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Reply: Absolute hopelessness, please help me I beg you

Dear Dr. Patricia, I have read your background and I was surprised that you...

Posted by stateofemergency

Dear Dr. Patricia,

I have read your background and I was surprised that you graduated from Queens college, because that's where I'm studying right now.

I just realized that anxiety and panic attacks are two different things, where panic only lasts temporarily and may or may not come back in the day. I think what I'm experiencing right now is the Anxiety Attack.

The physical symptoms that I have is :

-unwanted thoughts, thoughts about future, horror movies, etc.

-fear of incoming panic attack. Everytime I think of having another panic attack, it makes me feel worse and more anxious.

-feeling of absolute hopelessness. I like to go to the internet and google about Panic disorder. Most of the people who responded to it complained that they are not recovering and that they've had it for years, like 5 years. These life experiences make me feel very anxious and fearful. I am very scared that I might live like this for the rest of my life. I cannot even handle having anxiety attacks for days, how can I live like this until the day I die? This thought alone makes me feel very depressed and I feel suicidal at times, even though I know I won't ever commit suicide since I'm a Christian. I know if I commit suicide I will go to hell and that thought makes me feel even more anxious. Can you see the cycle of my thoughts? It's terrifying and I don't know why I'm thinking like this. Just a few days ago I was very normal and I was even laughing at how miserable I was the first few months I had my anxiety/panic attacks.
Also, reading negative stories about people having them for so long and that it's ruining their lives makes me feel absolutely hopeless. It just tells my brain that if they can't do it, how am I going to be able to make it through? If medication and therapy can't help them, how can they help me?
Then I see a lot of cons on using drugs, they say it's only temporary, it underlies the real issue, masks the fear, addictive, and have terrible side effects. While the pros say that they are helpful to ease panic and if combined with therapy, they can cure panic disorder and anxiety attacks.
These messages really mix the way I feel about seeking treatment and I don't know what's right and what's wrong anymore it's driving me crazy.

I'm too afraid to seek treatment because of those unsuccessful stories, I'm afraid to fail and have to live my life like this forever.

I'm so paranoid, helpless, and pessimistic. I also don't have anyone to talk to. I moved to New York about 5 years ago and the only family members I have here is my mother and my brother. I've got noone to talk to. My mother never helps me to ease my anxiety, infact she worsens it by telling me to man up and that life itself is already very stressful and you shouldn't do things that make it worse. My brother is no help either, he's the type of person that doesn't care about things and you can't ever have deep conversations with him.

I don't have any medical difficulties. I think I'm healthy. I don't have diabetes, or any kind of diseases. I don't drink alcohol, wine. I don't do drugs. I don't smoke weed or marijuana. I don't do parties.

Just a few days ago I was very active. I exercised in the gym a lot. I lifted weights and did alot of aerobic exercises.

Right now I'm just feeling terrible because I feel like I'm disabled and a bit agoraphobic. No matter how terrible my anxiety attack is, i WILL NEVER let agoraphobia take over my life. I'll try as hard as I can to go out. Just like last night, I went to New Jersey with my family to visit my friends. I was very anxious last night but I just forced myself. Having agoraphia is the last thing I want to add to my mental illnesses (Which is GAD,PD, and depression).

Doctor, please help me. I just don't know what to do with myself. I'm so scared and alone. I'm too scared to seek help because of reasons I mentioned above.
Please.View Thread

Posted bystateofemergency

3 Replies | Reply | Watch This DiscussionReport This| Share this:Absolute hopelessness, please help me I beg you Dear Dr. Patricia, I have read your background and I was surprised that you...

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Absolute hopelessness, please help me I beg you

I don't know where to start but I'm going to make this as short as possible, even...

Posted by stateofemergency

I don't know where to start but I'm going to make this as short as possible, even though I bet it's going to be a few paragraph long.
My name is Darwin and I'm an 18 years old college student. I think I have always had GAD ever since I was a kid, but never completely recognized it until in high school. The first time I had panic attack was 2 1/2years ago in February. I was having a motion sickness when watching Cloverfield on a movie theater. It was so horrible that I only got to watch 10 minutes of it and I went to ER with my mom. The doctor found nothing wrong with my heart, and told me that I had anxiety attack. That's when things start to crumble down.

The days after my first panic attack:
On that night when I suffered my first attack, I wasn't able to sleep at all. I kept having these irrational fears and thoughts and just you know..complete hopelessness (even though I didn't know what panic disorder was). So I had to go back to the ER on that night and the doc gave me some pills to calm me down (it was Xanax).

In my first 5 months of having panic attack, my life was completely miserable. I was a senior in high school and I had one panic attack in my english class because I was watching a black and white movie so I had to go home. I spent days crying and crying. My mom and brother are no help either, instead of helping they kept saying that I'm a weak hearted person and that I should just loosen up and be a man. I tried but I couldn't, no matter how hard I tried, no matter how much I tried to convince myself. In those 5 months, I had been researching about panic online. researching about it helped me ease off my panic a bit, because i had knowledge of what it was and it reassured me to not give up (since many of them said it's highly treatable and 'curable' with care).
I don't know what happened but some how I was able to be panic free for about 3 months then I had another one when I vacationed in Miami, but that immediately went away. Then I was able to be panic free (only a few, mild attacks and anxious feeling) up until now, last night.
I was having what I think is a full blown anxiety, even though I didn't have panic attack (because I tried to hold it so much, I really hate the feeling of panic attack). I tried to reassure myself by surfing on the web but because i already had knowledge of what it is, it doesn't help me as much anymore. Instead, the thought of 'wow, web surfing doesn't help me anymore.. what am I going to do now? really terrifies me and gives me another anxious, irrational feeling. I'm more hopeless than ever because of this, because web surfing doesn't help ease up my panic anymore.. so I just feel like giving up. What makes it worse is, I read more about people who are complaining about having them and are not recovering..and that makes it 100x worse because it gives me less hope and the will to fight it.
Are there really some true, complete recovery successful stories of people having overcome panic disorder? Why don't I see it often on the internet? Is it really hard to treat this disorder? Why do doctors and psychiatrists say it's one of the most and highly treatable disorder but I only see more people complaining of not recovering?

Please please help me, I'm begging you. This is a cry out for help. I'm very depressed because of my anxiety disorder and sometimes I just feel suicidal and giving up on life.. Like I have no passion to continue on living.
The weird thing is, many people complain of having agoraphobia or they can't go to public places. I never experienced that except on movie theaters, where I first had my attack. (Traumatic experience leads me to avoid movie theaters).
Should I take medicine? Are there any success stories on taking medicine? I also heard a few who said that therapy and medication don't help them at all..arghhh!
Am I too young to take medication?View Thread

Posted bystateofemergency

3 Replies | Reply | Watch This DiscussionReport This| Share this:Absolute hopelessness, please help me I beg you I don't know where to start but I'm going to make this as short as possible, even...

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