements. It can actually increase anxiety when combined unproperly. Valerian root is also something that many people with anxiety don’t find very effective. You’d laugh, but simple mint tea does the magic for me sometimes:)

And yes, sometimes being practical is the best cure…Doing more and thinking less. As I said, you can’t think your way out of anxiety. Cause anxiety itself is overthinking 🙂 Maybe sometimes it’s better to make a little agreement with yourself… First get ‘serenity’ by ‘attacking’ the physical plane (with exercise, balanced nutrition, meditation, yoga, breathing exercises). And after that think.. Unfortunately I had to take medication in the beginning (bromazepam), and had the worst withdrawal you can imagine after that (withdrawal is worse than anxiety, even when you tapper slowly like me ). I keep blaming myself for the pills as you do yourself for the anxiety. But to be honest, they did give me the ‘serenity’ to look for ways to help myself. I couldn’t have done it with my anxious brain at the time.

And at last but not least- maybe we are just bit more emotional, so what? I am fine that I’ll feel anxious on job interview, when I fight with a friend, when a bad surprise occurs.. It’s not a disease to ‘freak out’ every now and then when life gets hard.. it’s normal 🙂 So when someone asks me -are you fine now- of course I am not fine all the time, nobody is! And I still get urges to panic from time to time.. But I just slow my breathing, start counting green/blue stuff around..lol 🙂 Get bit calmer and distracted and then i congratulate myself 🙂 And the best thing about being ‘practical’.. it does give you the ‘illusion’ that you are in control 🙂

Hello,

You just told my life story 🙂 Exactly the same thing happened to me, and I am still on the long road of recovery :)I tried basically everything when it comes to anxiety, and though there are still bad days and a lot to be handled, I also can say that I am much better and I can share something I’ve learned

1) You always had a reason to worry and struggle, right? Do you know that you trained your brain to worry, to think ‘better safe than sorry’ and now it just runs on autopilot.. Read more about neuroplasticity, please. It’s not your fault why you are anxious, and you can not ‘think your way out of anxiety’. And the Law of Attraction won’t help here. You can also ‘dig’ for weeks with psychologist why you are anxious, blame ‘mummy, daddy’… and though it’s good to get to the core, still just getting there doesn’t solve the problem also. C Anxiety is a special condition that needs different approach.. What you need to do is train your brain and body again, this time to relax, to get out of the negative patterns of thinking, to learn to ground yourself. To build new roads, new ways of thinking, and to push your brain to use these new roads instead of the old, destructive ones. And this takes bit effort and time, and practice on daily basis.

2) So, as I said train your body/brain to relax. Yoga, meditation, prayer, mindfulness, breathing exercises, whatever works, you can do it all at once if you want. But at least half an hour, and every day!. Exercise is a must also, whatever you can, as much as you can… Your body will produce enough serotonin that will keep you calm.. It might take month or two constant effort, but you will see the first results, I promise. You will get that clarity most of the time that will make you trust life again..

3) Whenever something triggers a negative thought, try to identify it, stop yourself, and ask yourself -is this worry really rational? Cause most of the thoughts that rush through your mind and worry you… you know they are not true. Unmask them one by one, day by day… And also, at least once per day remind yourself of few things that you are grateful for. You came on work on time, payed the bills, cooked nice meal… Give yourself some credit for all these stuff. Change the negativity through practice to positivism. Try cognitive behavioral therapy maybe… It does wonders with anxiety. You can get online courses if you can’t get a therapist.

Anxiety takes a lot of energy. Do not feed it by googling about it ‘damaging’ force, do not waste even more energy on guilt, and try to figure it out with the same brain that produced it, or spend more time than necessary on how and why it happened. As someone who trusts the Law of Attraction, you might know about the vibration of the emotions, guilt is very very low on the scale.. Invest your time and energy wisely on rebuilding new patterns of thinking and training yourself to relax. It’s the only thing that helps, trust me…

Hello!

