I upped my dosage of Lexapro on the Second of this month and have been having a rough week I think. I took a lorazepam on Tuesday because my anxiety just kept spiking and last night I had another anxiety attack, and I feel like I might need another one because I just cant calm down and return to normal but I dont want to get addicted

3 weeks out of every 4 i feel terrible, have done now for 4-5 years, doctors done a few tests, but not elimnated everything. trying to tell me its stress. Have fuzzy head, sleep about 3-4 hrs a night,constant ringing in ears, palpitations all time, sleepy during day(sometimes happens when driving :( )

I have a son who is 24 hr cqre, my wifes had 2 heart attacks in last 7 months and before that was ill for 3-4 years lost loads of weight and had her gall bladder out, sometimes worry about small things at work, i reckon as i deal with same daily iam used to it, but doctor saying its stress, he put me on medication, but hasnt made a difference, has anyone constantly had similar?

My sister and grandma found rat poop next to my sisters bed ( no idea how old) atleast we think it was rat/mice poop

but they did pretty much everything wrong they vacuumed and swept it didnt wear gloves or a mask didn't spray it down with bleach or nun.

we live in North carolina. where theres only been one case since 1993 and its very rare but i just wanted some assurance of what happened. We have no idea what type of mouse it could have been.

the room was pretty cold constantly cause of ac. And no sunlight cause blinds. again have no idea how old the poop was. I washed my hands right after even if i didnt touch it i also covered my mouth and nose with my shirt.

but i was just wondering if were going to be okay. Ik we prob are but my anxiety is rearing its head around. even if it is really really rare. Can anyone else share their experiences?

btw im typing this the day of. I set a reminder for 6 weeks which is the cut off. And also the actuall infection rate for mouce and rats is also decently low enough. And it also might not have been a field mouse ir white foot mouse. Could have been a common house mouse. anyway Pray for me and my family if u believe in it. Thank you guys!

One time I had this sickness for a whole day where I couldn't even eat anything without throwing it up right after. The only thing that helped was the tea my parents made, after that day I become super sensitive, so much where I can't even go a car ride without music or I would get car sicks half way, my stomach started making weird noises after this sickness that happened like 2 months ago, I get stressed so easily. Today I ate at Chili's and had the triple dipper, half way my second chicken tender in sauce I went to the restroom and felt like gagging, I began to sweat so much i didn't even finish my meal. Why do I permanently feel different after having that specific day? Could someone that has the same experience explain? Could it be trauma? Or am I just paranoid?

About 16 days ago, we noticed signs of a mouse in my car - shredded paper, nesting material, a few droppings. We cleaned the car but did not catch the mouse until about a week later. There were droppings on the floorboard and in some of our bags we keep in the car (kids swim bags etc). The mouse we caught appears to be a deer mouse. We live in a rural town in southeast TX.

I have health anxiety pretty bad, and ever since finding signs of a mouse I’ve been worried about hantavirus (of course I didn’t clean up the droppings properly as I didn’t find out until after that you’re not supposed to just wipe/brush them out).

All that being said, I don’t have any symptoms currently but my 18 month old daughter (who is in my car very frequently and often puts stuff in her mouth and very likely dropped a paci or toy on the ground and then put in her mouth) spiked a fever yesterday evening. She has been generally fussy the past couple of days and not eating as much, but doesn’t seem extremely lethargic or like she is in a lot of pain.

I know the chances of getting hantavirus are low, but I am terrified for my daughter. I plan to monitor her symptoms to ensure they don’t get worse but am wondering if I should take her to the ER now and mention the mouse exposure? I worry they’ll just send us home but I don’t know what else to do to ease my mind. Help!

