Anxious All The Time

[seaworthy]

I feel paralyzed by anxiety. I don't want to be on any chemicals for two reasons: (1 I want to get in touch with what is me and (2 I don't have access to someone
to prescribe for me. I did have a script for Klonopin and Valium, but both my neurologist and my medication-only shrink abandoned me as a patient after my AA sponsor
threw away their prescriptions. This left me strung out on benzos with no help.

I am just doing what I can each day. When I get in touch with the anxiety, I find myself in a state of shock...completely stunned and immobilized. I feel dead, like
when I completely left my body when my head, neck and shoulder were smashed in a brutal assault. I try to do my self-EMDR on this, but I can't get a hold of it.

seaworthy

 

[anthony]

Your AA sponsor was an idiot then, and honestly, you should not have let them throw them away. If you are constantly anxious then you should get something to help with the anxiety so you can work on the trauma. I am not a big believer in constant medication, but you must sit on the fence and use commonsense, not one or the other. If you know something is going to help you for what it is designed, being short term, then why not use it. Those who get on a drug, do nothing else but rely on a drug, then they abuse them and should slap themselves around the back of the head. Those who don't take them at all and bouncing of the walls and can't get stable long enough to work on the issue, then they should also slap themselves around the back of the head and use commonsense to take valium or such for a short period in order to work on the problem.

Once you remove the problem, work through the issue, you remove the medication again. Medication is a bandaid with a purpose and appropriate use.

 

[onebravegirl]

Band-aids get infected.
I personally think of meds as scaffolding, it helps hold you up in the right spots and, when you are ready you take away what you don't need until one day...
you are standing on your own.
Saying "you should have" this -or - that is not helpful. You begin now, and the more you know the better choices you can make in the future.
I do agree that there is No point in making yourself suffer needlessly. Yes the meds can be powerful, but that can largely depend on the doses as well.
A .5mg of an anti-anxiety med will take the edge off but not make you feel like your thinking is fuzzy.
Up to you, I'll still enjoy your thoughts, what ever you choose to do!
O

 

[anni]

Hi Seaworthy,

I don't know how your PTSD affects you, but if were me I'd be feeling really deserted and also 'judged' by your sponser throwing out your prescriptions. That 'thing' where anyone who is viewed or trusted as an 'authority figure' has the ability to make us feel bad about ourselves is what I'm referring to. That alone would be enough to throw me personally into that horrible state of constant anxiety. It's an awful way to live and pretty much feeds itself, I know.

The only thing I can muster a good anger about for myself is this dam PTSD. This might not be at all helpful, but it's just something I've been able to use once in awhile which works ( once in awhile. ) I'll seriously get so sick of feeling like that I'll just yell at 'it' to go the hell away, STOP IT, leave me alone,etc. Sometimes out loud, so I've been caught at it and had to go to the trouble of explaining my un-crazy self. I think maybe just the anger is a different emotion and can jolt some of the anxiety into a more manageable level. For whatever reason, it helps sometimes.

I hate to frustrate you when you're feeling so awful, but if you can manage the energy to get something to take the edge off temporarily you'll be able to be in a place where you can have a platform from which to process your healing. I got rid of my Lorazapam a bit ago, because I was starting to use it to sleep at night. I'm thinking of getting another prescription now that I have a grip on that nonsense because like you, I cannot get to the other side of that horrible, horrible constant anxiety sometimes. Without the constant presence of those feelings ( and their intrusive, negative thoughts) I can generally manage to process the world realistically enough to continue healing. Then maybe one day I'll get to the point where I won't 'go there' anymore.

I have this hope for you, too, however you manage to get there. Take care?

Anni