The delight that is anxiety

[MasterChefz]

Why oh why oh why won't the bastard leave me alone..

Entering my head. Occupying my thoughts, terrifying me. Making me constantly feel on edge, scared and worried. Crying all the time.

It is absolutely shit.

GP hasn't been in touch for a few weeks, mental health services aren't great and it's very much a case of manage it myself.

Even though I have GAD, OCD, moderate depression and severe anxiety.

I hate it.

Please can anyone give me any ideas or suggestions for helping myself.

I've tried good diet, plenty of sleep ( except I am also peri menopausal as well so have those symptoms too- lack of sleep being one of them) as well as distraction techniques and calming ideas.

I am not sure how much more of this I can bear.

I feel your pain OP. Menopause is a bastard.

The trouble with hrt seems to be that you can only take it for a few years before it increases your chance of cancer. Or speeds up any you already have. Whichever, it means you will have to face the menopausal shitshow at some point!

I’m going down the acupuncture route. £60 a session where I am. Sorts everything out. I go once a month sometimes with an odd extra session here and there if various symptoms ramp up. It’s changed my life. I walk in a wreck and come out calm.

This is not true, @Elieza, and really unhelpful.
Information on menopause and HRT that is evidence-based is available at menopausematters.co.uk and menopausedoctor.co.uk (the latter is run by a private doctor, but the information is good and up to date).

@SparklingLime

You refer to one doctors/organisations opinion. Many others would disagree.

My info came from another post on here in another thread and from (sorry don’t know how to post links)
cancerresearchuk.org, which as you know is a massive organisation purely dealing with cancer.

So while my post may appear to you to be unhelpful, it shows the degree to which even expert organisations disagree on this emotive subject.

Until there is conclusive evidence and agreement I will be refraining from hrt personally. However if anyone else feels it’s the right choice for them, that’s of course entirely up to them and I hope it really helps them.

They have the right to hear both sides of the story and gather as much evidence as they can to assist them in their choice.

The Happiness Trap - a book about how to combat negative thoughts and anxiety - is something I'm working my way through. It might be something beneficial for you.

Have you read Clare Weekes stuff OP?
I also credit the Paul David book 'At last a Life' with dramatically changing how I saw anxiety and enabled me to live again.
Fighting anxiety, in my experience, wasn't helpful and only kept me in the cycle.

OP, I'm in a similar situation. I'm considering HRT but propranolol helps me to some extent. I don't cope well with antidepressants but they have helped me in the past.

One thing that does help is a detachment technique that a counsellor taught me years ago. She said to recognise anxiety and just say to myself 'oh, it's that thing happening again' and wait it out. So I still get anxious and it's still shit, but I try to observe it rather than engaging it. It helps me to recognise anxious thoughts rather than believing all of them.

Also here to give a hug / hand hold. I have depression & anxiety, take 30mg citalopram a day. Everything seemed to be picking up then BAM! Peri menopause / menopause hits. Hormones & emotions all over the place, intrusive thoughts again, poor sleep, can't concentrate properly. Then my mum was very poorly, dad's ill and I thought I was breaking again. I'm bloody good at masking it, but not this time. I cried for 10 mins last week because a colleague was nice to me about mum.

I had a quick chat with my GP and booked a double slot next week to discuss HRT. She sent me the leaflets with all the pros & cons, thinks it might be helpful but it's totally up to me if I want to try it.

I learned What's Important Now which helped. I can't do anything about a direct debit going out that might go into the overdraft at 3am. There's not much I can do about the workload we have - that's for the bosses etc. Talk myself out of ruminating & cogitating. It's hard, but does work.

My counsellor (who actually spent more of the sessions telling me her woes) also said try keeping a journal and put one thing in a week to really look forward to - a treat, a haircut, a bar of chocolate, whatever. Then spend time thinking about that treat and how it's going to make you feel, what it will taste like etc.

Truly hope you feel better soon.

Thank you for all the kind messages.

It's still shit today. I am really really trying to keep busy .

Hugs to all who suffer with this 💕

Anxiety is a shit. A big, fat, stinking, fucking shit.

When you get anxious my head goes round and thoughts can become negative and unmanageable. I have found that telling myself in my head, 'this hasn't happened, my thoughts are stories the are not serving me well and are not truthful helps calm me down and get me back on track. My anxiousity is mild though, but comes in waves and knots my stomach when it passes through me.

I know this is an old thread. But this message resonates so much with me. Thank you for sharing.