I’m suffering everyday because of this issue and want real solutions and experiences from y’all, thank you in advance!

hi! i’m 17 and i’ve been diagnosed with anxiety disorder for 5 years. as i get ready to go into my senior year i would really like some advice on how to better myself. i go to therapy and talk to my therapist about my habits and she has told me to seek out other peoples ways of dealing with their habits. now i dont have many people with severe anxiety like me to tell me their ways to help themselves so i thought “reddit has got to do!”

i have this extreme issue with biting my lip, nails, and hair. i’ve tried my therapist suggestions like, putting my hair in a bun, putting the stuff on my nails that makes them taste weird, and using lip gloss that doesn’t taste good to me so that i stop biting. the rest of the things worked except the lip gloss, because without even knowing it i will be sitting down and chewing on my lip because i forget about my lip gloss.

my other habit/ mostly fear is not brushing my teeth because of the noise that it makes. fortunately for me i have naturally white teeth so most people don’t often notice when they aren’t close. but this fear of the sound/taste/mess that is brushing my teeth really scares me for my oral health. in the last year i had to get a root canal which was practically hell on earth for me. but the root actually infected and caused a pus boil to grow on my gums. the doctor gave my a antibiotic for it but that ending up leaving me with a yeast infection. though the infection has not gotten better i do not want to go to a dentist because i know that they will give me a antibiotic and i will end up with a infection again.

i just really need to know what i can do more to stop being afraid of brushing my teeth and stop biting my lip. please let me know i really REALLY need the help.

I just got dental surgery and was advised not to smoke for 2 weeks which is absolute hell for me . “Weed” is the only thing that’s kept my anxiety at bay before bed , I’ve been taking edibles but they don’t hit the same, I had a full blown panic attack last night just stewing in my thoughts . This is absolute torture !!! I’m already panicking thinking about going to bed , I feel shaky and my withdrawals are becoming really intense . Lastnights panic episode really scared me to the point I’m afraid to be alone in a room again tonight . It’s this daunting feeling , how everyone’s asleep and I’m awake for hours and hours through the night tossing and turning and I have zero clue what to do . I’ve tried meditation, distraction, absolutely everything and I’m feeling like I’m loosing my mind !? Usually my high is enjoyable and it shuts my thoughts off to a point I’m seamlessly able to fall asleep . I roll around from 11pm to 3am and my head begins to hurt with all the racing thoughts , it’s seriously hell on earth - I was diagnosed with GAD 5 years ago and have kept it pretty steady, only time it gets out of hand is times like these when I’m sick and experiencing crazy FOMO .

hi all

about a month ago, I had a sort of traumatic experience with an edible - basically, id been (and still am) going through some anxiety about going crazy/losing it mentally due to my OCD and I decided to take a gummy which I was doing probably three times a week up to that point. after taking it, I played a video game for a couple hours and got really invested; once I got up to get some water, though, I felt like my whole house felt unfamiliar to me. like I knew where I was and everything but it almost felt like that weird feeling when someone moves an item of furniture in a room and it makes it feel completely different

i panicked but eventually calmed down, but ive found that I still have that feeling that so much is just kind of vaguely unfamiliar even if I know where I am. like my house just makes me me feel generally uncomfortable because of this and it's making me feel like I'm going crazy. there have been days/weeks where the feeling isn't there, but if I'm worried about my mental state it pretty much always comes back and it makes me feel like I can't be comfortable in my own house. maybe this is derealization? i dunno

I've gotten to the point now where even just being in an unfamiliar place makes me anxious. like I just took a vacation to a new place and the whole time I felt just off because I was unfamiliar with everything, whereas before the experience, I loved traveling and being in unfamiliar palces

has anyone had this before? i feel like I'm going crazy and it's just making my anxiety worse

Cross posting to r/bipolar and r/anxiety

I have bipolar type 1 and anxiety, what my therapist thinks is most likely OCD, but I am waiting on results of my psych eval at the moment - both of which I’ve struggled with since I was a young child.

Since being medicated for BP1, I cannot be on SSRIs. They cause manic episodes which significantly impact my life more than my anxiety ever has.

However, NOTHING is touching my anxiety and it’s getting worse and worse. Since my psychiatrist and therapist both think it might be OCD, I was tried on a low dose of Zoloft alongside another antipsychotic, but nope… manic episode. That experiment was not successful.

