I Need Some Help

[MZ3Alex]

Hi,
I am an 18 year old male and I have suffering with anxiety related problems for about a month now. It started off as the usual with constantly being afraid of everything (death in particular), chest pains(which was the start to all this that was really a chest cold), and feeling very uneasy all the time that something serious and terrible could happen. I have only ever had 2 anxiety attacks (the second the night right after the night of the first one.) I didn't go to the ER during any of those attacks since I knew I wasn't having a heart attack and I had gone to the doctor the day after the first attack and nothing could be found wrong with me. That night I had a second even stronger panic attack and decided I had to go back to the doctor the next day because it was just getting to be ridiculous. I saw a different doctor this time and that's when he diagnosed a possible anxiety problem that was the cause of all this. He issued a chest x-ray, EKG, and blood work to be done just in case there may something else. (All the results then came back normal and completely fine.) He said anxiety can cause a lot of these things and I will admit I had been very stressed over the two months before then. (I guess I hadn't realized what could eventually happen because of it.) I do admit I have been under a lot of stress, especially through last October and November. (dealing with college apps, SAT's, my graduation project, and problems with getting my now previous job to cooperate with me. Not to mentions school tests, grades, and homework since I'm trying for the best possible Senior year as far as grades go.)(I am also not usually not stressed very often either.) But anyways, during the two weeks after my doctors visits and three days of missed school, I started to feel much better and I was learning to relax more. My chest pains for the most part subsided and I felt very good. I always had this very very small uneasiness feeling but it kept getting better day after day and I though I was finally getting over all this ****.

When the week of Christmas began I started to have problems again. I was getting the chest pain and uneasiness feeling back along with fear that something could seriously be wrong with me. (no anxiety attacks though) Christmas eve while I was laying in bed I had a terrible shaking fit that lasted about a half hour. It was almost to the point of exhaustion. During Christmas day I felt very uneasy the whole day and I was also suffering from a lot of fatigue since I had only gotten 3 hours of sleep the night before due to the shaking fit. I had taken a nap in the afternoon Christmas day and it seemed to help a lot. That night I had also had a terrible sneezing fit which I get sometimes (more rarely during the winter months but does happen once or twice) due to my allergies. During the entire day Friday and Saturday my entire face hurt terribly along with my head. It has gotten better since then but now it feels like my forehead is going to explode and I feel pressure in the top of my head along with some very dull pains down the sides of my face. My nose isn't very stuffed up now but it was. Could this possibly be a sinus infection and I should see a doctor about it? (my anxiety with this is almost driving me crazy too, it is causing me to fear a doctor visit this since somewhere subconsciously I feel its something else more serious but consciously I know I'm fine.) My forehead also feels very warm from time to time but not always. When I wake up I feel fine. It seems throughout the day the pressure in my head gets worse and it feels even worse while I'm typing this up looking at a computer screen. So to relieve my anxiety with this, could this be a sinus infection of some kind? I have had sinus infections before but I have never felt anything like this.

I also have one more problem that I really do not understand at all. Just this week, maybe last Sunday too I'm not totally sure, I started having random pains all around the left side of my chest. (I think I have had 2 in the right side though.) They would come and go at random times and would last maybe 20 or 30 minutes. Other times they could just be a dull pain in one particular area lasting maybe an hour or two. These REALLY leave me with a very uneasy feeling that I think is provoking more stress and causing even more chest pain and overall uneasiness. (And probably more head pain.) Along with these pains I have also been feeling a lot of fatigue all week long. That may be due to my trouble sleeping at night which is also another problem I am having. Sometimes I find myself not falling asleep until 3, 4 or even 5 in the morning and sleeping until noon the next day. This isn't what I experienced when all this anxiety stuff began.

So does anyone have any thoughts or ideas that could help me out? I really hate this uneasy feeling and it makes me feel like my heart could stop or something any minute and that I am going to pass out or something. (Stupid I know but I guess this is anxiety and I hate that I cannot control this feeling.) I am almost to the point where I fear I have developed an anxiety disorder and that I am very scared of stressing my self doing anything physical for fear of something bad happening to me. I want to get up and do something but I can't.

Please help me!
Thanks a bunch!
-Alex

[thepilot]

By the way what makes you feel better in life nowadays? Way before the anxiety attack occured what kept you occupied that you really loved doing? Any goals? Hobbies? Maybe if what discussed what we loved doing the most we'll fall back right into our normal state (just a thought). If you're down to discuss about this leave a comment. It's kind of like counseling but it might make us feel pretty good...? I'll be glad to talk about this if anything.

