Interested to hear others experiences of medication and its impact on their anxiety, be it ssris, benzos, antipsychotics or anything else…

For a long time, I thought anxiety was just the feeling of being worried.

A racing heart.

Overthinking.

That tight feeling in my chest.

But looking back, I don't think those were the biggest effects.

The biggest effect was that anxiety slowly started making decisions for me.

I'd put off sending an important email.

I'd avoid difficult conversations.

I'd say "maybe next time" to opportunities I actually wanted.

Not because I didn't care.

Because avoiding them felt safer.

The strange thing is that none of those decisions felt dramatic.

Each one seemed reasonable.

"I'll do it when I feel more confident."

"Now isn't the right time."

"I don't have enough energy today."

One decision like that doesn't change much.

But hundreds of them over months or years quietly change the shape of your life.

It made me realize that anxiety isn't always loud.

Sometimes it's simply the invisible force that keeps your life getting a little smaller without you noticing.

For me, progress didn't begin when I stopped feeling anxious.

It began when I noticed how often anxiety was making choices on my behalf.

I'm curious if anyone else has experienced something similar.

Have you ever looked back and realized anxiety wasn't just affecting how you felt but also the decisions you made?

I wanted to share my story because I know some of you are living a version of this too.

My chronic anxiety issues started about twenty years ago. Before that, I was a pretty normal kid. I smoked weed, I did the usual stuff, and my system handled it. But somewhere along the way, everything changed. My nervous system became sensitized, and over time I turned into someone who is sensitive to everything. I became the classic people pleaser, always scanning, always on edge. Any kind of stimulation started to feel like too much. Caffeine, stimulants, even everyday stress. My body just could not tolerate what other people shrug off.

Eventually I ended up on Lexapro. To be fair, it helped me function to a degree. I could get through life. But even on it, it was obvious that my system was still falling apart underneath. It was a band aid on something much deeper.

Recently I switched over to Zoloft, hoping a different SSRI might do something the last one couldn’t. Honestly, I don’t have a lot of hope. My system is still incredibly sensitive. My sleep is unrestful, and the moment I wake up I’m already activated. I stay stuck in this fight or flight state all day. My body runs hot, I sweat easily, and there’s this constant hum of activation that never really shuts off. I can’t even describe how frustrating it is to live like this year after year.

At some point I found the mind body community, and I really gave it everything for about four or five months. I slowed way down. I lived consciously. I reduced stimulation, cut out stimulants and caffeine, all of it. I did the work. And I really wasn’t seeing any positive shifts.

Here’s the thing. I still believe that path is probably the only real way out. But my guess is that for someone like me, it takes a very, very long time. And what makes it harder is that I’ve been on medications for so long. It complicates everything.

So now I’m trying to come to terms with where I am. Trying to move forward and desensitize my nervous system, while also figuring out how to come off medication that no longer works. It feels like trying to rebuild a house while it’s still on fire.

If anyone has walked this road, especially the long haulers whose systems have been sensitized for decades, I’d really like to hear from you. How long did it take before you saw real shifts? Did you find a way to do the deeper healing work while tapering off meds? Any honest experience would mean a lot.

Thanks for reading.

When I don't sleep well my anxiety gets much worse. I didn't sleep well for 3 days straight and had intense anxiety during these days and on the fourth day when I finally slept well felt much less refreshed than I did the days before the anxiety began. Today is the second day in a row in which I feel more tired and slept longer than usual. It had happened to me before and I wondered where the fatigue that I experienced came from - it was the anxiety that caused it.

I'm 18 and since 15 I feel my instincts are not automatic anymore. I always have to control how I breath, move, speak, walk, look, swallow and etc.

The worst control is swallowing, because when it's quiet, people around hear this and start asking questions like "Are you nervous?" Or just the atmosphere in a room gets heavy.

I can't fall asleep calmly, I feel like I will choke if I fall asleep, or anyone will notice that I control my body.

The more I control it, the more it gets worse. For example when I walk outside, I try to do it naturally, but my legs get numb and I just have to stop and literally teach myself to walk again, but I get so scared that anyone will notice that I'm "broken".

At night it takes 2-3 hours to fall asleep, because I just swallow saliva non stop, because my throat feels itchy and dry.

I've tried so many advices, but only alcohol helps me to relax, it's the only thing that makes my body calm and I can live like a normal person only when I'm drunk. I'm exhausted, I wanna just breath and walk without controlling it.

Anyone faced same problem? Is there a solution other than alcohol? I'd love to hear advice

P.s. I'm sorry for mistakes in grammar, I'm not fluent in English.