I am sorry to hear about your panic attacks, cause I recently suffered from this kind of situation also. I was kind of like you, I’d only had 2-3 attacks per year in extremely stressful situations, but they never disrupted my life till now. Given the fact that you are battling this for a while, I guess you might know more than me, and I know there is more to this story as anita suggested (what caused them, really… fear of what exactly, and when did they start and why). From my brief but really really ‘intense’ experience, I can only sincerely help by pointing out the 3 crucial mistakes why you still struggle:
1. exercise… It’s a must, really. Till you ‘lose yourself’!! Than a hot shower and mint/chamomile tea. It works better than a pill, confirmed by many anxiety ‘sufferers’ like us :). I am lazy person myself but since I discovered this, I’d walk 3 hours per day just to feel good. Every day if I have to. Once I ‘lock’ myself inside the apartment, trust me no meditation or online course can help me (and I do yoga and meditate every day almost, do breathing exercise few times daily, now also doing the ‘mindfulness’ course, gone through CBT, medications, etc ). Before you ‘reason’ this out with your gray brain cells, you need to ‘train’ your body to relax. So make yourself tired, every day, as long as you can. You will not have the strength to ‘fear’. Trust me.
2. Socializing… You said you work from home. how much time do you spend with people? I hope you are not alone with your self destructive thoughts all the time… Socializing is the best way to release Oxycontin, one of the happy hormones that battle anxiety big time. My friend who also suffered from anxiety (she worked in busy hospital -ER, can you imagine the stress and panic? ), battled panic by making herself surrounded with dear friends as much as possible. She didn’t have childhood trauma that a therapist needed to sort out, she didn’t do yoga or meditate, or did tones of research like me .. but she got better 🙂
3. Do not give into fear. It’s fine that you decided for now to stay at home, cause you can’t sort out all at once, I know. You shouldn’t. So your home is your safe zone, and it’s great !(cause imagine not having one-like me 🙂 ). But you need to slowly gain your confidence, day by day. So I am not saying to go bungee jumping, or get yourself into the messy crowd. This is also advice you’d get from any good therapist, you need to face slowly your fears, at your own pace, and make yourself comfortable during this. So try walking few block further than comfortable, few meters if that’s too much… with someone you trust maybe. Do your own ‘plan’ you can work with. Applaud yourself for every small success. Just remember, the key is one small step at a time! You will feel good once you start believing that you are starting to be in charge. I know it can be scary, I know how you feel. I don’t want to be alone, to be in closed space like train or bus for hours, to go in new strange city. But still I travel every weekend. I try to explain my partner how challenging it is for me to do simple stuff sometimes, but maybe when I think twice, his effort to treat me as ‘normal’ was the force that made me ‘act’ normal when I also just wanted to stay at home, all the time, with my dark fears.

I sincerely wish you all the best. I know you will get through this, I know many who have, and you (and me) will be one of those people… You will always have challenging moments, but it will get better, much much better. Remember (as you probably learned in CBT), anxiety and panic are not life threatening, you are not going to ‘die’, stop breathing, faint, go crazy… It won’t happen, it’s not possible (if you wanna remind yourself why, check out the free lessons on this link http://www.paniccure.com/CoachNeal/Intro-1/1-1.htm). It is just a very unpleasant sensation that will go away.

