Help with growing anxiety?

[anonymousbird]

I've had a few things going on in life in the past year, combination of family/kids issues, parental serious illness, health scare, bereavement etc. Generally I can handle these things fairly well, stay "level" and work my way through them.

At the moment, I just don't feel like I am keeping my head above water, I can't get past them. It's starting to affect my every day well being - I am anxious about the smallest of things, I struggle to focus and concentrate and I am snapping at family members more than I should. Not sleeping well, probably drinking a bit too much wine....

I suffered from stress in my 20s, but only for a relatively short period. I got some professional help via my medical insurance at the time and it sorted me out. (I am now late 40s for perspective, ie. that was a long time ago).

I am not in a position to pay for professional help/claim on medical insurance this time around and I suspect if I go to my GP, there will be a huge waiting list for me to see someone. I'm not critical by any means, but I would like to see someone or talk to someone before this spirals.

Are there any services out there that are relatively easy to access for this?

TIA.

You could try reading "Waking The Tiger: Healing Trauma" or "The Body Keeps The Score." I can't tell you which is better as I'm about to read them myself because I am also interested in how trauma affects my physical health. I would also suggest that you look into mindfulness - I believe that you can get audio CDs and can probably download something from iTunes. You could also try "self-soothing" - finding a small or something that you can touch that would help you feel good.

Thank you , that's helpful. Hadn't thought about reading something so will check those out. I have done some mindfulness with Headspace, maybe I need to try it again.