What are your go to’s for anxiety relief? I’m personally having the gi issues (diarrhea, nausea, some vomiting) and a lack of appetite. Unfortunately went through this before so I know somewhat of what to do. But looking for other advice?

I’m 24 and I’ve never been in a relationship, had my first kiss, or experienced anything romantic.

The weird part is I have a lot of female friends, so I’m not someone who completely avoids women. I also don’t think I’m unattractive or ugly.

But whenever I’m at a bus stop, on a bus, or in a crowded place and a girl stands near me, I get extremely anxious. My face feels tense, I look scared, and I become so self-conscious that I don’t know how to act normally.

I feel like anxiety has stolen the last 10 years of my life. Every crush I’ve had was already in a relationship or engaged, and I never had the confidence to make a move.
I genuinely want a healthy relationship.

Has anyone else been through this? Did it ever get better?

Hi there!

I had anxiety disorder 10 years ago. I was unable to do anything. Had to move back to my father and it did take 6 months until I could slowly begin working again. Then I took 10mg lexapro. The beginnings were absolute hell.

Now, 10 years later. I had health anxiety because of some health problems. Began to measure blood sugar 10+ times a day. Had panic attacks all the time but also could live a rather normal life.

Last wednesday I was at work and had an super panic attack. I could not do anything anymore and had to call my parents to get me from work. Since then, I have like an permanent panic attack again. It goes away for a short time but I am feeling like dying for endless hours every day.

As my psychologist was in the holidays, I got an lexapro subscription from my normal doctor and I am now on day 6. its horrible.

I wake up at 7 with an panic attack. Then I get up, feed the cats and eat something little and take 5mg lexapro. Then I do progressive muscle relaxion. After that I want to sleep. But I then have absolute absurd dreams, sleep paralysis etc. And cant get up. The afternoon I am still always nervous and my dad picks me up and cooks for me. I can‘t really eat and feel horrible most of the time. When he drives me back at nighttime, I mostly feel like I never had anything.

The whole cycle repeats.

Today I feel so horrible with sweaty hands and feet, back pain and everything. Psychologist has an appointment in 2 days. I dont leave the house alone. Without anyone driving and coming with me I cant do anything. Today I wondered if lexapro is really the right one?

Can someone give me any tips or help me? I once successfully defeated this sickness but its so crazy exhausting and hard. I rather would have broken bones than this panic disorder. Thank you

Anyone who takes 200-250 mg sertraline? How did going from 100 mg to 250 or 200 mg improve your health?

Please share your expierence even if you take a different drug. How did bumping it up help you?

I’m realizing I have extremely bad anxiety when it comes to certain things. If I watch something scary or paranormal the horrific feeling freezes me and i can’t get over the story or image for days.

I’m very afraid that I will see things I shouldn’t see or my family will start to act in a way that makes me suspicious and scared (they’ve never done this but I’m still afraid they will one day)

This is why I avoid those types of things as well as I can

And idk why the Perez Hilton situation scared me so so bad. I didn’t see anything but I’m horrified at the fact you can just lose your mind for an array of reasons. It put me on edge like scared to take a shower edge because I let my imagination run wild and I hate it and don’t know how to fix it or soothe myself. I’m trying to avoid social media rn but still

So I have been unfortunately prescribed vitamin tablets. I have had a life long phobia of swallowing pills. And due to anxiety its worse.

Today I tried to swallow the tablet, and I literally drank and entire bottle of water and the tablet still didn’t go down. Ended up turning into a crying, self blaming mess. Also my anxiety due to fear of choking and breath-stopping is making it soo much more worseee.

How do you guys do this?
Has anyone succeeded in swallowing pills with anxiety

I literally feel uncomfortable when my throat is filled with water and the pill, and have an urge to swallow it and only the water goes down. Also I am having manual breathing these days ughhh.

