Feeling increasingly anxious and it's stressing me out

[bluejelly]

Feel a bit embarrassed (sp?) posting here, i know lots of people have far worse problems than me..
For the last couple of months I have started to suffer from anxiety, a feeling of incredible stress at even the slightest hint of confrontation or difficulty in my life.
I know it's to do with a number of factors; work is a bit stressful at the mo, my ex is being an unreliable arse but the most serious thing is that I feel unhappy in my relationship. My boyfriend has a lot of problems and pretty serious depression-- and I feel that it is somehow rubbing off on me. I wish i could just break up with him but he is so down at the moment I really fear it would tip him over the edge... he talks about suicide quite a lot.
I feel trapped and stressed out, spent quite a lot of christmas crying or wanting to cry.
Am thinking about going to my GP but not sure if it would be appropriate. Any advice?

Of course it's appropriate to go to GP hun! You dont have to be suicidal and depressed to suffer with anxiety... [fmsile] xXx

don't feel embarrassed.

It sound s as though speaking to the docotor would be good. Anxiety can be helped. It's not surprising that you are anxious. Is it soemthing that comes and goes, are you always jittery and unsettled or does it come and go?

I shall be boring and say though not a cure it does help if you do the lifestyyle things as well as consulting the gp.

It comes and goes -- worse in the afternoons, better if I have a drink ( though obviously am trying not to resort to drinking every night!)
What kind of lifestyley things do you think I can do? Am crap at breathing exercises/ meditation type stuff, always have been!
Planning to go the gym tomorrow...

Thanks for the advice by the way

well exercise is good simply walking however far and wherever youy feel comfortable

try to go to bed at the same reasonable time every night and wind down, maybe a bath, milky drink and hot awter bottle ..window slightly open to keep the room from being too hot.

If you can conccentrate and feel it is difficult to get to sleep and you don't have other ideas then read something holiday reading ish

don't stress if you wake up in the night and can't get back to sleep

if you are awake make yourslef a drink and then go back to bed quite quickly

rmember that resting is good even if you can't sleep

try some visualisation exercises

avoid coffee and stimulants and alcohol too

have breakfast..porridge or muesli is good, banana and natural yogurt or scrambled eggs

plenty of fruit and veg

lunch and dinner at sensible times

make a list of things that you need to do and tick them off so that you don't keep struggling to think of all the things that need doing
prioritise and put anything which isn't important on the back burner

identify something which gives you pleasure and make some time for it

talk through any issues with your bf but only when you both feel up to it..maybe a relationship counsellor could help

Only just seen this-- thanks so much what a brilliant and constructive list

I have a battle with stress anxiety and depression (I am bipolar) so I am constantly trying to learn wasy to get some sense of control back

I hope it's useful

i am thinking i might benefit from going on a course in visualisation but it is really too expensive I would have to know it was very good and not just someone mnaking a quick buck

I've found out that my workplace offers three free counselling sessions so am going to give that a try.
Went for a swim at lunch time which definitely helped too.
Think my bf may be bipolar too, though he spends most of his time depressed. You sound like you have a much more positive approach to your illness than he does, am very impressed.
Thanks again

I only have a positive attitude some of the time! When you are really down it is very hard to find anything positive. I do find oddly though that having a continuing low level of depression is a comfort zone, because full blown mania is far more scary imo than full blown depression, but then I think you tend to find the other one worse whichever way you are leaniung at the time, so if i was currently in a black hole I might say that was worse as being manic would look very appealing!. I sound positive at th moment because I am on the up scale rather than the down but once it goes too far up everything falls apart. I tend to spend most of my time if you take "neutral" as 0 going up to ten either side at about -3 or 4 I think. At the moment I feel about + 4 on ability to do things, new ideas, creativity but my interest in hum drum stuff like cleaning, routine tasks etc is a bit low.

Anyway, work counselling sounds good. If you are in a difficult relationship then maybe that is at the heart of your problems. if it is then you need to work out some pros and cons and try to see where things are going/could go and a strategy for getting there.

Does your bf have ups as well as downs? He would clearly benefit from help, is he getting it?

There are organisations which can help. I don't know much about them because I have never spoken to anyone live outside the medical profession. But there is alot of goood information online.