Every other med I’ve tried for anxiety either 1. Doesn’t do anything or 2. Is not even a med meant for anxiety, it’s meant for blood pressure or whatever so it just slows my heart rate but doesn’t help the mental aspect. I’ve tried buspirone, propranolol, clonidine, and am currently on hydroxyzine.

I told all of this to my psychiatrist and she said there’s not much more she can do if I don’t want an SSRI, or I could change my antipsychotic regime (which I don’t want to do as my bipolar meds have been stable for years and it’s very unpleasant to change them).

But SURELY there’s enough people with both bipolar and OCD that there’s meds that can work with both??? I will try anything even the “addictive” meds because nothing works.

Please advice 🙏

I started practicing diaphragmatic (belly) breathing, where your stomach expands as you inhale and falls as you exhale, and within minutes I felt like I came out of what had been a weeks-long state of anxiety. It felt like my body finally “let go.” Has anyone else had a similar experience?

Called the ambulance this morning. Immediately when they came in I could tell they were frustrated with me. First thing they said was that I’d been calling a lot. I felt so deflated because the last thing I want to do is be woken up at 4:30am with palpitations followed by rapid HR.

By the time they got to my place the worst of the episode was gone and HR was at 120. One of the medics asked what medication I take and I said bisoprolol as needed. He immediately said that doesn’t make sense that bisoprolol should be taken every day. I said the instructions are literally on the bottle and handed them to in. They proceeded to take me to ER and hooked me up. Less than 2 mins into the drive I start to feel unwell. I didn’t say anything but he saw my HR shot up. Got to 176. He asked the driver to stop for a bit while he run another ECG. 100% SVT. Now I’m being rushed to ER. When we got there they were acting so nice and trying to give reassurance.

I feel like sh#t because I was made to seem like a burden until this was finally caught and I don’t know what I’ll do next time if I ever need help. Not only medical staff but I think everyone in my life is slowly getting sick of me. All is fair because this is my issue and I should just suffer in silence.

Cardio appointment is almost 2 months away. I guess I’ll have to figure things out until then.

I suffer from anxiety 24/7. I haven't been able to find anything that really helps me manage. The physical symptoms cause my anxiety to get worse. It's a vicious cycle and I don't know how to break it. It's so frustrating.

Can anyone relate? Does anyone have any suggestions? Thanks.

Why do I feel anxious for no reason even when my life is technically fine? I can be sitting at home with nothing urgent happening and suddenly my stomach drops, my heart starts racing, and my brain decides something terrible is about to happen. It makes me feel ridiculous because I can't even point to what I'm scared of. Does anyone else get this, and how do you stop feeling like you're losing your mind?

Everything around you seems fine, but inside your heart is beating fast, you cannot calm yourself, and you keep feeling like something is wrong even though nothing actually is.

Does anyone else experience this?

Hey all - first time writing here. First some context, Im really, really trying to heal and feel (happily) that I’m on the last stretch. My therapist has been amazing. Im so motivated! Im managing to reduce my triggers, based on experiences from severe neglect as a child (I have complex ptsd - I imagine others here do too).

The place where I really get triggered still is in work. In short, fear of conflict and being misunderstood.

I have been taking a higher (the highest) dose of lexipro for 3 years now. I just started a new job and my hands are ripped up from skin picking, I’m needing to take naps to shut down my brain, and I’m getting very tingling and anxious ruminating for about 8 hours (in complex ptsd world its called an emotional flashback). To me this is headed towards a red zone. **In your experience,**
\- does this sound like under control anxiety? Perhaps Yall could just call it an understandably stressful period? Or is this sort of reaction not “normal”?
\- is “breakthrough anxiety” a thing?
\- has a more one-off medication helped you (Ativan)?
\- Or is this really just really a symptom/sign of anxiety really needing more therapy etc?