Hi Icy,

Just read your conversation and I am sorry to hear about all of your problems, the one you presented and the ones in the past that lead you to medication. As someone who had a brief history with anxiety and medications, I would also suggest to look out for long term solutions without them, cause as anita said, withdrawals are much worse than the anxiety itself. Take them as short as you can till you gain your perspective on how to deal with your issue. There are so many resources online that can help, so many success stories, books, online courses. A good psychotherapist that is experienced with this issue also can be crucial.
Since the whole ‘anxiety’ thing is still fresh for me, I can tell you what helped me…. what really helped me, and what made things worse…
-Most beneficial of all is exercise, exercise and more exercise…. After a very long walk, long shower and mint tea, I feel much better than even after taking medication. This was my hidden weapon to fight withdrawal.
-Cognitive behavioral therapy, and any research that tells you how the ‘happy’ chemicals in your brain work. Yes, happiness is chemicals.. stress also.
-Yoga, meditation and learning how to ‘ground’ yourself. Breathing exercises. You have to teach your body how to relax, how to balance. It can take time, but if you are persistent results will come for less than two months. Sometimes the cause of our problems is stuck in our ‘reptilian’ brain, that freaks out and finds danger in places we can’t understand, and we have to teach it again to relax, to accept new ways. I am not an expert, but as you said you have a terrible fight or flight response… This might mean you have to balance this part of your brain, the most primitive one.

By any means, I don’t think it’s good to take any online test you find, to present your problem to random people who don’t understand it well and might even say something hurtful as advice, to read forums and testimonials of people who had your problem and wrote discouraging things while they were very distressed. While you are in your sensitive state, you are not ready to deal with just anything you come up with. This is why I asked for a therapist, and he totally agreed with me. i told him I want to deal with this at the right place with the right person.I found very disturbing to bomb my mind with random internet facts, I just got tired and more frightened. And also, even though you attend therapy, you have to do the ‘heavy lifting’ yourself.. There are many ways to deal with this and you can find yours. So the ‘therapy’ doesn’t end in the doctor’s office… And no one, even here, can work things out for you, but you can always get very good guidelines and starting points..

And when it comes to your husband, as i understood he works two jobs, but he prefers the second one? Maybe he should just stick to that one… just a suggestion. I know the money will be tight again, but i can also relate to this. I’ve been with my partner for 8 years, 3 of them we both had terrible jobs that took the best of us, but were well paid. Money didn’t make us happier. We’d go on vacation on a beautiful beach in Greece, but we barely talked, he was stressed and panicked, I was desperate and bit depressive. It took a toll on our relationship and health. We knew it would be just a matter of time till we ‘break’ and maybe loose each other. So we decided I should leave my job, and he got another one, less paid. We only had 50 % of what we used to earn, but it was the best decision we made. No more exotic vacations, expensive restaurants, weekends in spas, shopping the next few years. But sometimes in life you can’t have both and you have to choose over your career or relationship, and only hope you’ve made the right choice. As long as you support each other and you are on the same page about those decisions,and it isn’t brought in later conversations as a sacrifice someone made.

Sorry about the long post and maybe giving too much of my story, but I feel deep in my heart that you can work this out, as many other have in your place. I sincerely wish you all the best!

hello,

I think you got some amazing insights in the previous posts… I will just add few more insights…

You said you have stressful job. I believe we all need a dream, a fantasy in order to ‘survive’ sometimes. Something to look forward to at the end of the day, something distant and tempting that is giving us a purpose in our ‘gray’ daily routine. You lost this guy, and now he is somewhere out there, untouchable, an to you – perfect. It’s like an exciting movie scene, where you should somehow magically end up together and live happily ever after.. Your mind learned to live in this exciting plot where you are the main character, and maybe this ‘movie’ is your secret sweet escape from reality.

And when it comes to your fiancee… We do take for granted these kind of people sometimes. He is here, he is perfect, he is supportive and he loves you. And there is no challenge in it.. As it was mentioned before, your mind doesn’t see a possible task and problem here, and that’s just how your mind works in general. When you crave food, you stop thinking about it the moment you eat it. Till you are hungry again.

Do not blame yourself, most of the women engage in these kind of romantic ‘movies’ in their mind. It’s just our brain and romantic nature playing it part. But if you wanna go all the way with the what if..?

What if this old love shows up at your door and says he wants to be with you, forever, and you have to evaluate him as a ‘life partner’? He has changed in 12 years, you know…

And you have to look your loving fiancee in the eye, break his heart, face a possibility of a life without him, and his support. Date again, look again in someone else what you’ve already found in him.. I don’t know about you, I am in my 30’s also, just the thought of dating again tires me 🙂

My advice is make a challenge in your new relationship… A romantic surprise, a small trip to somewhere you’ve never been, try something new and adventurous you’ve never tried before. Something to look forward to, that will entertain your mind enough in order for you not to seek escape in romancing ‘the past’.