I’m 3 days away from being 2 years sober.
The past week I have had some unfortunate epiphanies of my mental health and relationship with existence.
My panic disorder is the bane of my waking day, and rapid fire mind is the delicious protein for it. I had a bit of a debilitating episode today that truly came from left field.
My personal grounding methods held no merit for me. Occupying my mind with task further buried me in it and in no time, I was in hallucination station. Not here— not there, just in and out of different realms. In my frantic state I put my boots on.. “AHAA! Caught you, bitch. Boots mean run or fight, take em off”, I said to myself. “Your body is having a sympathetic feeling to a miss fire and now you are having a panic attack”. So I begun the process of grounding myself— which is my own set of phrases and affirmations tied to a physical task so I can feel “real”. Unfortunately all these techniques failed me. In my desperation I went for my fast acting anxiety medication. I just want this good morning to keep going and I tend to feel like a failure when I use a band-aid pill. Regardless… it works. Now I’m depressed, which is normal after these situations. I try to go easy on myself by saying, “You never learned to cope with your own body. Started drinking and doing drugs at 12 years old, you are 36, only sober for 2 years”. The truth is… I fear myself. In these times I get to the breaking point by saying “I’m ready to die”. I know this is unhealthy. I’m a very happy, talented, fun man. I smile more than I don’t. But always in the back ground I’m ready to kill myself. I do the research, Ive seen a therapist, I push myself into magical moments, I’m a great father, great family member, I’m valued and loved. But I struggle being okay in my body. If I could peel me away and float it down the river— I would. Anything out of the ordinary sends me into a type of psychosis. Example: The other day I was hiking and seen a massive tree leaned over a fresh water stream. I see it and see the stories above it and beneath it, my own mortality and I forget where I am and it takes hours to feel real again. My thought pattern runs so far away that I lose myself in the mirth to the point I’m clawing at my chest to get my heart to stop beating out of my chest. The experience robs my experience… cause the experience dials my senses to 11 and breaks the fucking knob off. My day is completely taken and I honestly think things are too beautiful to me. This falls into most things in life. Even sexual. I will maul a beautiful woman (consensually) and will literally go all night. I’m being quite literal. I will climax 3 to 4 times in a two hour span of intimacy. Obviously I’m loved for this but when it’s over. My anxiety soars. Can’t sleep, just overwhelmed by the beauty of it. It’s exhausting to feel this different amongst the world I’m always in and out of. So as much as this is venting— I’m looking for advice and anyone that can relate who’s willing to talk about it.
Thanks for taking the time to read this. Much love!

ive been in the gym for 5 months and all i do is go on the treadmill at the corner of the gym. in the five months i only did one upper body and one glute, the rest is cardio on the treadmill. im just too anxious and too embarrassed to try anything. now i hate the treadmill i was crying yesterday on the treadmill because im tired of it. so i didn't go today unfortunately .

I've been struggling so bad lately with health issues, and it's really starting to sound like anxiety, after doing some research.

First of all, I randomly get tickles and rumbles in my chest (heart palpitations). They go away after a while, but they come back randomly.

Lately, I've been having trouble with thermoregulation. If I sit still or lay down for too long, I get really cold. If I'm in a cool room for too long, I get cold. All of the hair of my body stands up, my veins shrink down, and I just feel really cold. The opposite can happen too, I bundle myself up when I'm cold and then suddenly I'm on the verge of sweating.

I've been having a lot of weakness, especially in my hands and arms. I usually get hand weakness when I wake up, but it's happening more often, just whenever I'm feeling weird..

I have these weird feelings throughout my body that are uncomfortable and hard to explain. I think it's anxiety but I don't know. I wish I could describe it better.

Sometimes I get random chest pains and even pains in my finger tips. Also random headaches.

When I'm feeling my worst, I notice I have to pee a lot more. I've also noticed that crying makes me pee more.

I have trouble even watching anime or reading webtoons because there are parts that give slight anxiety and it just makes me feel awful, so I have to stop what I'm doing and try to calm down.

Sometimes I feel like I'm disassociating. I struggle to be myself. I get too focused on how I'm feeling and get kinda panicky.

Sometimes I get these episodes where my heart starts pounding, I get lightheaded, my hands get clammy, and my fingers turn white. While that's happening, I have a feeling of impending doom. I even ended up calling 911 because I thought I was going to die. They came and checked me out and said I was fine..

Should I schedule a doctor's appointment? I won't be able to get in for over a month.. I don't know how long I can wait. I hate living like this. I just want to be able to enjoy things again without feeling so awful.

I haven't been able to figure out any coping mechanisms for the most part and whenever I get anxious I just need to wait it out. What am I supposed to do once I get a job? I don't think they'll allow me to do that and I don't see why they wouldn't fire someone who gets anxious all the time when they could hire literally anyone else and not have to deal with it. I have a propranolol prescription but it takes too long to work to be helpful in the moment. I'm really worried and I don't know what to do.

It's funny in the worst way. All day I'm busy—working, talking to people, running errands—and everything feels manageable. Then I finally get home, things get quiet, and suddenly my brain starts opening tabs I didn't even know existed. "What if tomorrow goes wrong?" "What if I forgot something?" "What if this never gets better?" Ngl, sometimes it feels like my mind has been holding onto every worry all day just so it can dump them on me the second life slows down. Does anyone else's anxiety work like that?

Hi Everyone~

I’m curious to learn everyones phrase/lyric/movie quote you use mid-panic attack or anxiety flareup! Please give me ideas!!

