What the hell is wrong with me?

[LibrariesGaveUsP0wer]

I have mentioned bits of this on a couple of other threads, but feel I need to put it in one place.

Just after new year, I woke up in the night after a horrid, graphic nightmare. Heart pounding, drenched in sweat. It involves a sort of eco-apocalypse and my kids. Came out of the blue. No prior problems.

For days afterwards, I couldn't shake it. I then started having really intrusive 'end of the world' type thoughts all the time - even throwing a crisp packet in the bin could set me off.

I am normally very mentally robust. Had some (not formally diagnosed) depression as a teenager, but nothing for 20 years. The thing that normally calms me down after a rough day is snuggling up with my kids, but I was finding even that could set off the anxiety and bring me close to tears.

I am now struggling with a racing heart. Not panic attacks exactly (I had them a few times as a teen too), just periods where I feel like my heart is going far too fast and my chest is being sat on.

I am exhausted all day and fall asleep quickly but often wake in the night and don't feel refreshed in the morning. I am permanently irritable.

Also, although I'm supposedly on a diet to shift the last of the baby weight (18 months old now), I am not really eating much differently. Yet I've lost half a stone in two weeks.

I have tried to make a doctor's appointment once, but the appointment time got ballsed up and I had to cancel. I now have to wait until Monday for another one. In the meantime, does anyone have any idea what could be wrong with me? The obvious thing seems to be some sort of depression, but I just don't understand how that would come on literally overnight in someone who has no real history. I feel like I'm losing my mind!

How have you been Libraries? Hope you have been refered for therapy and the meds are doing their job.

I am doing ok. I'm up and about. Crisis team visiting every other day.

The weird 'end of the world' stuff is still occupying my brain a lot of the time, but the diazepam is taking the edge off - I described it to the nurse as like when you've had a couple of glasses of wine: it's all still there, but you care less.

They are going to keep an eye on that. I have a meds review on Monday and hopefully an action plan. I do have a referral to the triage team for therapy things, but as I'm on DH's insurance it might end up being that route instead.

Waking shockingly early and unable to sleep again.

Thank you for thinking of me.

Go private if you can, it will probably be quicker to access therapy.

I'm glad the meds take the edge off, that's what they are supposed to do.

Watch your sleeping habits. You need enough sleep to function.
You will get through it, one day at a time.

Just checking in to say thank you for all the support. Am doing much better. Still waking early and tired, but otherwise pretty fully functional.

Feel like I was in a thunderstorm and now I have a tent. So I'm ok. I'm dry and safe. Now just waiting for the therapy bit so that I can. .... don't know. Analogy broke down a bit there? Build a house so that when storms come and go I am still ok.

One more week til I start weaning off the valium.

I feel so so lucky. When I am further down the road I want to do something for the crisis team. A thank you letter? A letter to someone at the health authority of how I feel they saved me. I am so so grateful I live where I do and had the sort of breakdown that got me on the emergency track. My SIL has been incapacitated by depression for two years with a fraction of the support I had.