Search the Community

I hear them. Where I go, no matter where I am. I hear the voices. Voices of people speaking about me, not in the best way possible. I hear mostly about the same things over and over again. I hear about them mocking me, ostracising me, patronizing me and putting me to shame. I am struggling with it for 1½ years now and I'm slowly losing myself in the process. I don't know what to do about it, or maybe I don't want to, I'm not quite sure. I have anxiety in public places and I have trouble keeping myself calm and having a good time with my family members. Sometimes it causes a misunderstanding between us when our insecurities blind our sight. I wanted to be free from what I thought the environment that was poisoning me. I was out from it but I guess it's all in my head. I've been thinking about s****de but I read somewhere that it only eliminates the possibility of getting better. I hear voices again. It feels like being haunted by a ghost. Even when I'm listening to music, I could hear it insulting me. All of my flaws, out of the box. Sometimes it plays the voices of people who had humiliated me over and over again. It's.like a recording tape. Automatically playing pause and play whenever it wanted. I had no control. Right now I'm unable to see the possibility of it getting better. I don't have the strength to move my feet and walk in these public places; it's like walking on thorns for a thousand miles, unable to find another way to go through it. I feel alienated, like I shouldn't be who I am, for the sake of society, for what people want me to be. I'm aware that I'm different, I mean, everyone is different. But somehow they managed to live with each other in peace and harmony. I seem to be unable to do that, because I can't bear to sacrifice myself to do such a thing. It pains me inside, the agony, frustration and confusion. I let people define me sometimes because I'm unable to see the worth of defending myself. A waste of time and a waste of breath. I'd rather get hurt. I mean all wounds heal right? Except for the annoying voices that I keep hearing inside my head, that's another story. I hear things. I tried to ignore them, I tried. I wonder if there are people who's experiencing the same thing as I do. Let's support each other in any way we can?

Hi all! I am so frustrated with this illness. I have been doing/trying everything and it just seems as if I take 2 steps forwards and 5 steps back. I just need your support, and hearing from others who are going through this or that can relate will truly help. Today has been so emotional for me, and I am so tired of living like this. Here's my back story: History: I had an amazing childhood! Was a typical kid, played sports, ran track from middle school all the way through college. I've traveled all over, vacationed, had lots of fun, made great friends and lived a pretty normal life. 2013: I still worked out but my food intake was pretty bad lol. I was married in 2011 and had a baby 2012. I had an awesome job and life was good. Around 2013, I noticed when I was driving my grandmother home at night on the freeway, I felt this intense "outer body experience" (unbeknownst to me as panic/anxiety). I was about to pull over but I didn't want to freak her out so I just fought through it, and wrote it off as some sort of gas fumes coming from the cars into my vents. This happened many once or twice more while driving at night on the freeway, but I just ignored it. 2014 My life started to change a bit, my job became extremely demanding, my marriage was crumbling because we were neglecting each other. 2 hour commutes each way, hustling to get to daycare, and scramble to make dinner, all to do it again for 5 days. Weekends were made to get laundry, groceries, and clean up our home as I also work a part time job Saturdays. There was no more time for me, I was always on the go! Feb 2015: This is when disaster strikes. My son was ill for a few days, so as mom, I didn't sleep. My husband and I decided to call out of work as we did not sleep. I decided to go to the gym. I started working out and noticed heart palpitations, but ignored it. Then all of a sudden I had the outer body experience again. I kind of brushed it off but had it in the back of my head. 3 days later, I taught my dance class after work, and 30 minutes later i grabbed my head and had a real intense "out body experience" . I thought I was about to die in front of the class. My heart was pounding, and my thoughts were racing "something bad is happening to me" and I didn't know how to go about things. As I drove home, I began to freak out on the freeway. I didn't know whether I should have pulled over or scream at the top of my lungs, I just felt like I was going bat Shyt crazy and I didn't know why. I thought maybe my workouts are too intense and I need to slow down. It seem to be the most logical answer since thats when these episodes started to occur most frequently. The next day, i was talking about it with my mother then BAM! It started to hit me again. The outer body experience! "oh Shyt mom its happening" I hung up on her so fast and try to calm myself. However the irrational thoughts started pouring