To be more specific my anxiety manifests as a feeling of unease, sometimes fear; and at times blends in with OCD where I become unsure of my short term memory and whether or not something did or did not happen.
I had a variety of symptoms and none of them immediately seemed to shout "anxiety" to my physicians. I was given dozens of blood screenings, X-Rays, CT Scans, EKGs, Echocardiograms, stress tests, sleep studies, only to be told that my heart is in wonderful shape, and that all of my symptoms were probably anxiety (and after being put on Lexapro for several months, the bulk of the issues really seem to have resolved).
I was experiencing: chest tightness, left-side chest and arm pains, random dizziness, random feelings of disorientation, massive blood pressure spikes that would last for hours (110/70 -> 190/120), headaches, pressure in my left abdomen, heart palpitations, and several more very worrying symptoms.
At the end of the day, it all seemingly boiled down to a generalized anxiety disorder.
My guess it that it's due to some supplements I was taking years ago (chiefly 5-HTP and magnesium) causing chest pain and/or heart palpitations, and the experience of that etching trauma into my psyche in a way that makes me experience physical symptoms. The worst part is that it feeds on itself, until I was sitting on a sidewalk having a panic attack causing massive hyperventilation and crushing chest pain, certain I was having a heart attack, barely able to dial 911.
Unfortunately it took $8000 in hospital bills from multiple emergency room visits to figure this out.
As for the symptoms, it is indeed astonishing how "physical" anxiety can be. Most people conceive of anxiety as just an emotional state, and think a "panic attack" is what you have when you're really nervous about a math test and get a cold sweat. The true horror of a real panic attack can't be described to someone who hasn't experienced that level of mortal terror.
And it's definitely true that once the trauma is "etched" into you like you describe, your mind can reconstruct it again much more easily. I find physical sensations that used to be mildly annoying, like a stomach cramp or post-exercise exhaustion, can summon the anxiety right back again.
The scientific evidence for the long-term effectiveness of SSRIs is dubious at best, so I'm attempting a more comprehensive life change to improve my outlook, including trying to build stronger connections with people and community. Isolation is one of the most intense causes of depression and anxiety, among other health problems, so addressing it is a good idea for anyone.
There goes my fantasy that in the west at least health care was top notch and affordable compared to Africa.
Healthcare and education are generally more expensive here than in Europe, but people also get paid more here and keep more of their salaries than in the rest of the developed world. Goods are much cheaper in the US than in Europe and we generally enjoy more material wealth than the Europeans.
You are deluding yourself with your bigotry against the US.
And magnesium caused a dull, ever-present pressure/ache in the left side of my chest that went mostly away (except when I'm very anxious) after I stopped taking it.
I’ve got anxiety in general, but also some more specific health anxiety from a history of being obese. I’ve fixed the issue now, but the statistical reason to believe that _this time_ there’s actually something wrong doesn’t help the anxiety.
I spend a lot of time convincing myself that yes, I can in fact breathe right now, and no, I’m not actively dying of a heart attack. Very stressful situation
I never took medication though. Just cut back on caffeine and lots of rest once I get wound up.
My doc is leaning towards the same generalized axiety /panic disorder, but were currently experimenting with just taking an antihistamine to calm down. "Real" medication is the next step, but, honestly, the thought of having to take something "altering" for the rest of my life is itself anxiety causing.
The most bizarre thing with the whole whole anxiety business was its sudden onset. Everything was fine, and then one day it wasn't.
The only downside to lexapro was that my anxiety and depression were partly if not primarily the result of a bunch of poor mental models and resulting poor life choices. I believed a bunch of mean shit about myself, and so looked after myself with a commensurate neglect. On the meds, I kept living poorly; I just wasn't so acutely distraught about it.
It did work to alleviate my anxiety, and in the process train me to catch panic attacks early and think myself out of a spiral. I'm glad I took it when I did, because it helped and I didn't have the courage or wherewithal to go to therapy that early in my life. But I'm also glad I'm off it.
Unless your anxiety is seriously debilitating, I would suggest you spend 6 months in CBT / talk therapy, before going on medication. Or go on em but also do therapy simultaneously.
Either something in your mind is generating this anxiety, and it's worth it to get under the hood and treat the underlying issue. Or it's truly random, and it's a good idea to train your mind to be resilient to such things.
And my attacks, like yours, just started happening out of the blue one day. No real prior warnings.
I take a low dose of xanax now and all the symptoms went away and I no longer have panic attacks. I'm working on finding a better daily medication, but it completely changed my life to have a temporary solution after 3+ years of struggle and suffering with panic attacks multiple times per week.
