My anxiety has gotten to the point of insomnia and dysfunction. What should I do?

[Memecusine123]

I’ve had anxiety since I got into a traumatic accident when I was little. I broke my arm in three places. I was hospitalized and had surgery done. I suffered with panic attacks that lasted for hours. It felt I was admitted for three days but it was a whole week. After that I suffered with panic attacks outside of the hospital. I could control my anxiety and keep it in check for years. I was fine, up until now. I had a panic attack a month ago and I had to go to the er to calm down. After that day at the er, I had trouble eating. Everything I ate, I gagged up. I stayed hungry for awhile and I was also in fear of another panic attack. This eventually went away. And then around July 2nd I had really bad anxiety one night and I couldn’t sleep at all. I tried eating but I couldn’t eat at all. I was hungry and scared. I ate some. The following night I got two hours of interrupted sleep. The next night I decided to go to the er and get something to calm me down. They gave me Ativan and it helped me sleep for 4 hours. I tried sleeping last night and I only got about 2 hours. Tonight I’m in fear of having a panic attack, fear of not being able to sleep, and fearing that I cannot eat. I don’t know what to do. My body has lost complete motivation to eat and I’m honestly scared for my life. What the f**k should I do? Should I admit myself? sad

[Paxiled]

First, when you got to the ER, you're only getting enough care to keep you alive.  The docs there expect you will then go see your regular doc to get a more thorough exam and diagnosis.  You also don't say how old you are now, but most experts believe that childhood trauma and anxiety are not the same as adult anxiety, which can come from childhood trauma that one has suppressed, such as abuse, but for most of chronic anxiety sufferers comes seemingly from nowhere at all.  At a certain point in life, usually starting in late teens and lasting until late twenties, that's when most people who are going to get chronic mental disorders get them.  Nobody knows exactly why because nobody knows why anyone gets chronic anxiety -- you can put hundreds of people in very stressful situations and only a few will develop chronic anxiety from it, so it's got some other thing going on as well.  Right now it sounds like this sudden uptick in anxiety has stung you badly, and you're not able to relax back down from it.  But that doesn't explain why you got the original uptick, which could be something physiological.  We can't say.  Given what you're going through, I'd see my doctor and, if nothing appears to be wrong with you physically to cause this, if you're that upset you should probably ask to be referred to a psychiatrist and also a psychologist for therapy.  But you do need to find out if something is going on physically with you.  Another thing to consider is whether something happened around that uptick that might have triggered this.  The fact you've been prone to anxiety for a long time, though, might indicate that even if there is something physical going on you have the unfortunate aspect that we have on this site of internalizing stressful things and magnifying them, so there's probably an anxiety problem going on.  Do you have a regular doctor to see?

[Memecusine123]

I do not have a regular doctor I see, unfortunately. I’m currently 20 years old and the break happened at around the age of 12. Thank you so much for replying

[AnxiousNoMore]

If you aren't depressed (which can happen if the anxiety drags on) then maybe you can try to find someone to talk to about it until you see your doc or get some therapy. Most people aren't going to understand panic attacks though, so it would have to be a special person who will not judge you, yet would be able to help you think the problem through. If there is a Crisis Center near you then you can call them for connections or ideas to get some help. these guys don't care how many times you call.
Or perhaps you can self cure if you do read a book (not just some internet article) on the subject if you get lucky enough to find some comforting ideas in the book.

[Paxiled]

Surely your parents had you with a regular doc.  What happened to that doctor?