-thepilot

[thepilot]

Yup. The pain still exist in my chest as well and not only that but the tingles in my left arm like my veins are clogged and some lower back problems (I don't want to get into that). I've learned that the pain is real because in this type of anxiety, which is health anxiety, we feel the insides of our body. Its hella not a good feeling at all, I still hate that fact that it still lingers in several parts of my body but it's not as bad as it was before (I'm sure you could relate). I have an appointment w/ my psychiatrist today and hopefully that goes well. I'll let you know how that goes. So you're going to exercise-cool! I had a friend of mine drop by my place to shoot some hoops w/ me yesterday and that pretty much gave me a good cardio workout plus kept my mind busy. I felt the uneasy pain right before bed again (exactly like how you feel) but I just massaged my chest w/ my right hand and squeezed a stressball w/ my left (pretty funny huh? Oh and I flicked myself w/ the rubberband). The other techniques that I've learned how to use, which works during other times when you don't feel like thinking of a positive thought is sort of like mind therapy (Oh and if you don't want to see a psychiatrist or a therapist that's cool just make sure you do what you can to make yourself feel better-I'm seeing one because I feel it might help me out a bit more). As I was saying it gets pretty technical w/ these strategies and you have to put some visual into it. It may sound crazy but for some reason it worked for me a couple times. What you could do is when you're feeling the pain (where ever it is), you take that pain and visually throw it away (sounds weird huh?). For example, my pain is in my chest, I'll metaphorically take that chest pain by grabbing it w/ my hand-put it in a real or imaginary envelope and tear it up-and then the pain will go away. Or if that doesn't work, I'll grab my chest pain again by the hand-literally go to the bathroom to throw it in the toilet and then flush it down the drain to make me really believe the pain is gone! Another way is to grab the pain, like my left forearm for instance, crush the pain like its in my hand again into a clenched fist, and throw it to the sky and out into the universe because the universe is hella big. These make me feel better for some reason. It may not work for you or it'll probably work as long as you put your mind into it. Still you will expect pain, like me, I feel headaches and I assume my ear could be the problem to make my chest and arm feel uneasy but I just massage my pain, discipline myself by taking that rubberband around my wrist and flicking myself for every bad thought, and doing that mind therapy technique. I honestly hate this pain but personally I just feel that those are some ways that I can get rid of it in my head. I could pretty much relate when you say you feel the pain and once you feel it a pretty bad thought like something horrible is going to happen but thing is after that pain slowly fades away, you're still breathing because you still believe you're okay. That exact moment is a biitch right? I know but I guess all we could do is to find ways to beat it. Sometimes we even want to become investigators so we could even find the real physical problem that is really going on inside of us. For some reason I have been doing that and I really don't get myself anywhere but stress. I still do it but I take it easy on the thoughts. I'm hella glad you're keeping me updated w/ yourself as well. Makes me feel like I'm not alone in this anxiety world. Lets just find our shuttle to get back to our normal world. That's sounds a lot better huh? So yeah let me know how your first day of school from that winter break went. And to mel16747, read me and alex's comments in this forum if you want a glimpse at what where doing and give us some feedback if you think it'll make us progress or feel any better. For the meantime lets just keep these POSITIVE THOUGHTS permanent. Discuss these types of things w/ people like you guys is only making me feel more confident, mentally, and tad bit physically better (you know what I mean heh). Comment back if anything please?

-thepilot

[mel16747]

Omg same thing with me
tho i don't want to go to the doctors or anything
I just want it to go away like alone :S
What can I do to stop this without doctors ?

x

[MZ3Alex]