So it's really a crap shoot. I had a lot of cardiac work done, so I can pretty confidently say for the next decade or so, barring go through any drastic lifestyle changes, that my heart isn't going to go out on me. But I also found ways to mentally explain all the symptoms I was experiencing and deescalate myself.
Problem: "My chest is hurting." | Question: "Am I hyperventilating?" Problem: "My jaw is hurting." | Question: "Am I clenching my teeth?" Problem: "I feel short of breath" | Question: "Can I force myself to do breathing exercises?"
My panic attacks last from 3-10 minutes typically and can go up to 90 minutes. I wear an Apple Watch which would (hopefully) let me know if I had an arrhythmia. I also check my heart rate when I'm having a panic attack (which sometimes doesn't help) and I try to see if it's consistently going up, or if with deep breathing I'm able to get it to go down. Lastly, I have the xanax, which usually fully kicks in within 10-15 minutes. My attacks have the shortness of breath, feeling like I can't catch my breath, rapid heart rate, tunnel vision, etc. I try to find a calm/quiet space to relax, listen to my Calm app, and if I'm lucky, lay down for a bit.
Last December I started getting some kind of weird 'fog' in my head. I didn't take it seriously when it first started and thought it would go away on its own. But instead it became worse and I got severely cognitively impaired. My speech got slow, I forgot basic words, I forgot names of people I knew, my logical thinking was impaired. It improved a little bit but I'm still incredibly cognitively impaired.
I spent hours searching online, using complex search queries and APIs to gather a lot of info on other people that report the same symptoms. This wasn't because I felt anxious, but I just really wanted to continue with my life ASAP and my symptoms seemed very vague. The conclusion was that, besides some medical causes, people with the same symptoms usually had anxiety.
Since I don't feel anxious or depressed and it appeared suddenly I still want to rule some medical causes out. But it is comforting to know that when all medical causes are ruled out, there is still a huge chance of it being just anxiety.
Actually right around the time my cognition became bad the quality of my sleep also got worse. I sleep 8 hours every night but most days I don't really feel rested, although I neither feel sleepy during the day. I've done a sleep study and I'm seeing a neurologist specialized in sleep later this month to hear the results, I hope he has an idea.
The 'depersonalization' is probably the 'fog' I'm talking about. But I know that sleep deprivation can also cause it, so I hope that I have something treatable related to my sleep.
This is usually not true in most cases, it's actually something a good GP will explicitly consider by asking you the questions.
Maybe it was not possible due to something about your example, but it's recognized all the time in similar cases.
It's also a case for having a regular doctor in some form, because it's easier to recognize based on how well they know you.
GPs were mentioned - I'm simply stating that it's not uncommon that a patient comes to see a GP questions are asked to elicit the role of stress and anxiety in the situation as appropriate.
This does not rule out other care or take precedence over it as you know.
Edit: Did you by any chance edit your comment? I swear the word "miss" was in there.
I don't recall making such an edit, usually I would note a change in semantic meaning, I believe the primary error was inferring a contradiction.
Thank you for clarifying.
For whatever reason, I don't like crowded, enclosed spaces such as busy supermarkets. I don't feel fear and don't feel threatened by environment, but I do get irrationally irritated to the point of getting quite aggressive.
After taking CBD for anxiety I found that I was much more relaxed and just ignored other people at the shops.
I think it has a lot to do with gender roles, personality and even machismo and a question of which side of the fight or flight response you tend to fall.
We tend to send one kind of reaction to the psychologist, and the other to jail (I guess it ties to self-harm versus potential harm to others).
I think society and psychology define or at least frame certain words in a way they apply more to one gender, not unlike how traditional autism definitions tend to omit a lot of female autistic behaviour.
Ironically enough, getting in touch with my aggression, doing lots of sports and being very fit makes me feel more relaxed and able to handle situations that would have made me "anxious" in my early 20's.
I feel "masculinity" has been somewhat under attack for many years now and it might very well be that for many men embracing male aggression and drive so it can be incorporated into society in a useful manner or through positive outlets would be a much better solution than repressing male urges and demonising them. If the main party line for male problems is "get in touch with your female side" and pretending you're something you are not, I see that doing more harm than good for a lot of men. Allowing men (their natural impulse?) to feel strong, capable, in control and even aggressive might actually make them less violent in ways detrimental to society.
When I feel the doubt about past memories/decisions start to creep, I whip out my phone and make some brief notes (usually keep one document per trigger). I will just write a few bullet points detailing what facts I am sure of right now along with the reassurances I am telling myself in that moment.
Then, next time it happens I open the same note, read my previous thoughts and relax into it knowing I’ve been here before.
I suppose it’s just an anxiety journal, nothing novel, but it works for me. Over time as I accumulate more facts the effect sort of compounds and simply knowing I’ve got the notes is enough to push the anxiety away.