I am sending you my best wishes

• This reply was modified 8 years, 5 months ago by Maria_L.

Hello,

You’ve been through a lot of life struggles, and I can only imagine the pain that always lingers somewhere in the background. Loving someone, loosing that, and being reminded of that person by constantly being around her presence, seems to always keep the pain fresh. All these other women, maybe they didn’t have chance cause she was few meters behind them. Or maybe you choose them in a way that they never had a chance, cause in your mind, she was the one (that got away).

It seems to me that you were always trying to distance yourself from the possibility of more pain and more drama in your life, and the paradox is that running from it, you also got closer. Maybe these 12 years your pain became part of you, and if nothing else it is a pain you know well. The one constant in a life full of challenges. Cause you know that she will be in the same bar, same neighborhood even in the next 12 years. You’ll be there, too. If you change nothing, nothing will change. You must know this.. Ask yourself deep inside? Do you want things to change, and if you do, how? Are you comfortable to go ‘cold turkey’ on this, not visit the same bar again, spend some time away maybe, to gain the distance you need to get over her? Or do you want to give this another try cause there are obviously still some sparks there between you two (you must realize that she wanted something more than friends)?

You wrote ‘I’m fine with that. Indifference is worse.’ Seems like you want her to notice you, you want her to feel things too, you want her close. But not too close. Just close enough so you deal with a pain you are accustomed to. Possibility of change that might lead to new type of pain is something that you are not ready to gamble with. And even a possibility of a dream come true can be scary often…

It’s hard to make profile of a person and get insight just by a written post (even when it’s long and wonderfully written like yours..).. but also I would like to ask, if you consider yourself as a proud person, sometimes to the extent that the ego might get in your way? Maybe she is like that (too) ? The first time you broke up, whatever the reason was, did someone try to apologize, or you both held to your side of the story firmly?

12 years is long, too long… 🙂 What i try to say is that you had a brief relationship with her, and a long relationship with the situation that followed. You need to figure out how do you want your ‘status quo’ with the situation to proceed.. I know that the easy way is to forget her somehow and get rid of the pain, without putting yourself through additional pain and making drastic changes in your life. But things obviously won’t work out that way.

I am not sure I helped a lot, though I sincerely sympathize with everything you went through, and i admire you strength through all these life situations.. At least i hope you got some new angles to look at this.

I would like to close this post with a thought from Paulo Coelho

“Waiting is painful. Forgetting is painful. But not knowing which to do is the worst kind of suffering.”

Best of luck!!

Hello adrian1,

I was wondering one thing? Does ‘solitude’ and loneliness bother you and scare you? I don’t think you should worry much if you feel fine being on your own, the right friend will show up, I am sure. I was the opposite of you, I had too many ‘friends’, I didn’t even knew how to face the life alone. I found this troubling also, cause as life went by, I realized that many of my friends are not really ‘friends’. Holding on to people just in order to avoid the social isolation, or not to break up some group and circle we have formed was really troubling, too.
Interesting way to meet people is by sharing a mutual interest.. So join a group, a club, an organisation that feels close to you, and you never know… The first step is the hardest. And smile 🙂 Even when words don’t flow easily, just a simple smile and kindness can be great..

Are you interested in the topic of body language and ‘non verbal’ communication also? Sometimes if you position yourself in closed and guarded posture (which happens a lot with shy people), you seem less approachable to other people. Do some research on the internet, it can be really helpful…

So positive attitude, showing genuine interest about some person’s hobby, and keeping an open body language can do wonders.. 🙂 And by then, don’t worry 🙂 Consider yourself lucky if you are comfortable on your own. Many of the people who get called on the parties, and have 2000 fb friends feel lonely among the crowd often…