(Sorry I just didn't feel like erasing everything and starting over.) But anyways, yes I agree the mind is powerful. If you tell yourself you have a problem, I think your mind kind'a makes it that way. If you tell yourself you don't, then you don't. But when a disorder becomes of a normal everyday sort of thing then it becomes very difficult to tell yourself you don't have a problem. It's almost like even as much as you think and verbally tell yourself there's nothing wrong, there's still this little subconscious thought left in there that knows you do. And that's almost like the disorder to begin with. I am going to start up some exercising and I have a friend who is kind enough to help me out with it. Hopefully that will bring up some good self-esteem and more positive thoughts. I fell a little worse than I did yesterday but I think that's cause I haven't gotten out of the house today. Tomorrow I go back to school so hopefully I will feel A LOT better. At least I hope. I am also very interested in those other techniques you mentioned. I am willing to do just about anything at this point to rid myself of this. Yes it is time for a change and we will make it happen. We just gotta concentrate and take it easy. I think another thing we need to do is when there is some little ache or pain anywhere in our body, we don't get so much anxiety over it. That is one of my main triggers. See it's been so long and so much has happened since all my anxiety started I can't remember what's normal anymore. I have always had some small pains in my chest sometimes that I usually just disregard as some kind of muscle pain since I don't really work out. (And it usually only happens after I have been laying on my side or sitting in a wrong position.) I would have never thought of worrying about it or going into a panic attack over it. But now every time I get a little pain I think it is the result of something terribly, terribly wrong. I just need to start convincing myself it's not. I have also noticed that over the past couple of days the dull pain in my chest is subsiding. I think it's due in part to my thoughts getting better. You really made an excellent point there about the thoughts. It's not only thinking positive but preventing yourself from worrying about everything that makes you feel better. It really only causes more pain by worrying. Just ignoring and continuing makes it go away. I also noticed I haven't really had any heart palpitations today either. I also don't want to start thinking about it either or I know I will start feeling some. But anyways, like before it really is good talking about this with someone and having them share their experiences back. I thank you very much for doing this. I'm going to wrap this up now but again, and questions or problems, please share them and I will try to help and I'm sure you'll do the same. :)
-Alex

[MZ3Alex]

Hey I almost wish I never was aware of it to begin with. I'm not sure if I like being more aware of the anxiety or not. I like that I now know what it is but I don't like the feelings it's giving me. Especially during the little uneasy episodes and the dull annoyance of pain in my chest that makes it feel like I could have a heart attack at any time or one of my lungs is going to collapse or something. I notice when I take my mind off of that then the pain slowly goes away and I feel normal again. These things just come out of nowhere and it seems it still only happens at night. I really don't want to get any therapy for this or see a psychologist. I really think i can beat it by myself and through things that I do and just being around my friends. I am a senior in high school so I should really be living it up right now but I have missed so much of the Christmas season because of this anxiety garbage I really hate it. And to be honest my mind just keeps going back to that fact and for some reason it sparks more anxiety even now. Perhaps I'm finally on the verge of controlling my thoughts and ridding myself of this and by the sounds of things you are too. Which is really great news to hear. (I need to continue this message on a different computer so i'll post what I have now and continue in a couple minutes.)

[thepilot]

Damn its good to hear that everything is swell. Yeah the feeling is still around huh? Although the feeling can possibly be avoided right? It's pretty cool how mind over matter works sometimes or maybe most of the times. There's a whole lot of ways to get rid of pain that our body feels and in these recent years I've learned how to approach them. Pretty much I'm almost convinced that the anxiety in most people like us was originally in us long way before we even knew like probably when we were teenagers or even younger. It's just that during that moment it exploded (pretty much happened) the stress released it that way. It hella was an ugly, painful, scary feeling, and the fact that it DID happen, we now are aware of it. Now controlling it is the only way along w/ how much effort we're willing to put to it to not let it overcome us. Yeah dude I felt hella good around the people when I went that party I was telling you. Then you when you went home it kind of acted up huh? I guess because we were sort of alone and the moment of feeling good was earlier. I notice when you, or me, or anyone become alone we all tend to think a lot, which can be good sometimes depending on what it is that we think of. Me, I used to think of crazy negative thoughts, but I hate the idea of it and now I'm developing greater thoughts about how much fun the rest of my life is going to be. Yeah Positive thoughts plus positive energy can put away painful/physical feelings aside like knowing you're going to do hella good on your SAT's and that project you were working hard for. Even in that party you felt good like you said. If only everyday could be like that right? Now all I do is try to make everyday like that as much as possible. I do get tired and I still pain lingering around me but I'm at that point where I'm going to do something about it.  Personally I feel that the mind is powerful! Lets just say that someone near said they had a headache or someback pains and then an hour later you felt those pains. Those type of things could almost be true. As long as we put our mind into dedication to get rid of what he don't feel comfortable with it could work. Lately I've been doing that, hella exercising to condition my heartbeats, plus whole lot of positive thoughts. That rubberband idea is pretty cool huh? If you're interested in some other techniques that you're willing to put some sacrifce to comment me back. I'm interested in looking for help as well as helping other people out nowadays, which I never would used to do as much before. It's time for change buddy.  By the way thanks for the response.  It also makes me feel good that someone almost w/ the same problem is communicating with me. Like you said even typing this up makes you feel good. I feel that too! I'm not a big fan of pills so I said "forget it." I'm going to do the best that I can w/out relying on medication. Instead of medication I prefer meditation. Heh. Well keep in touch. Life is interesting and lets keep it interesting. Later

-thepilot