I am in a constant state of panic and I don't know how to stop it.

[Poo44clooner]

I am in my mid 50s and have panic disorder and am taking clonazepam and meet with a psychologist. I take care of my elderly mother who has dementia and real bad short term memory. I am there during the day and I arrange for help to be with her round the clock. It is all on my shoulders. I love my mother dearly but it is never ending.

[Poo44clooner]

Thank you for your responses. It does help to know that there are people out there that do listen and that do care.
I am exhausted when I wake up from sleep and am exhausted all day. Everything irritates me. I really feel alone but reading what you wonderful people have said to me do make me feel like I do belong in the human race. Thank you. I'll keep trying to do my best to practice self care.

[specialmom]

That is so much to deal with.  Feeling like everything is dependent on you can be crushing pressure!  I'm so sorry you have this all as your own burden to carry.  And I know taking care of our parents is the right thing to do but you need respite care!  Who can you get to help you?  Do you belong to a church?  Can you ask for someone to step in and be at your place with her even if just for a couple of hours?  Hire someone?  Ask a family member?  You have to feel like you can get out occasionally.  

Being hyper responsible is something I suffer too.  Like if I'm not there to take care of it, it won't happen or it won't be good.  sometimes I have to let go.  I would never do anything to jeopardize my kids but I cut myself slack.  So what if dinner is slopped together?  If a room is messy?  I'm doing the best I can.  So, cut some corners for yourself where you can.  

We're here to help and I hope your appointment to get an antidepressant goes well!  hugs

[Poo44clooner]

Yes she has help 24 hrs a day 7 days a week. I am here every day and then I am relieved in the afternoon. But that doesn't stop the phone calls that I get from her complaining about the caregivers. Even just before I go to bed I get calls from her and her delusional dementia thinking. I am constantly trying to hire people, interviewing them, doing background checks and checking references and then having them meet my mom. Then put them on the schedule. But people do call in sick and some do not take their job seriously and stay on their phones instead of doing their job despite the rule of not using their phones except for emergencies. When I come in the morning I do all the housework so all they need to do is sweep and mop and be a companion to my mother. It just never ends.

[Poo44clooner]

I know this is not healthy for me and I have diabetes but I have the biggest bag of M&Ms and big bag of Lay's chips every night because that is where my comfort is. I see a psychologist and even call her during the week when things get bad. My annual is coming up in March and I know my lab results are going to be off the charts including my Hemoglobin A1c. I do take time to walk the treadmill that is on an incline and I increased the speed from 1.0 to 1.1 this month and I do it daily for 45 minutes. I'm trying the best that I can.

[specialmom]

Well, I'm really glad to hear that you do have someone coming in.  What I am about to say may sound harsh but will be for the best.  Tell the person who is there to call you in the event of an emergency and then do not take calls from your mom during your break.  Don't listen to the voicemails. Retrain her that you are not available during your down time and that you trust the person who is there with her.  End of story.  Extricate yourself out of being a 24/7 available person.  

I comfort eat too.  Try to just go to bed earlier, drink a cup of hot tea, etc.  That's what I do when I'm in a rut of eating wrong food at wrong time for wrong reason.  

Glad you are exercising.  YOu do need to take care of yourself.  

And part of that is separating a bit from your mom.  She'll be okay once she adjusts to this.  good luck sweetie and keep us in the loop for how it is going!

[Paxiled]

I also comfort eat, and have since I started suffering from anxiety.  Then I exercise like crazy to overcome it.  What I do is make sure to eat really really healthy and nutritious foods at meal time to compensate, and I take supplements as prophylactics.  But I will say, at 64 years old, the exercise has caught up with me and I have a lot of pain.  Don't overdo that part of it.  But do exercise.  I also encourage meditation, though with your schedule I know that's going to be hard to do.  It's worth it if you can squeeze it in.  Now, let me tell you a personal story about my Dad.  When my Mom became paralyzed from cancer, most of her friends, my brother and my sister disappeared.  I was very busy with college and then graduate studies, but whenever I could I offered to help, but my Mom wouldn't let me -- she wouldn't let me see her naked.  So my Dad was stuck working at his small business all day and then working at home the rest of the time caring for my Mom.  He started drinking, and got very tired.  But part of the problem was, both my Mom and Dad got depressed because of her illness.  Not everyone does that -- some people are just very positive despite everything.  One of my wife's best friends was also paralyzed from cancer, but she was not depressed and lived her life.  But these things are time determined -- these are terminal illnesses, and after my Mom died, my Dad married again (and after she died, married a third time).  He went on to have a happy last part of his life.  Life has parts to it -- right now it's going to be hard but try to make it as rewarding as possible and follow Mom's advice not to let it become too much for you -- when you need a break, take it, something my Dad did not do.  You best take care of someone else by also taking best care of yourself.  I know, easy to say, really really hard to do.  In Buddhism, they call every trial a field of merit -- a test of our ability to accept and transcend.  I stink at it now, but there was a time I was better at it.  My heart goes out to you, but karma will reward you.  (No, I'm not much of a practicing Buddhist, but I do learn a lot from it, or I used to before a medication took that part of my brain from me).  Peace.

[Poo44clooner]

Thank you Paxiled I will be on an antidepressant next month although I don't know which one yet. Perhaps that will help. You're right I have a negative mindset and I need to change how I see things and how I react to situations and people. I need to work on that.
Thank you

[Paxiled]

You don't mention being in therapy and you don't mention taking an antidepressant.  I know there are people who control their panic with benzos, but benzos are always short term treatments, and the more you repeat them you become addicted to the drug and you'll probably keep needing to take more and more of it.  Therapy might fix the problem altogether, and in my own experience, antidepressants if you're going to take on the problems of meds work all the time when they work, not just for a short duration.  As to taking care of your mother, for an anxious person there is always something in life that will bite you.  Many find being caretakers stressful, others find it incredibly rewarding.  It depends on their internal makeup and what else they're giving up to do it.  You can choose to make it rewarding or you can choose to make it a burden, if you try hard enough, but when you suffer anxiety the tendency is to be negative about things.  It is the nature of the illness.