I can’t get out of bed

[fireflylanegirls]

I feel like my life is over. I literally couldn’t get out of bed this morning, the way I feel is just too bad.

I spent over a year worrying about Covid, not just worrying, obsessing.
Panic attacks, sleepless nights, I couldn’t focus on my family life, couldn’t concentrate because of the worry.

I was finally vaccinated and although initially I didn’t feel any better, within a few weeks i started to feel so much happier.

Then the shit news comes about the clots from the vaccine.

I feel absolutely numb. I’ve spent the last 24hours just crying. I wish I’d never had the vaccine now.
It’s been 4 weeks and I’m such a nervous wreck.

My husband has had to drop our son at my mother in laws today because I’m in no fit state to look after him.

I’ve called my GP and have been told to increase my Sertraline to 100mg.

I absolutely hate living with this fear.

I knew this vaccine was too good to be true 😩

@RaspberryCoulis

There is no point in reassuring the OP with statistics or percentages or figures. You need to be thinking rationally to interpret statistics in a rational way and draw conclusions. It is very clear that the OP is very ill and is unable to do that.

OP you are very unwell and just upping your meds is not going to be enough. When you are unwell to the point that you are lying in bed waiting to die, then you need a stronger intervention. I am no expert and don't really know what's available but you need your DH to step up here and help you. Not by pandering to you and removing your child while you lie in bed, but by getting you therapy/help/an emergency GP appointment.

You are convinced that you are going to be that 1 in a milion or whatever even though logic says that 4 weeks after a vaccine it's not going to happen. When 28 days have passed and that "risk" has gone it'll be something else which your anxiety hooks onto. And then something else, and on and on forever.

It's no way to live.

@RaspberryCoulis

I really don’t think anyone knows when the “cut off” is.

People have said 14, 16, 20 and now 28 days. 🤷🏻‍♀️

So I was wondering whether today will be the day when you know that if you were going to get a clot, it would be by now. Do you feel any kind of reassurance about that this morning it now looks incredibly unlikely?

No I don’t feel any more reassured because I keep having an on / off headache.

My neck feels tense, my temples and forehead feel like I have a band around my head.

Im going for a walk with my husband and son this morning, maybe some fresh air will help.

@fireflylanegirls do you accept your thoughts are irrational?

I didn’t have any headaches after having the vaccine, and I’ve been fine for 3 and a half weeks. 🤷🏻‍♀️

[quote userxx]@fireflylanegirls do you accept your thoughts are irrational? [/quote]
@userxx

No. I don’t.

I feel like my thoughts are very very real.

If I didn’t have a headache I wouldn’t be so stressed (I would still be worried but probably not as worried)

Op an on and off headache is what I have too, but a blood clot would cause a severe headache, you would feel or be sick. Your vision maybe affected. You would know about it. Definitely. A blinding headache is difficult to miss and would not come and go.

Can you ask your dh to go and get some cream or oil and really massage the back of your neck and head. Your headache sounds like a stress headache. Keep putting your chin on your chest, and rotate your head to release the tension.

Going for a walk, and focus on the changes of the season. Breathe well.

You can get past this, personally I would get tough, self care sometimes means we need to really take ourselves in hand.

I don't have a blood clot, I am going to be just fine. Today it is now four weeks, 28 days and I have been fine and remain healthy and well.

Do not give into the negative thought spiral.

If you had a young girl who was feeling as you do, what would you advise her to do op?

I feel like my thoughts are very very real. If I didn’t have a headache I wouldn’t be so stressed (I would still be worried but probably not as worried)

Except you would be so stressed, because your anxiety would have found something else to latch onto. Until you start to accept that your thoughts are irrational and that anxiety is why you are feeling so awful then there's not much anyone can say to help you.

You have a headache because you ARE so stressed.

userxx
@fireflylanegirls do you accept your thoughts are irrational? 
@userxx

No. I don’t.

I feel like my thoughts are very very real.

Your thoughts are obviously real.
They are also irrational.

Last night you argued because you believed you were having a brain haemorrhage, you weren't, but you still believe you must be right and your husband must believe you.

Gosh this is sad. Covid is so low risk, there are many other risks in life that nobody thinks twice about. The media have terrified people and the clot issue has been made so high profile when it is not warranted. There are risks with every medicine, it is all about benefit risk balance. The public shouldn't be given information that they cannot process correctly. I hope you get the help you need and start living again. It is so sad that people are losing months and years of their life to covid anxiety when it's not proportionate to the risk.

I’d pay that therapist on a cc, my dh has anxiety and if he hadn’t improved a lot I don’t how long I would have been able to cope with it.

You need to prioritise dealing with the anxiety.

I think that if it wasn't the fear of a blood clot it would be something else.

You are focusing your anxiety on the current issue of blood clots and catastrophising. If it wasn't blood clots it would be something else. Even if you had reassurance about this you would still be suffering.

Can you see the bigger picture? Can you see it's your anxiety that's doing this?

I really hope you can access some help and begin to recover and enjoy life again. This is no way to live

Have you put a call in to your gp?

Have you tried ANYTHING to control your thoughts? Anything at all?

I hope things get better for you OP

@LIZS

Have you put a call in to your gp?

@LIZS

Yes. It’s a call back system so I’m waiting for them to call me back.

