To think actually nobody can help me? Do other people live like this too?

[SoStResseds]

I’m 37. I have struggled with anxiety all my life. I remember being 5 and almost being physically sick worrying about spelling tests and since then I’ve worried about everything under the sun… health, people dying, paranoia, thinking people hate me, worrying I will become bankrupt, worrying I will be shot while driving (?!), worrying I have offended people… it goes on and on and on. I have sought help often. Had therapy, it works a little and I am not as bad as I used to be but I’m still 37 and a huge proportion of my life is lived in anxiety. Is this just it for me? I have tried so hard, spoken to gp, read books, meditation. I’m too anxious to take medication so I haven’t tried that although it’s been offered over the years. I’ve been told it’s a sticking plaster anyway and not dealing properly with the anxiety itself. I know this has come from huge pressure academically as a child and I have had therapy for that. I understand I am probably of that nature too and it’s just been an awful mix of things and now I’m here. I genuinely feel mildly nauseous everyday even when I don’t know why im anxious. Do other people live like this too?

Your anxiety sounds extreme and I would pursue medical treatment. But for FWIW my (much milder) anxiety was helped a great deal once I started therapy, and it particularly when it was explained that my feelings of anxiety were responses by my nervous system to perceived threats.
I learned that we can go into fight-or-fight when we fear our essential needs will not be met. This can come about in infancy if you are denied key emotional care - it doesn't have to be any thing extreme or traumatic, but can be a simple as growing up around parents who act unpredictably or in an emotionally distant way. You learn to fear that you may soon be in danger and that can manifest in adult life as being worried and scared about anything and everything.
You will still feel anxiety but in time you can retrain your thoughts to understand that what you're feeling is a nervous system response to threats that are not real. That's a huge breakthrough in itself.

Yes this was me at 37. Avoided medication at all costs and considered it a last resort. The anxiety was just crippling.

Been on fluoxetine for 2 years now and haven't looked back. Wish I'd done it sooner.

Medication.

A therapist told me once that sometimes you take the medication to relax you enough for the therapy to have a chance to work for you. If you don’t want to take it forever, try going in with that mindset.

Yes, meds are a sticking plaster as in they protect the wound whilst it heals.
My anxiety stems from autism and ADHD, which I was only diagnosed with a few years ago. I thought everyone felt like that!

Citalopram and Propananol have helped enormously. ADHD meds help even more to the point where my anxiety is at normal levels. You don't have to live like this.

I feel like this too. Constant feeling like there's a sword hanging over my head that could fall at any time. I have also resisted medication up until now but have now decided to see if sertraline helps. It's only been a couple of weeks but I do feel a bit less anxious, and there haven't been any horrible side effects. Maybe worth a go if you haven't already.

have you considered your anxiety as a symptom of PTSD? Try a therapist who offers EMDR processing. Worked for me.

Kindly meant but you really need to get over yourself and speak to a GP about taking medication. There's nothing to fear and everything to root for. You absolutely do not need to live this way. I'm on 50mg sertraline and it has saved me from panicking constantly.

But you haven't tried everything as you haven't tried the medication...

Citalopram helped me.

Not everybody wants medication. That is their right and I don't like the tone of 'if you're not taking medication, you aren't really trying'

My brother is on medication for depression. He now cannot exist without them and has terrible withdrawal symptoms if he tries to wean off them.

Part of it is society too imo. It's like nothing - the things that exacerbate anxiety - changes, and the responsibility is all on the person to adapt to it.

Increasingly I believe the western capitalist way of life just doesn't suit some of us. That needs to be addressed. Also women and sex based oppression is a part of it.

I was worried too because there's a big thing made about how sertraline can make things worse for the first two weeks of trying it, but that wasn't my experience at all. I started to feel better quite quickly. I don't feel emotionally numb either. Just less anxious!

Another chiming in to say Sertraline has been a game changer for me. My anxiety was debilitating beforehand, despite CBT and counselling.

I didn’t find starting them or titrating up bad at all - certainly no worse than the anxiety I was taking it to treat.

To be anxious to take meds but spend days worrying and feeling exhausted by all the anxiety.
It is not a sticking plaster to be on anxiety meds. It is making it manageable and at a dose right for you.
Rather, take a tablet and start to live a healthier lifestyle or waste your life and days continuing as you are.
Meds have a purpose to help you function and get through with a pretty debilitating daily problem.
It is the beginning of calming your brain down to function in a more logical way.
I beg to understand how a person can go without meds in this instance.
My friends who don't I believe are ridding themselves of a peaceful mellower daily life...and when I can get a word in exhausting.

How was your childhood? Were your mum or dad (or grandparents) worriers?