in "what's happening to me?" "Do I have a heart issues?" The more I thought, the more my heart pounded, my palms became sweaty. I sat down and thought just calm down...but the more I tried to talk to morsel, it just seem like I was pouring gasoline on a fire! I felt like I had the Panic Demon sitting on my shoulder saying "guys she's not down yet, she's a fighter...lets crank it up a notch". They started to coming in like a Tsunami! My chest started to tighten up, I could breath, and my legs and hands went numb. I collapse in my husbands arms while my 3 year old son was eating dinner. At this point I knew I was dying. I told my husband to call 911 and I can't believe I'm going to die in front of my family. I was rushed to the hospital to only be told I was stressed. Stressed...really??? No way, this is bull shyt. In my mind, I was healthy and I worked out to relieve stress, and this couldn't possibly the cause of this non sense. I followed up with my primary care doctor who told me I had just had a Panic attack and I have anxiety. I heard nothing else after that, as she tried to explain what happened. Everything else sounded like Charlie Brown. I couldn't believe she was prescribing Xanax (which made me feel depressed by the way). After this, my life has never been the same, and a can of worms was now opened. April 2015 I took off work for a bout month and a half. I was devistated and crushed. I just felt like something terrible happened to me and everyone was brushing it off because I was young (32yrs old). When I went back to work, I could no longer sit in traffic, ride the metro, take the bus or cross the street without having a panic attack. I was miserable!!! I had people wondering and asking me why I was out so long, and I was so embarrassed to tell them because Im having panic attacks and I don't know why. I could no longer keep it up. The more I went to work, the worse my symptoms became. So I then made the hardest decision in my life, and that was to resign from my dream job (which was a blessing). As soon as I resigned my symptoms started to subside within DAYS! I WAS happy again! I was able to drive on the freeway and teach my dance class again. Life was great! So I thought. I gave up my dance class as I didn't want to add additional stress. However, it seem like once I stopped working out, my symptoms started to slowly creep back. July 2015 I had another MAJOR panic attack while driving on a dark road with no lights. I thought my life was over! I couldn't see, hear, or comprehend anything. I felt as if I had just taken 4 shots of patron, and mixed it with Jamerson. "This can't be normal! This has to be some type of brain disease!" Currently I eat EXTREMELY CLEAN. Almost raw. I still eat meat and I take magnesium at night. I have problems sleeping, and when I do sleep its not quality sleep. The only thing I drink is water. I do not spoke and I don't drink. I pray every morning and show gratitude before I open my eyes. I mediate and stretch before I do leave my bedroom. I speak positive affirmations daily and try to live in the moment. I try to stay optimistic even on the days I struggle with. I have migraines 2 times a month. My skin is extremely dry and now I starting to have stomach issues. I was told I may have an ulcer, and the GT wants to do and endoscopy. I really do not want to do that as I have never been put to sleep. My left arm is constantly numb. I've seen a cardiologist, neurologist, a wellness Doctors, and I had CT scans, etc. Everything is clear. I am slightly anemic but I have been that way all of my life. Today Was emotional for me. I just broke down. I feel like I walk around wearing a big "S" on my chest and try to stay strong, but today I failed. My son wanted to go to the park, but as we walked my Panic/Anxiety started to flare up. I tried to fight it but I couldn't, I tried to breath the way I do when I mediate, to no avail. I didn't want something to happen to me and he was left by himself, so I turned around. That was hard for me to swallow. He shouldn't have to suffer because of his mother. For that reason my entire system shut down. I just feel like this in no way to live life. I am so tired of taking 3 steps forward to be knocked back down. I love nature, I love walking, working out. I find it hard to just take a walk because my body starts prepping for another Panic attack. I feel like I am trapped in someone's body and I want out. I notice when I don't sleep well or eat enough, my aniexy/panic is heighten. I haven't had quality sleep since January 2015. I get tired of staying up to 2/3 am just to pass out to go to sleep. I have the greatest support system in the world. I just feel like I am a burden on my family at times. I just want to feel normal again. I apologize for the novel and Typos. I didn't re-read this post because I started to get a migraine typing this. I wouldn't wish this on anyone. I pray I wake up tomorrow with a better start. I just don't know what else to do. If you read this entire post. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. Even if you don't respond, please just pray for me Positive vibes sent you all. Peace and blessings to each and every one of you!

