Anxiety ruining my life

[Downarella]

Hello all. I would be really grateful for some advice, as I am just desperate at this stage. Sorry if this is long.

Anxiety is ruining my life and I dont know what else I can do to help myself .

I had a nervous breakdown nine months ago. Until about 2012, I was completely 'OK'. Maybe a worrier, maybe a bit moody at times, but I was a working, functioning, capable professional and married mother of two. I started getting really bad anxiety and depression and was very up and down throughout 2013, culminating in a breakdown last summer.

Since then, I have been trying my best to get better, I guess. Until Christmas I was coming out of the deepest bit of the depression and was basically leading a very limited life - having my therapy, but staying at home a lot, sleeping, trying to do various self help stuff at home. My DH has been amazing and allowed me the time I need to recover. I feel I needed this period of recuperation, but at the same time, it was very hard living this almost half life...I wasnt myself at all and felt like I was watching life pass me by through a window.

In the New Year I started to feel a bit better. I've been having psychotherapy, exercising, joined a creative class, started socialising a bit more....starting to see some light at the end of the tunnel and feel some joy and some normality in my life again.

We have financial issues in our home, so I applied for a part time job last month and was delighted to get an interview. I am so bored at home and we really need the money, so after discussion with my DH and therapist, I decided to go for it. The anxiety I felt before the interview was unreal. It wasnt just the usual interview nerves - I actually felt ill and it really felt like I was regressing back to My worst times. The actual interview went well, and I now have a second interview on Monday. But the anxiety is back again and it is making me sick. No amount of rational thinking about it helps. I feel like a scared child, and I now think I may not really be able to do this job (or any job) because my anxiety is so bad it is paralysing.

I am so sick of living like this. Basically, if I step outside the comfort zone of my home and small circle of friends and family, the anxiety becomes unbearable and makes me ill. I feel like I am sentenced to a life in prison, never being able to do anything interesting or brave or just normal (like work) because of this anxiety inside of me. I want so much more than this for myself. I used to be such a strong and lovely woman .

I feel totally broken.

[ShowYourVeracity]

You don't mention whether you have tried medication. Sertraline can be very helpful for anxiety - if you haven't tried this perhaps you could discuss this option with your GP.

Are you finding the therapy helpful? You say you were feeling a bit better until the interview. I don't know much about psychotherapy but people say that CBT can be very helpful for anxiety. I am just starting a course of CBT (NHS, self referral). I have only had the assessment session so far, but even that was fantastically useful in helping me identify what has been going on with me regarding anxiety, and how to deal with it. I have also found reading about mindfulness very useful.

The fact that the actual first interview went well is great and perhaps should reassure you that you will be capable of doing the job if you get it. Hopefully the second will go well to, if you can just cope with the anxiety beforehand. By cope with I just mean, get through, which you can because you did for the first interview, even if it was horrendous at the time. Both CBT and mindfulness would give you techniques for dealing with your anxiety so might be worth looking at, if you haven't already. That's not much help for Monday I know, more for the longer term.

[ShowYourVeracity]

Good luck with your interview today OP.

[TheoriginalLEM]

OP you could be me!! I could have written your post, except i haven't got as far as applying for jobs yet so i already think you are pretty darned awesome. I hope that the interview goes well for you today - you are clearly intelligent and articulate, it shows from your post. Just remember - you are good enough!