My brother is on medication for depression. He now cannot exist without them and has terrible withdrawal symptoms if he tries to wean off them.

What's wrong with that, though?

Depression is an illness like any other.

I was like you. Mirtrazipine saved my life. It also helps me sleep and it made me gain weight (which I was glad about because I was medically underweight and had no appetite due to anxiety).

I’ve always been like this OP and I was diagnosed with Asperger’s at 42.

Try reading At Last a Life by Paul David. It has been recommended a few times on here and it’s very different to other self help books. The only negative is that it assumes that the reader hasn’t always been anxious. I’ve always been anxious but not in an ocd way…I’d worry a lot about PE and public speaking - that sort of thing but I didn’t have intrusive thoughts. I’m hoping that this book can at least take me back to a time when my anxiety didn’t ruin my life and cause suicidal thoughts. I’ve not finished reading it but the first chapter is potentially life changing.

Be careful if you’re going to try sertraline….I reacted very badly to it. I read somewhere that some autistics have naturally high levels of seratonin so adding more isn’t a good idea. I had a huge high from it after an hour or so, spent the next day in a lovely haze (but achieving nothing) and then the next day ended up in A&E because of a huge panic attack. Then twelve hours of extreme nausea!

@SoStResseds don't see it as a sticking plaster. The way it was described to me is this:

1.You're in a hole with a ladder a few feet off the ground, on the wall.
1.Therapy is the ladder to get out of the hole - you have to climb out and it's hard work.
1.Medication is the step-stool to reach the ladder.

Allow yourself to step up to the ladder.

You are clearly being unreasonable to think no-one can help you when you have rejected one of the most effective sources of help, i.e. medication. Try it. DSis has found it really made all the difference and, properly supervised, has no downside.

Not just you. I empathise completely. I remember saying to a therapist that all I want is just one day where I don’t feel
constantly anxious and on edge.

In terms of the sticking plaster comment , I made a similar one to my doctor and told me to think of it like this: If you break your leg very badly, you need a cast while it heals and physio to get back to your normal strength. Medication is the cast and therapy is the physio.

It sounds like many others have also found medication helps. I take Sertraline and it makes things a little easier. If you don’t get on with the tablets you’re given, ask for different ones - it’s your right. You can always taper off medication with GP supervision , it doesn’t have to be forever.

And for everyone I’ve known to take anti-depressants/anti-anxiety medication , it just seems to take the edge off the constant anxiety or constant sadness. I appreciate that is a sample of only about 20 people, but it may help a little to know.

You need medication. Duloxetine saved my life.

It's your body's way of trying to protect you.
When l realised this l was much gentler on myself.
I also learnt after a lot of practice to flip my negative thoughts over. This has made a big difference for me, instead of dreading something l tell myself I'm going to have a good day today no matter what, and celebrate all my small victories, and don't focus on the stuff that didn't go so well, but still applaud myself for trying.
There's some good speakers on Youtube, words are very powerful and what you tell yourself, your internal dialect can make a positive difference. It's not about being positive all the time, some things are hard, so then tell yourself "l can do it hard, l can do it anxious, l can do it tired , scared"
After a while you start feeling more confident and keep trying to envisage the best case scenario, it really changes how you feel, takes daily practice but so worth it.

I have also heard that people on the AS aren't necessarily helped by Sertraline, @DelightfullyDotty. Yet also watched an interview with Temple Grandin where she spoke about a low dose of Prozac finally turning off the intense anxiety she had lived with. Hard to know what to do.

I also have terrible anxiety and I’m 48, remember having it even when I was a child, sitting in the shower tray ( fully clothed ) as a child crying as I was so worried about about a spelling test….and I was a good student!

what has helped me in the last number of years is standing up to people, getting ‘friends’ out of my life who aren’t real friends and cause me stress, not spending time with people I don’t enjoy spending time with, you nearly have to look at everything that causes you anxiety and start dealing with them separately, as you grow stronger the anxiety reduces a bit.

Also another thing, is I just try and deal with issues that happen in the now, and not worry about what might happen in the future as those things are completely out of your control and may not even happen, very often they don’t.

I used to lie awake at night worrying about stuff but I don’t do that anymore as I kept telling myself that you can’t do anything about anything at 2 o clock in the morning so may as well get some sleep so you will be fully rested in order to deal with the issue the next day

You have to start being selfish and putting yourself first

Words you tell yourself and how you frame things is certainly true. That's why I found CBT helpful as it gets you to challenge your thoughts.

But I find life shit gets in the way as well as messages about what is success in society. As I don't meet those thresholds it makes the positive framing difficult.

If you any useful talks on YT I love to see the links.