Hey, you can call me Alex. I've suspected that I've had depression for awhile now, but I haven't got it diagnosed yet. I feel blue almost all of the time, I could be asleep for, on some days (lasting for weeks), 15 minutes (or no sleep), and others, 20 hours. The sleep tmes bounce around, but I am always tired, possibly due to anaemia. I am prescribed vitamin B12, C, D3, Mg, and Iron. I've suffered through su*c*dal -- possibly stress-induced -- thoughts, but I know I wouldn't actually die that way due to not wanting to burden others. Self-harming was also a thing that I did a few months ago to rid myself of stress, so now I am applying bio oil, as I have a lot of scars that cover almost my entire left arm that I need to rid of. My motivation is practically in the negatives, and thinking about getting out of bed just sickens me mentally and physically. Everything seems like a waste of time and I am always getting angry at people. This has lasted me for about a year or so now (I am in grade 11). I truly do believe that if I could lose some weight either by dieting more and running on my non-existent treadmill that I could be happy. Nevertheless, I told my mom that I'd like to get medicated before this gets any worse about 2 months ago, to no avail. I think I've pushed that enough, in my opinion. Anyhow, I guess that sums up my undiagnosed depression. Now the weird stuff: 1. I have a weird obsession with having to be on the right (location) side of moving things. If I am walking with a friend, I have to have my friend to my left. If I am with two others, I can either be in the middle or to the far right, but never to the left of anybody. This is the same while driving. It makes me nervous and almost paralyzing when I am in either the middle or left lane. If I'm not in the right lane, I feel anxious, I start to fidget and move around a lot more than usual (quite a lot), and I become inoperable. It is all I can think about. Whenever I'm not on the right side, I begin to get really stressed, really quickly and it just hurts. I experience extreme discomfort by something so trivial. None of my friends experience this at all -- all they have is a preference. Why does this happen? 2. I oftentimes become inoperable when I have these odd thoughts where I am solving a puzzle sort of thing in my head (e.g., tetris-type game, accuracy-involving games, thinking about drawing a certain line [be it curved or straight], etc) and the game can't be solved within my mind. For instance, I will be lying down and thinking about two lines connecting or something, but they never do in my head, so I have this compulsion to act on it in real life. In my mind, it is like the lines are always about to touch, but never quite reach kind of thing. If I am drawing a certain curve in my head that I cannot get right (which is odd considering the fact that it is purely my mind making these little games) so I have to draw out the curve in reality in order to relieve these feelings of incredibly high amounts of anxiety, stress, frustration, and paralyzation. Once these problems appear in my mind, I can't get rid of them and I obsess over them until I get that same sensation in real life. Another thing would be not being able to feel a certain touching feeling, like curling a finger and knocking on the door with a knuckle. Once I try to remember that feeling, I won't be able to think of myself knocking on a door with a finger knuckle, so I will have to curl my finger in real life and just keep rubbing, stretching, and feeling my knuckle until the feeling of stress and compulsion goes away. 3. I am always getting called out for moving/rocking/shaking a lot. I am always rocking back and forth, shaking my leg violently, quickly moving forward and backward, etc. This ends up disturbing a lot of my friends because it normally shakes everything around me. The weird part, though, is how, when my friends try to hold me down from shaking, I just can't stop. It's like breathing almost, and the feeling of it slowing down is so weird. It makes me feel really uncomfortable; it gives me this imagination that my clockwise energy is being turned counterclockwise or something. 4. I think the last one I will list is my irritableness to noises that some might find to be minor disturbances, but nothing more. Hearing people eat makes me incredibly angry to the point where it is the only thing I can think about, and the anger is so uncomfortable that my eyes sometimes turn bloodshot and I need to leave the room. This normally happens when I am trying to sleep. The noises of cheering crowds on commercials, eating, breathing, or really any noise that I don't have control over in my sleep make me infuriated. Why? I also generally think about the OCD thing being minor because of the intrusive thoughts and the left vs right moving. I thought my mind game thing to be intrusive because I do not want to think and stress over these impossible thoughts, and, coming into my memory, doesn't leave until dealt with several times IRL. As for anxiety, I would assume a lot of my actions to be due to social anxiety (which runs in the family on my mom's side). Many reasons for social anxiety, but I would mainly like to understand why I have these moments and stuff Thank you! -Alex