@zzizzer

Have you tried ANYTHING to control your thoughts? Anything at all?

@zzizzer

The worry tree, grounding techniques, mindfulness.

The thoughts always win.

@fireflylanegirls Why haven't you looked at the website I linked you that breaks thoughts down it's really good.

I've responded to some of your other threads OP. I'm sorry things aren't still difficult.

Initially you didn't want to return to work until you'd been vaccinated, you were convinced you'd feel much better once you were vaccinated. You didn't (which is completely understandable because of the anxiety).

Then you were concerned about the distancing/behaviour of your colleagues in the office.

Now you are concerned about the side effects of the vaccine.

This is classic anxiety. As soon as one anxiety is addressed or passes, the worry moves to something else.

Anxiety is worry that is disproportionate to the risk. Just because something isn't completely impossible doesn't mean that being completely consumed with worry about it is rational.

Take a fear of flying for example, you might be anxious about flying because of the risk of the plane crashing. Plane crashes do happen, if you get on a plane there is a very, very small chance that the plane will crash. A non anxious person rationalises that concern, assesses the risk and doesn't think much more about it. A person suffering with anxiety will focus on that tiny, tiny risk and magnify it to the point that they are consumed with worry about that tiny risk. They might become convinced that it is almost inevitable that the plane will crash, they will catastrophise and imagine the worst possible outcome.

This is where you are. I would suggest it would be helpful to start trying to challenge your belief that your feelings about these fears are rational and proportionate. They are not.

Keep reaching out for help. How long have you been on the sertraline? It might not be working for you. Paroxetine has been very helpful for me.

Op may I suggest your dh speaks to the dr, and explains you are no longer able to care for your child, that he is now taking time off because you are no longer able to care for yourself and you desperately need some help and support as a family.

It might be better coming from him, because if you are as anxious as you sound it might be difficult to fully communicate the real problem. If you talk of clots and headaches they may well think it is a physical issue.

Your dh needs to speak with them calmly, and fully explain the situation is my best advice op. I hope they can help.

[quote stressbandit]@fireflylanegirls Why haven't you looked at the website I linked you that breaks thoughts down it's really good. [/quote]
No more panic?

And what if your heart just suddenly stops? What if you develop cancer? What if you're walking down a road and a car speeds up the path and hits you? What if you get kidnapped and murdered? What if you're asleep in bed and your house catches fire and you die? Death is a normal part of life and when its your time its your time. It shows that the media is doing its job right when people are so scared of dying of covid or vaccine complications rather than dying full stop. There are way, way worse ways to go.
Also, blood clots are usually very manageable.

@fireflylanegirls yes it has these types of info in there and breaks it down into tiny pieces to digest it's easy to read. There's work books to read through also.

OP, in a few weeks when a blood clot doesn't appear your anxiety will focus on a new problem. Variants in to the coming from holidaymakers perhaps. You'll be frozen scared again. Then when numbers don't start rising due to new variants your anxiety will focus on the "dangers" of a booster jab.
If these are overwhelmingly real problems, why aren't we all taking to our beds? That would be the right thing to do if the threat is as great as you say. Your MIL is older, but she didn't take to her bed yesterday. Your husband is more at risk statistically because he is male. He isn't in bed crying. There are millions of people working in offices, supermarkets, on transport. They've been working throughout. They can't all be wrong and only you right about the risk and how we should react. Can you see that you have a mental illness that is stopping you from functioning. It isn't Covid. If it was, we'd all be in bed and given up on life.
Get intense private therapy now. Not once-a-week 'going through the motions' therapy.

@yahyahs22

And what if your heart just suddenly stops? What if you develop cancer? What if you're walking down a road and a car speeds up the path and hits you? What if you get kidnapped and murdered? What if you're asleep in bed and your house catches fire and you die? Death is a normal part of life and when its your time its your time. It shows that the media is doing its job right when people are so scared of dying of covid or vaccine complications rather than dying full stop. There are way, way worse ways to go. Also, blood clots are usually very manageable.

You don't understand health anxiety to be writing this. I know you mean well, but if a person with HA is focused on, for example, brain eating amoebas found in water (I'm not kidding - this is a relatively common obsession among HA sufferers) then telling them that they have a gazillion more chances of dying of cancer doesn't make a blind bit of difference, because that is not the thing their health anxiety is focused on.

It's a very specific disorder. It has a laser-like focus on whatever the anxiety has latched on to. It doesn't respond to rational argument about symptoms or statistics or anything else. There are no magic words about Covid or vaccine stats that will reach OP in this state.

A medical team at the hospital could put OP through every sort of test under the sun and give her the all clear. Within an hour OP will start to experience intrusive thoughts about, "what if they missed something?". "That consultant had a funny expression on her face when she told me I was fine. What did that mean?".

Until OP accepts that health anxiety is the one and only issue she has to focus on, no one here can advise or help her.

She's not ready. She's still focusing entirely on Covid and clots. It's all she thinks about. Earlier she said she had financial resources to pay for private therapy. Then she backtracked. She's not committed to getting better.

If someone told her that there was a drug available that would guarantee no blood clots but cost the price of a car she'd find the money right now. But she won't pay for therapy for her health anxiety. Because at the moment she believes she genuinely might have a blood clot. And she still 100% believes that that is her main problem.