Has anyone truly gotten over anxiety?

[anxietytty]

I have suffered from anxiety since I was 11. When I was a teenager it was really bad, I was terrified almost all the time of nothing. Couldn’t sleep in my own room, couldn’t even lock the bathroom door as I was scared. It was very, very life-limiting.

Now, as an adult, it’s still there but much less. I posted yesterday, but now it’s that I can’t sleep alone in a house. I feel very reliant on my husband for feeling safe!

After a night of not sleeping as he was away last night, this morning I thought: what if I outlive him? How will I cope living alone one day?

There’s also no way I can sleep in a hotel room alone. Even going away with friends is tough as I’m in a room alone and I don’t sleep because my fear kicks up.

I have been in therapy for years. But my anxiety persists!

I haven’t tried medication, I am actually scared of medication. But I have tried all the sort of alternative things: exercise (I went for a really long cold water swim yesterday hoping that would help me but it doesn’t make any difference to my anxiety, though I do like it); meditation (can’t stick to it tbh), good diet, supplements, talk therapy.

Has anyone overcome their life-limiting anxiety? I don’t want to be like this forever. It’s awful. I want to feel free!

What happened when you were 11?

Anxiety is an emotion so you wouldn't want to be 'free' of it - it's there to tell you to pay attention to important stuff. When it's working normally it will prod you to check for traffic before stepping into the road, get the airport in plenty of time, revise for that exam, and perhaps it nudges you to have a look at your partner's phone if he's suddenly working late and showering as soon as he gets home. In a nutshell it's a very useful emotion.

In answer to your question, yes - you can learn to listen to it, work with it and understand it rather than fight it or fear it.

I’d be really interested to know this as well. I too have been anxious since being a young child-I truly believe I was born like it. It limits my life in so many ways which would seem bizarre if I typed them all out.

I’ve never tried medication either, but sometimes I think it’s the only thing left. For that reason, I’m scared to because if it doesn’t work I will have nowhere left to go.

Very good point @Eyesopenwideawake especially learning not to fear it as that is the spiral, anxiety, the fear the feeling of anxiety that it's back again so worse anxiety. Then your calm for a short while but fearing the next feeling of anxiety.

I think reflecting on experiences and getting yourself out of your comfort zone is good. I also like writing down my worries as they arrived, esspecasy if they are distracting me from my task. Then I can get back to reviewing them another time. I was taught with cpd to set aside worry time in your life. Go through the list, sort them into things you can control and things you can't. Things you can control, plan how to resolve them. Things you can't control learn to let them go.

For example sleeping alone if your husband dies before you - either let it go because it's distant and hypothetical, or vaguely plan to move somewhere more communal like sheltered accommodation or a care home if that happens. Or if it's a deeper worry about being elderly and alone, plan to work on your social life.

Not sure that's the best example, but that's what I'd do. And I'd probably decide it's too hypothetical to be a worry I can control so I'd put it in the to let go worry pile.

As for medication, I did 6 months on qutiapine and it did help clear my mind but added a worry about what the side effects might do and how unnatural it was to change my brain chemistry. So I didn't stay on it indefinitely like lots do.

Yes I have successfully managed my anxiety.
i feel very grateful.
for me it’s years of therapy, which included uncovering some childhood trauma, and medication (citalopram).
I also feel less anxious now that my children have left home!

I was diagnosed with gad 7 years ago, and had a couple of ', episodes' in my life. Once I was too scared to leave the house. For me I think now it's assisiated with dyslexia I've always known I've had. As I haven't experienced trauma. However, I have read up about anxiety since having children am in a process of working on myself. The thing that keeps me awake is assignment stress and how my daughter is getting on at school. These are normal fears and not a disorder. Not sleeping in a house alone is also quite a natural fear as humans aren't meant to sleep alone.

Mine left me when the menopause came. I had CBT and medication prior to that but it was never eradicated.

Yes, totally. With propranolol.

I have. Lots of therapy.

I’ve always had a nervous disposition with long bouts of severe social and general anxiety, even as a child. I don’t have lots of happy memories as a child, just doing things with a feeling of dread and mortification. I’m 30 now and im still anxious, but I accept it. I do my own form of ‘exposure’ therapy by telling myself I’ll have anxiety whether I do the thing or not so I might as well do it anyway and sod what people think! I’ve met enough strange people now to not worry about my own strangeness so much. 😀 but no, the anxiety has never gone, but I’ve managed it well over the years.

I had ptsd which I managed to get past - it was actually emdr therapy that helped but also alongside it I would say the principles of meditation (have you ever done a course? I did the mbsr 8 week NHS course in a group which was good) and acceptance commitment therapy I.e. not trying to rid it but to accept it ot be curious about it.

I suppose it's a quite stoical philosophy.

Lots of therapy and citalopram have released me from my prison. I'm just placemarking really, I'll try to come back tomorrow to talk more. You can get there, in time OP.

I understand your fear about medication. It seems as if a lot of mental healthcare is targeted toward getting a patient on SSRIs as opposed to truly listening to them and attempting to navigate their treatment on a one-on-one basis.

I also struggled with something similar, and did not want to use medicinal solutions. My healthcare professionals, luckily, were very open to me utilizing other treatments. This has sparked my own interest in researching mental health therapeutics, specifically alongside the gut-brain axis and lessoning neuroinflammation.

I'd love to learn more about your journey to healing, as well as lend a listening ear whenever you need. Feel free to PM me and we can talk more.

Sending love :)

florafaunabriar

HRT and mine is yet to return, I suspect my hormones were always to blame, and having them balanced out has really made a big difference.

I've been anxious since a child. It impaired so many things. Then I developed chronic pain and fatigue and went on Gabapentin. Which pretty much got rid of my anxiety. I applied for a job I wasn't qualified for and got it. Then had a fight to get up to speed with it. But I couldn't have done this before. So I would say medication did change things for me. I had a particular fear of car travel which has gone. I still have some social anxiety but it isn't as bad as it was.

Mine was mislabelled as “stress” when I was younger, and then thankfully finally diagnosed properly as an adult.

I live with a certain, fairly high, level all of the time. I cannot remember the last time I didn’t carry it around. It “flares up” periodically into debilitating bouts, that need support to pass. Then I can get back to coping with the day to day levels.

Those bouts do get further apart, and vary in severity, I guess I’m grateful for that. I think otherwise I’ll be either medicated or living with it for the rest of my life.

My brain just doesn’t work as it should, it’s miswired somewhere, and that’s okay. Probably.