To ask how to get past this extreme anxiety?

[Beatinganxiety]

Name changed for this incase recognized.

I’d really welcome any advice as this is taking over my life.

As a bit of background, I am classed as what was known as ‘clinically extremely vulnerable’ and had to shield at home for many months at the start of the pandemic. I received my jabs long before my age group and have had all the covid jabs I was eligible for as well as my flu vaccine.

I also lost a family member to covid who had the same vulnerabilities as me which makes me worried further.

Now most restrictions have been lifted, things have pretty much gone back to normal when out and about. Nobody seems to worry and there’s coughing and sneezing everywhere you go. I wouldn’t have even noticed before covid but now hear every cough or sneeze and try to avoid it at all costs.

Others could catch the same cold as me and be better in 5/6 days. The same virus could take me 4/5 weeks to fully recover from.

I am trying to do normal things for the family e.g. Santa visits at garden centres, days out etc. I do all I can to minimize the risk e.g trying to go to places as early in the day as possible so there’s less risk of germs in the air etc. I try and avoid indoor venues where possible, still get all my shopping delivered etc.

Despite all this, I am suffering from extreme anxiety and spend the next week or so after going somewhere wondering if I could have caught Covid (or other viruses that are about this time of year ). I am already taking high doses of vitamin D etc to help.

I have tried various therapy, I am on tablets for anxiety which help me to get through the day but the anxiety is always there bubbling.

Once schools break up I want to isolate the family as much as possible as know everywhere will be busy before Christmas and now have scarlet fever and strep A to add to my list of anxieties.

If out in public I won’t touch door handles, taps, trollies. Anything I deem as a risk. I don’t let the family either as it would make my anxiety worse.

I am very aware that this level of anxiety is not normal at all, and I’d love to be free of it and just feel normal again.

Am i the only one who feels like this? If you’ve been in a similar position and managed to get over it, how?

And yes, actually - 6 years ago I was a mess who could only go outside long enough to do the school run/a quick trip to the park, had a useless GP, a long list of reasons why I was like that/why nothing worked/couldn’t do anything about it.

It took my brother coming home from abroad after not seeing him for 18 months and him asking “Well what the fuck are YOU going to do about <gestures wildly> THIS because I don’t recognise you and it’s not sustainable much longer without damaging your children, if it hasn’t already” for me to wake up a tad.

Yes, it could have pushed me further into the dark but my brother is Autistic and has never masked or filtered his words around me (nor do I want him to).

As was regularly explained in the pandemic, you cannot catch any respiratory illness from touching anything - door handles included! Maybe your extreme anxiety would improve if you informed yourself of the actual facts and the low levels of risk that applay?
Please do not pass on all this unnecessary fear to your children!

Perhaps protection is a practical way forward. Wear masks, always have a mini sanitiser in pocket, test regularly.

Therapy would be a more effective help, hope you get sorted. Sometimes trainee therapists are available for a nominal fee.

It's a vicious cycle, I struggle to go out due to anxiety that went supersonic during Lockdowns.

I don't agree that anything I said was abusive or shaming.

I do believe that it's very serious when someone's anxiety is so severe, it restricts the freedom of, say, dependant children.

I've had to work SO, so damned hard ony own MH (which, for instance, included pretty severe anxiety attacks about leaving the house post partum with my DC) that I'd rather say straight when something written on MN worries me.

Other posters can call me shaming, scolding, belittling, abusive; whatever. Sometimes direct speaking is an individual's way of trying to feedback their concerns.

Maybe I'm too blunt and maybe lived experience of severe and enduring MH issues and working my arse off/fighting to mitigate their impact on my family has made me hard? I don't know. But, straight talking and tough love got through to me when nothing else did.

I have had extensive mental health support for trauma and anxiety and my therapist would probably share my view. Great you can get on with life, I'm happy for you - but dont impose your recovery on someone else. Sometimes its really slow, step forward, step back to get to a better place. Shaming is not bullshit, shame serves to make people more stuck. Its not controlling or coercive begaviour its the outcome of badly managed anxiety.
CBT has benefits as do EMDR, DBT and Hynotheraphy but none of those will be engaged in by a person who has been told she is deficient, controlling and generally awful. It just deepens the anxiety trauma spiral. So back off and let her investigate something to make her and her kids life better.

The point is that the OP doesn't need to be told they're abusive. They don't need tough love. They came here for help to stop acting this way, not further criticism or a kicking. It's inappropriate.

Give methods and help if you can but anything else is just unhelpful.

If they'd said "how do I make everyone else do what I want", you'd be bang on.

Exactly, they know theres a problem they just need help to find the solution.

Well done for recognising that you need things to change. I used to have anxiety and the things that helped me were, imagining the worst was to happen then making a contingency plans, so I got really good life insurance and made a cast iron will. My anxiety centered around car accidents so I also bought a volvo.
Then, with those plans in place I felt a lot more settled and I got myself booked in for CBT.
My anxiety was cured by CBT, couldn't recommend it highly enough.
Good luck OP.

This op.

But your fear is understandable. I’m cev and COVID was very rough for me.

On the practical rather than psychological side, there’s zero risk in touching door handles as long as you wash your hands afterwards.
Also there’s a fab virus blocker which really seems to work called ColdZyme. A little pricey but knowing you are taking it may reduce your anxiety?

Yes there’s also careful and deliberate exposure therapy, is that an option? If yes then you could look for an OCD CBT therapist as that’s exactly what they would be doing.

I think the tablets are not working and you should go back to the doctor's. I get it OP because I was cev too and anxious already but when the anxiety really took over was when the Ukraine war started and those nuclear threats. So much so that I didn't want anyone to leave the house in case it happened and the kids were without me and frightened at the end

I managed not to actually stop them and made a pact with myself that if I couldn't control the anxiety by a date I would go to the docs (again -have been medicated many times), but I was able to control it by focusing on each minute as it passed, physically checking in with myself 'ok right now this minute I'm ok' until the wave passed. And for some reason it's gone now.

But you do have to decide what is rational risk averse behaviour and what is letting the anxiety make your decisions. That is really not ok for you or anyone else.