So for the last month or so I have been feeling 50/50 depending on the day and have seen my physiatrist and counselor a few times to help with panic and anxiety. Last couple days I have been feeling very anxious. Lots of panic and anxiety especially when driving. For some reason when driving I guess its really "stimulating" for my anxiety with all the thinking and things going on at once so I kind of go of on trains of thought. Some times while driving I get pretty scared because I feel as if im taking to much attention off driving and gonna have an accident. Ive developed a few "new" fears that are making my life miserable as of lately. Now this may sound far fetched but I have this fear of loosing the ability to tell the difference between dreams and reality. Like if im out somewhere or driving I keep thinking What if im dreaming and this isn't real? or what if I loose my memory and forget about things and end up in an accident? Just weird anxiety panic provoking thoughts pop into my head at the most inconvenient times. Of course my other fear is that im still high. Ever sense I tried weed back in January of this year i have definitely changed. I keep feeling like i experience life differently like I see things more vividly but at the same time like "too" vividly like im sensitive to light now. I also feel like my senses have changed. Like slower reactions and maybe even hearing kinda dulled or im not feeling the way i used to and im "numb" from the pot. Or im still high and talking slow and averythings slow. Just lots of bad thoughts causing anxiety. Now even though these are almost constant thoughts im fighting with to prevent anxiety I don't think they are really valid as I do not think smoking pot for a few weeks could do that. I think its me overthinking the way im experiencing life with anxiety now. Like a loop of how I feel weird feelings caused by anxiety and then I overthink them as being threatening and have panic attacks ect. So what do you think? I also just a few days ago went up on my celexa/citalopram by 10mg which gave me some anxiety last time my phyc doctor had me try it. But does anyone else with anxiety have the like weird "separated" from reality feeling? Like being sucked into myself and "Detached" or something. And it seems like i see things with a weird depth perception and like I have kind of a sensitivity to light and things seem unreal or dreamlike sometimes in bright sunlight especially. Anyways sorry for rambling but it felt good. i did go for a 4 hour drive on a trip out of state today so that definitely is a step forward. Now most of these thoughts or fears/worries are just me overthinking things mainly. Because like usually im fine until i start to feel weird then i feed into it by saying omg i must be high or theres something wrong with me then bam full on panic attack. but if I avoid those thoughts im fine. Anyways again sorry for such a long post but it really feels good to get this out. Also my hearing may actually be damaged some as I have thoughout my life had lots of loud experiences without protection. From machinery to concerts and within the last year I have been doing caraudio a lot with REALLY loud bass. Like breaking windows in my car for a while loud. Lets just say that system is no longer in my car its a lot smaller now. So yes my hearing is probably damaged (my dumb selfs fault) but it brings on anxiety because I start to think about how I did permanent damage. I mean I still hear very well (pass hearing test up to 17.5khz) but I have lots of ringing/dullness sometimes now. Anyways, Thanks for reading

Tom (boyfriend) is a little worried about me. he thinks i have a problem with eating. i admit that i do not eat as much as most people do or maybe even as much as i should. i eat maybe once a day and if i do eat it is not alot. i can have five grapes throughout the day and think im full. i can sit here and tell you i dont eat because im not hungry not cuz i want to lose weight but honestly idk if i am saying that to you or myself. i know i have low self esteem and very very very low confidence in my physical appearance. i step on the scale and if i dont like the weight then i dont eat or it changes what i eat. i eat very little because i dont want people to think "o she ate all her food cuz shes fat". im not sure what i am trying to do here but i guess im just trying to see if this is just normal. i dont want to act like im trying to get attention or something like that....and tom is worried and wants to change my diet plan to "help" me but i dont think i need help. im losing weight by this and being on weight watchers and i dont want that to stop....what do you think? i know you may not have an answer but i guess i jsut wanted to talk to someone about it rather than reading almost every article on the internet about it

I found out i had social anxiety, panic disorder with aggrophobia about a year ago, however i was suffering with this since i was 11 years old.. my parents always took me to the doctor because i always felt sick, couldn't eat i couldn't do anything but the doctor just kept saying i was their 'mystery patient' like FOR REAL they couldn't figure out i was having panic attacks for 7 years!!! I have been put on citalopram - an antidepressant 20 mg and I've been on it a few months now.. It's been helping but some things are just too hard for me to face. Im studying primary school teaching in college and now we have to go to the Gaeltacht away from home for 2 weeks.... im terrified to say the least. All my friends are so excited but all i can think about is my anxiety. What if i get a panic attack? what if i can't attend classes? what if my friends think i'm weird? I'm gonna be away from home and my parents.. what if i can't eat the food? what if i get sick ( major fear of sick), what if I'm the worst in the course? what if i go back into depression that i just started to get out of? all the what it's... i won't be able to go out at nights with my friends to drink because i just can't, its not possible I'm not able. Im so tired of all the what if's, why can't i be excited about anything anymore.. my anxiety has taken over my life. Sorry for the rant x