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 😩

I've had pretty crippling anxiety which mainly manifests physically (somatic symptoms I think they're called). So I've had extreme fatigue, breathlessness, migraine like headaches, nausea, digestive problems, lack of appetite, vertigo, tinnitus and some more!

Every single one of these physical symptoms was caused by the anxiety itself.

Your headache is caused by your anxiety.

@LIZS

Safe from what though? Anxiety will simply move on to another thing. Look back at your threads over the last month. It has just gone on from your risk of a walk outside, having a high bmi, returning to work, catching it from your ds, needing the jab , fear of the office environment, consequences of the jab, blood clots ... You need help to break the cycle.

As an aside, with a headache from a blood clot you would really struggle to post on mn. Write off today as a duvet day and see how you feel tomorrow. Call gp again and tell him/her how you really are, what you fear and ask how you can access help.

@LIZS

Safe from the risk of a clot from the vaccine.

I think like a pp, if it wasn't for covid, you would still have developed this anxiety, just known as pnd, it's just that the covid situation has made it easy to latch onto that.

I have had ups and downs of being anxious about covid and now I am at peace with covid. I'm sick of worrying about 'oh but I might die, I don't want to die' and now I tell myself that if I die, I won't be worrying about it anymore and dying doesn't seem that scary in comparison!

Can you speak to a midwife hotline about pnd, what about looking into a mother and baby unit to help you get better? Cbt courses?

There we go OP sounds a much more likely explanation than a clot on the brain Does a couple of paracetamol ease it If they do it’s not a clot on the brain
Live your life enjoy your baby time is too short to worry about something that hasn’t even happened

Hi OP, I hear how distressing this is for you. Reading your responses, you do seem aware that even a brain scan would only calm you for a few days.
This isn’t about the vaccine and you know that. Have you always had anxiety and if so has it always be focused around health.
You had a baby in at the beginning of a pandemic, where not one of your previous expectations or experiences were met. This, along with changing hormones can have a huge impact.
Yes up your meds. However you need to look into getting more specific mental health help. If you feel you cannot do this, get someone to help you.
This level of anxiety that’s been ongoing for more than a year, probably needs more intensive therapy than weekly cbt sessions.
By putting it off you are not helping yourself. You would go before a brain scan, so please look into more specific help.

@waterlego Thank you. You too. It really is a bugger. It was like part of my brain knew I was being illogical but the sensible side of me was overwhelmed by this conviction of ‘bad things are going to happen’. When I think back to that time I can still feel the shadow of it and the rising panic. Horrible.

I think I’ll always have a tendency to worry and feel anxious but hopefully I have some strategies in place now. And strangely I don’t worry much about my son’s health.

As someone who is anxious of side effects of a vaccination I can’t see how upping medication which can have serious side effects is going to help! But I’m not a doctor so they must know what’s best.

In patients that have had surgery they tell them to walk around as often as they can - if you want to have some type of control you could make sure you’re walking around for 5/10mins every hour.

I went to the hospital today for something pre-booked and they are overwhelmed with the amount of people phoning in or waking in worried about blood clots.
I had an appointment but before I could speak to say why I was there I was given a prepared speech about how they know I’ve seen the news and that I must be worried etc but a headache would be awful and won’t go away with pain killers etc.
I get that people are worried and are wasting their time but I just hope this doesn’t make them dismissive of people who actually need help.

Ask your gp for reassurance about az vaccine, did you mention that today, do they know you have anxiety specifically about that now? All evidence is that you are well beyond the timeframe identified as potentially "risky" but hearing that won't be enough. Tomorrow your anxiety will fixate on the next bit of news.

I'm also having CBT on the nhs
My therapist said something along the lines of this once ' just because we are giving this worry all this time and energy doesn't make it any more real '
Right now you are ok :)
Nothing terrible is happening right now.
Its so so hard but we can't live our lives thinking what if this . What if that etc.

I can imagine how you are feeling. The worrying must be utterly draining for you.
You are ok. You will be ok.

OP you need a lot more help than anti-depressants. You're clearly very mentally unwell, being unable to get out of bed because you're so anxious/depressed is not normal and I say this as someone who has suffered from severe depression in the past.
The sad thing is that you're so anxious about dying and not being there for your baby yet you spent your day off unable to get out of bed and look after them. Whilst you won't be dead from from being so mentally unwell you won't be there for your DC as you'll be so wrapped up in your worries.

As soon as I saw your name my heart sank, OP.

You’re so mentally unwell, you really are. You need higher level help than some ADs and a bit of CBT.

Please listen to what everyone is saying.

When I had lung blood clots over a year ago none of my friends really knew what blood clots were let alone that they can be life threatening. Now everyone thinks a blood clot will instantly kill you!!

Like many things, blood clots are treatable with medication. It’s those who don’t seek medical help that are most at risk. In the same way that if you leave an infected cut you might get sepsis, if you leave a blood clot it can be fatal. Now that we all know the very very rare brain blood clot link, if you get a very very very bad headache after the vaccine, then pop down to A&E and get it checked out. It is SO unlikely that anyone even with a very very rare brain blood clot is even going to die now medical professionals know to look out for it.