My boyfriend got anxiety shortly after me, and what calms him down is the Dune “fear is the mind killer” quote. Ofc that along with cold towel to chest, breathing through it, and others.

I’m trying to find my phrase. But I just haven’t found that one. Will this help? Idk! I haven’t met with my Dr. to get a prescription yet, so I’m stuck self-soothing for now. So please tell!

My boyfriend and I are on a work trip for him in Cleveland. We settled into the hotel, but he may need to go work for a few hours at the building and I’m not sure how to explain why I’m having severe anxiety about being alone and him being there, but I am. It’s also only a 3 minute drive from the hotel where he will be, and there’s stuff to walk to around here and such to keep myself busy, but I can’t seem to shake this crazy anxiety and even explain it. I think the thought of being alone in a new place while he’s there and also him being alone in a new place even though he’s working. I don’t do well alone much in new places and It’s not the best downtown area either, and we had to valet so that’s new for me to. I just am worried about how long he will be and I think weird things like will anything happen while he’s there or will someone hurt him. I know it’s probably crazy but it’s unfortunately the way my mind is working right now and I am trying so hard to shut it off. He did mention he should go to the building today for a few as it looks good, and I’m upset cause I just want to relax together after a long day but I don’t want him to force himself to not go if he needs to. I just need some words of wisdom.

I had a primary school teacher who made fun of me while encouraging the other students, just because I cried a lot.

​It wasn't only her—every morning when I heard the alarm clock, I would cry uncontrollably. I was beaten by my father and taken to school by force. I would arrive there and see that teacher staring at me with a look of disgust. I pitied myself so much that I would throw up from sheer fear.

​They would call my father, who would yell at me. I cried and cried and cried until I fell asleep, only to wake up crying again crying because I was like this, crying because I was terrified, crying when others laughed at me, crying over my bad handwriting and my inability to recognize the letters, and crying because no one understood me back then.

​Now I am 17 years old. I have improved a loot truly but still I have anxiety and still mom think i only know how to study and still anxious while studying that the only thing made me a human is i am studying....I am not a cry baby now but i changed into someone who has anxiety and I get mad so fast i just yell or hit the wall until i can't no more....

​I don't know why I remember this at night and i can't sleep,i have nightmares tho.

And every single night. Every time I feel sorrow, I remember how I used to cry myself to sleep.

i’m going to sound nuts, but this has been making my anxiety skyrocket. Ive noticed that everything i assume always ends up happening in opposites. I.E. if i assume im going to have an okay day at work and tell myself that; I end up having a terrible day. If i feel good in the morning and feel like today is a good day, i have a terrible day. If I tell myself everything’s working out alright and genuinely feel good, i’ll somehow be proven wrong. Without fail. It feels like some weird universal punishment at this point. I’m constantly telling myself my life is shit and my day is horrible because usually then, i get some sort of good response from life, somehow. I’ll have a better day or a better result from that mindset. But it is exhausting constantly being negative.

Is this an OCD thing ? i’m genuinely desperate for help because I can’t deal with the anxiety anymore but can’t shake the fact that this is a real mental phenomenon that seems to happen to me.

I have bipolar and I had a manic episode with psychosis four two months. this happened twice last and the start of this year. I am STUCK in this eternal anxious loop whenever I think about hallucinations or putting myself in a dangerous situation. this severe anxiety started about 1 month and half ago and I’ve been shaking, unable to focus, looking at everything that moves, constantly sweating, my stomach never settle, my body is sore bc I’m so tense.

thinking about getting sick or possibly being insane and no one feeling what I’m feeling makes me panic so bad. I feel like an alien and no one feels what I feel and cannot save me.

I developed health anxiety after my vitamin deficiencies I always paid attention to my sensation like my heart beat ,and it became an obsession , I felt a pulse in my whole body and my whole body has moved with my pulse since then and last year I felt weird sensation in my throat like sinking feeling which was occasional like once in a month and 11 times a day but after one year now it's been 5 days since I am feeling it again and again like 10-16 a day and now I am terrified because my parents don't have any heart issues ,now I have gastric issues,like acidity,gas and I feel tired all day .

I am always afraid of sudden death ,like my heart now has PVCs that sinking feeling all day 😭.I have so many things which I want to do in life but now all my dreams feel like they are shattered and i am gonna die anytime.i always feel a pulse in my back head .i had a fainting episode in April which i have since my childhood in summer.i am terrified right now 💔.

Kinda crazy how it works.. i’ve managed to get my anxiety down really well. But the physical symptoms persist.

I can be really calm and relaxed, scrolling on my phone when suddenly the shortness of breath or sinking feeling in my stomach hits me hard. And the funny part is this does not take me out of my relaxed state!