Hi LadyM. I sure hope you come back and talk to us. We ARE here for support. I think saying everyone who has anxiety mentally ill may be offending you but that is just words. Anxiety helps deplete our mental health but there are all different levels of it. I would not classify my son as being mentally ill although he has a lot of anxiety. :>)) So, let's skip that discussion and stick with how to support you better. You are probably overwhelmed. Being a single mom has to be hard! How are things going currently?
I understand. And I'm sorry it is so difficult. So, start by trying some of the things you CAN afford. YouTube has yoga videos, meditation videos and you can read about both online. They are calming. Learning breathing techniques can help. Try this one for instance, breath in for 4, hold 4, breath out for 4, hold 4, repeat. That is calming to jacked up anxiety. Going for a daily walk, or do 30 minutes of whatever you like around the house such as running in place, jumping jacks, lifting light hand weights, dancing, etc. I know it is hard when you are tired but it CAN help overall. Try to get it in. Also, I can't say enough about sleep. Really. It is so healing.
It would be nice if you could trade out kid care with another mom friend. Like she gives you a break for 4 hours one weekend and you take her kids for 4 hours the next. Just so you can have total down time and recharge your batteries. cost is nothing when you trade your time. :>)
Work books and self help books can be good. Even if you take one or two nuggets from them. The library? That's a good place to get books if you don't want to buy them.
And a journal to track things and look for trends. Keep one-- a cheap spiral bound notebook bought at the grocery store will do.
And then you can see if anything improves and talk to your doctor at your next visit.
Hi there. I just want to say that I am sorry that you are suffering such anxiety. Most people have a certain level of it but they manage. Maybe what is meant is that if left untreated, it can compound into a more severe health issue. Depression an anxiety can become debilitating when it reaches certain levels. So, really a good idea to head it off before it gets to that point!
Now, I've had health anxiety as well. And I get worried about my heart. Sigh. I can hyper focus to the point in which I feel 'something'. It's amazing how the mind can do such things, isn't it?
My anxiety is worse related to my hormones. Anything going on with that with you? Any imbalance like long cycles, late periods? Had a baby any time in the recent pass, stop breast feeding, anything like that?
My ob/byn and gp are both excellent with mental health. They do a nice job of diagnosing and treating but do always recommend talk therapy too. There is support out there. Any chance you could see a psychologist? There are natural ways to help too such as regular exercise. You are young and have been thoroughly checked out so run it by your gp but you should be able to up your fitness and exercise level. This really helps my mental health. Good sleep helps as well. What about yoga and meditation? These can be helpful. There are also a lot of inexpensive anxiety work books you can find on amazon which that in itself makes you feel like you are doing 'something' which can help you overall. Tell me what you think!
First, be careful with that remedy for the reflux you don't know if you have or not. If you take it too long, it will force your stomach to produce even more acid, as it must be acidic when it has to digest protein or minerals. A good sign of that problem being reflux is, does it happen if you lie down soon after eating? That's a major cause of reflux. If it happens that way, make sure you don't lie down or recline until you've had a chance to digest for awhile. My main question is, you seem to have been building up to an anxiety problem but you don't mention whether you started therapy with a psychologist who specializes in anxiety treatment. You also mention you're not on meds because you don't have insurance, but I'm not sure having insurance has anything to do with having meds. Staying on a medication is really cheap. You only have to see your psychiatrist when you make changes and the generic drugs don't cost very much. So if you need the med, insurance or no insurance isn't as crucial as it is for other things, such as regular check-ups and surgery and the like. I'm guessing that remedy you don't know you need for the reflux you don't know you have costs as much or more as generic drugs do. A further question: did the anxiety go way up to levels beyond what you had when you started the med when you stopped taking it? Did you taper off of it gradually, or did you quit cold turkey? Getting a problem that is different or of a greater intensity than you had when you started taking a med when you stop taking it can be a withdrawal symptom of quitting, especially when you quit abruptly but can happen even with the usual doctor schedule that is often too quick for many people. You don't say what the timeline of the increased anxiety was, so I'm just asking. If it is a withdrawal symptom, the best thing to do is go back on the med and taper off as slowly as you need to if you still want to stop, though it appears you really didn't want to stop, you did it for financial reasons. But again, most docs don't charge anything to refill a script and generic drugs aren't expensive, so I don't know if you needed to do that. As for your symptoms, might be anxiety, might not be. Who knows? They do sound like anxiety symptoms and you've seen docs who said it's anxiety, so there's that. The main symptom of anxiety is thinking anxious thoughts obsessively. That's what causes the body to respond by tightening up and creating the physiological stuff. If you can learn to not think like that, which isn't easy but is what therapy tries to teach you to do so is worth a try or two or three, and if you can learn some relaxation techniques, such as deep breathing, muscle relaxation, yoga, meditation and exercise, as examples, you might tamp down some of that stuff.