I have a blood clot disorder and I had the AZ vaccine for my first dose and won’t hesitate to get the second dose. I’m mid 30s.

[quote fireflylanegirls]@Level75

Reading some of your posts I genuinely thought you might need some sort of hospital treatment/to be sectioned - to an independent observer it genuinely seems that bad

Oh gosh, this is awful. It really upsets me.

To be sectioned seems so extreme.

It was only yesterday I was sat at work drinking coffee with my colleagues trying to be normal, I don’t want to be sectioned.

It’s just all so much and sometimes I struggle to cope, but I didn’t realise I came across as needing something so extreme.

I feel like I’ve gone through a really traumatic experience. I gave birth and 4 weeks later the supermarkets were empty, everyone was panicking, a week later the country was locked down because of this awful illness out to get us.

I was absolutely terrified and to be honest that terror and fear has never left me.
The fear of dying and leaving my baby without a mum.

I’ve never got past that fear of Covid. Whilst everyone else seems to be able to live with it, I haven’t.

These last few weeks I’ve started to have a tiny bit of normality.
I’ve been to a supermarket, I’ve been to work, my son is at nursery.

Then the news of the blood clots and it’s like the fear has come flooding back.

I could hide from Covid. I could stay at home, not see anyone.

I can’t hide from the affects of the vaccine. I’ve already had it now. It’s in my body. 😫[/quote]
From reading this it sounds like you have PND, which possibly has developed into health anxiety and post traumatic stress. However PND it’s self can last a couple of years.

You’ve done the right thing seeking support from your GP and starting anti depressants and having some counselling, the only problem with anti depressants is that they can take some time to work and for you to find the right dosage, you may even find that you have to change to a different type before you find the right ones for you.

Vitamin B12 and magnesium can also help with depression and anxiety so perhaps look into taking these too. You could also contact PANDAS for some support pandasfoundation.org.uk/

You’re not alone in how you’re feeling many peoples mental health is suffering right now, I too suffer from anxiety, depression and health anxiety and totally understand how you are feeling. I know all of the things that I should be doing to help myself but at the minute doing smaller tasks helps me to manage it, as otherwise I start to feel overwhelmed and my anxiety goes through the roof! Some days I just lie in bed and can’t even face having a shower, then I get more anxious and depressed because I’ve not eaten and wasted the day laid in bed. My health anxiety is also through the roof at the moment as I’m awaiting a hospital appointment which is on hold because of bloody covid, then I’ve had the text message to book the covid test and now worried about blood clots. But then I know I’m more at risk if I’m not mobile and laid in bed all day.....

So what I’m trying to say is that you’ve made some really good positive steps, and keep posting on here if it helps.

leaving my baby without a mum

I mean this as lovingly and as gently as possible, but you’re so tied up in your fear and anxiety, you’re leaving him without a mum right now.

Please listen to what others here have said, you are severely mentally unwell. You need urgent help and a once a week CBT and upping your dosage is not cutting it. Please talk to people in real life and reach out to a crisis team. Get more therapy, urgently.

I’ve also seen a lot of your posts and honestly think you need some serious intervention.

You’re not going to die. Not of a blood clot, not of Covid. You honestly aren’t.

OP I totally understand how you’re feeling, I’ve had health anxiety, as well as social anxiety and depression since I was a teenager. I’ve had small breaks in its intensity over the years but it’s something I have to live with, I take medication and have tried all sorts of therapy but my brain just doesn’t work correctly. One way to face an episode like this is to confront it, you will never believe that you are not in danger so that doesn’t work. In your head, this is very real and it’s certainly going to be you that will get a clot, so challenge it, tell yourself ok if this is going to happen to me there is absolutely nothing I can do to stop it so let’s wait! Carry on best you can and wait... and days with pass and the worry will lessen.
Getting a brain scan won’t help, you know that. You’ll wonder if they missed it, didn’t look properly, what if it developed just after the scan? Anxiety is a powerful beast.

Also to the posters who don’t understand just how powerful an anxiety episode can be, telling someone in the grips of it that they need sectioned or reminding them of the risks in their antidepressants or other meds is extremely dangerous and not helpful.

Try and get a good nights sleep op - very much you are getting as much RL support as possible.

Stop watching the news, get yourself off social media and speak to your GP again.

Op, a PP made a really good point about vitamin B12. I have pernicious anemia, which started after my Ds1 was born. It can make you very mentally unwell.

Please ask the GP for a blood test to check your vitamin levels.

I have also suffered with terrible health anxiety when each of my 3 DC were really small. I have been utterly convinced that I have a terminal illness on a few occasions and I know you really believe it.

@amarya absolutely 100% this.

