I am anxious all the time and I can’t function.

[Stressedafff]

I am spiraling constantly since DD started pre school.
I have health anxiety, DD had sepsis and RSV when she was a baby and ever since then I have been what I can only describe as traumatised.

She spiked a temp last night, no other symptoms, just a random fever and abit under the weather. Yet my anxiety is spiralling.
Im also emetophobic, I don’t want to and have no intention of stopping her pre school, she absolutely loves it.
Im not sleeping, not eating, constantly fearful and I feel like I’m drowning. I cry over everything and just obsess over every little movement

Ive tried CBT to no avail, I referred to healthy minds and this will be my 4th time. I have enquired about medication but I have only tried sertraline and I ended up with suicidal thoughts.

Does anyone have any advice on how I can help myself with this because I truly am just on a knife’s edge. I feel like I’m having a breakdown.

@Stressedafff So sorry you are feeling like this, I’m suffering from PND at the moment which manifests mainly as debilitating anxiety so you have my sympathy! I would go and see your gp as a starting point, they might try you on a different anti depressant? I didn’t get on with Setraline and but have had success with others. If you are willing to try medication there are also other things they can prescribe which help control the physical effects of anxiety such as the racing heart and panicy feelings to help calm you down x

Hi, I completely understand how you feel. I have had health anxiety for a very long time also after a trauma inducing medical event and when my ds was a toddler the anxiety mostly revolved around him - to the point where I was convinced he had leukemia and kept a diary of all his symptoms and how frequently he had fevers or a bruise etc so I just want you to know you're not alone and you're not crazy or anything like that.

If you search on YouTube "the anxiety guy" he suffered health anxiety himself and overcame it, he has some great videos and also a wonderful podcast and I find it so helpful. Another thing to try is yoga nidra, if you YouTube that there's a lady called Ali boothroyd who has great guided videos and if you do one every day preferably at bed time it really help to calm the nervous system, I imagine yours is in overdrive with heart racing or palpitations, overheating, dizziness, shortness of breath?

You’ve been through a trauma - some areas the NHS provides EMDR therapy for free, that’s the best treatment for post trauma.

OK, so what's happening here is that when your baby was ill a part of your subconscious mind registered this as, quite rightly, a traumatic event. In most cases once the danger has passed the mind will go back to normal, albeit maybe more alert than it was before. Sometimes however that part of the subconscious has not got the message that the crisis has passed - it's effectively stuck in that horrible time and is seeing threats in everyday occurrences.

Think of it this way. A fire station gets an alert, swings into actions, tackles the fire and the firemen go back to the station to rest and prepare for the next emergency. However one fireman doesn't understand that there's no current danger and is constantly running around looking for flames.

EMDR and remedial hypnosis are both excellent at dealing with this - the former allows the mind to relive the trauma and realise that it has past (I think, I haven't studied EMDR) and remedial hypnosis allows you to talk to that part of your subconscious to let it know there's no fire and that the behaviour is no longer either necessary or helpful.