I really feel for you. I’m also not sure the crisis team would do anything right now. I had this level of anxiety for a time about 2 years ago on a different topic. I literally couldn’t function. And every time people told me that I had an anxiety issue, I would tell them that they were wrong because the thing I was worrying about was REAL and DANGEROUS and they were the ones with the broken thinking. I hardly slept or ate and I walked around hyperventilating on the verge of passing out because inside I felt that my children’s deaths were imminent and I was going to have to watch them suffer and then die. I read every single piece of news related to it over and over every day and knew that I might have to kill my children in the future to stop them suffering. Obviously a ridiculous thing to think as they would be adults at the time that I was thinking of but all I could see was their innocent little faces and the hell that was going to rain down on them. Felt like I was living in a terrifying science fiction film. The gp was useless and when I finally reached a complete breaking point where I felt like I physically couldn’t stand this non-stop adrenaline and panic and feeling of imminent doom anymore I called the number I was given. They were very concerned about my mental state but because I told them that I didn’t want to kill myself right then, I was put on the normal nhs waiting list. I’ve previously had psychotic episodes and had long term care from a psychologist? and they said that I still wouldn’t get anything other than the standard 6 sessions because this was just anxiety. Really bad anxiety, but still only anxiety. I said the same thing as you - I was panicking like this because I don’t want to die! The complete opposite of feeling suicidal. I wish I could just take how I am feeling right now and deposit it inside you because I now have proportionate and rational thoughts about the issue which caused me anxiety so I know it is possible to get over it.

What do your family and partner say about this? You really need to be able to recognise that the reaction you are having is disproportionate to the risk. I think it’s quite likely that once some time has gone by and you haven’t developed a blood clot, you won’t turn around and say oh look, I was wrong, it was just anxiety and there was no reason for me to feel so bad, all sorted, but will instead transfer this thinking onto something else.

I know this sounds really stupid because you’re not choosing to feel this way, but what good would sitting around thinking that you might get a blood clot do if you did end up having one? Panicking about it for weeks beforehand wouldn’t change the outcome either way because your thoughts don’t actually change anything. You will either have one or not have one. The overwhelming likelihood is that you won’t have one (I believe it is a certainty now since you are past the date that this could occur anyway), but you will have wasted precious time in your one and only life worrying about something you cannot control. Again, I know that sounds possibly harsh or pointless, because this isn’t a choice, but it sometimes helped me to frame my own thoughts that way. I told myself that, if my worst fears were to happen (which is statistically unlikely), then I’ve wasted my one chance at life worrying about this thing which would happen whether I worried about it or not. My children’s lives would have been overshadowed by my futile worrying. My worrying doesn’t stop it from happening. And if my worst fears were not to happen (likeliest outcome), I would have also wasted my one life worrying about something which I have no control over and was completely unnecessary. Either way it was a waste of my life.

I also thought quite a lot about people who have been told they are terminally ill and just keep on living their lives whilst they are able instead of turning into a wreck. I mean, the worst really is going to happen to those people, in that they will no longer exist, and I think the whole existential panic that would bring about in me would ruin the time I had left. But people do cope with it and do still enjoy their lives instead of panicking that they are going to die. Thinking about that put things into perspective a bit and made me realise how much I would regret allowing myself to be controlled by my worries and what ifs when we never know what the future will bring. I’m sure that your therapist will have some better solutions but those are just some thoughts which soothed me and helped change my thinking a little bit. I also liked to lie on the ground and just look at things and notice how the ground feels and really look at and feel the solidity of all the things around me when my panic got out of control and I felt like I couldn’t go on. It brought me back down a bit.

@amarya

Stop watching the news, get yourself off social media and speak to your GP again.

OP has spoken to her GP, her anti depressant dosage has been increased and she is also having CBT.

I’m not sure a crisis team is the right intervention here (but I’m sure they work differently in different areas). But clearly the current treatment is not working. I think you need to push for the GP to keep increasing the sertraline - it can go up to 200mg, potentially in 50mg/week increments. They could also refer to a CMHT, though this is also a bit of a postcode lottery, especially if you need something else like olanzapine (an antipsychotic but it can be helpful in this kind of obsessive anxiety). I doubt CBT is going to do much for you right now, but hopefully the meds will help you get to a better place where some form of talking therapy will be helpful.

And BTW there is no risk of sectioning judging from how you describe yourself/your situation.

You need to stop and actually work out what the root of your anxiety is. Your fixation on health/Covid has developed from somewhere and CBT isn’t going to fix that.
People have given you some good advise on here and I would definitely recommend you find someone in RL you trust and tell them how bad this is. Then get them to speak to the DRs with you or for you.

I speak from experience where I never wanted to die and was scared of death, but it got to a point I felt like I had no alternative because I was consumed by anxiety.
The physical symptoms are horrific with anxiety and they consume you along with the mental and emotional symptoms.
Hitting the point of rock bottom gave me a massive wake up call. I went off sick, went home and told my DH what I nearly did.
I needed him to actually tell the drs CBT was bollocks and throwing tablets at me was pointless.

I underwent intensive talking therapy and EMDR whilst taking a combination of anti depressants.
Covid hit mid treatment and I’m still anxious, but I can identify what is rational and what isn’t.
Every day is a step forward and I have good and bad days.
I can actually say I’m happy and I can also say help.
111 option 2 are really helpful