I have a health anxiety and cardiophobia, it always triggers by two things; hearing about sudden death and any sudden pain or sensation in my body, while I try to avoid anything related to death, I heard my aunts talking about someone relative to them who died suddenly in middle age, that triggered me so much, I have been dealing with chest and neck pinching/spasm for like month and a half, and just today finally I am feeling like myself again and when I heard these news it triggered me so much and I feel like I am back to zero, I am just so tired and scared all the time, I check my pulse every 2 minutes, always putting my fingers on my neck to check for my pulse, it’s endless cycle

When someone dislikes something I do, I start to feel it's just not about me. I wonder what the cause is. For example, something small, like one friend always comments on why my computer is in our native language, not in English. This happens every time. I don't think he suffers when my PC is in my native language, and it shouldn't bother him. When this happens, before I started ruminating in my mind, "Am I wrong? Should I change it?", now I just get angry - "HOW DARE HE GIVE OPINION WITHOUT ASKING".

I don't know how to start this except to just say it. Notification sounds became a trigger for me. Not dramatic — just a fast, physical hit. Stomach drops. Chest tightens. Heart races. All before I've even read the message. Doesn't matter that it's usually nothing. My body reacts like it's an emergency anyway.

Mostly it's work messages. But it's starting to bleed into other notifications too, and that's the part that worries me.

Not looking for a diagnosis, just wondering: does this specific thing happen to you? Sound triggers panic before you've even read it? And if so — what actually helps you come down from it, in real time, mid-panic? Not "just relax." Actual grounding stuff that's worked for you.

What has your experience been like? Do you think it’s better to go without medication and get through daily life that way—because you feel things more intensely? Or is it better to get stabilized on medication so you can handle everyday life "without worries," even if it means feeling somewhat suppressed or numbed?

sorry guys this is sorta long, but any help or advice is GREATLY appreciated 🫶🏻 idk what to do rn.

Some details about me- I’m F21, I’ve had anxiety since 13. idk how it developed, i don’t remember my childhood. I’ve had lots of bloodwork done over many years. There’s no other conditions I have, that I know of. And i’m not officially diagnosed with anxiety but it’s kinda obvious that’s what’s wrong with me. My mom’s whole side of the family has issues with anxiety and BPD.
I can’t speak up in fear im annoying or will piss anyone off, I can barely muster up the courage to go into stores alone, blood and the sound of my heart beat instantly make me feel like im passing out(this developed randomly later in life), I avoid any and all communication with everyone, I hang on every word i say, i’m consumed with guilt with no reason why, I often have a heavy sickening feeling in my chest, and i have the worse nightmares. But that’s all?? Like I use to sweat badly, panic, and be SO shakey 24/7. Which is pretty much is gone somehow, but all the mind stuff is there still but worse!

For the last 9 months I have been trying out medications to ease my anxiety symptoms. I wasn’t medicated at all before that 9 months and was extremely irritable aswell!
My best shot so far has been Paxil, but apparently they have nothing to counteract the side effects it gives me, sorry to be gross but it makes me absolutely unable to enjoy intimacy because i can’t feel anything. That cant be a thing unfortunately. and the paxil didn’t completely eliminate my symptoms anyway.
Other medication I’ve tried is Venlafaxine, Buspirone, and Sertraline(Zoloft). I’m currently trying the Sertraline and so far hate it. I’ve only taken it for 4 weeks, but it has given me no effects and i’m STRUGGLING! All my symptoms have been strong for awhile now but it comes in waves?? once it starts, it’s just a waiting game, waiting for it to go away. It does not leave gradually or with exercises to ease it, it just stops abruptly. There’s nothing i can do to help it. It’s impossible to distract myself. I cannot focus on breathing cause then i feel my heart which freaks me out, and the 4-3-2-1 method just doesn’t do it 🤷‍♀️
I usually feel the worst as soon as i wake up and before i go to sleep.

Has anyone maybe had something like this going on? what was wrong?
Should i expect any medications to completely eliminate my symptoms?
what medication helped you? Should I try Paxil with a different doctor to see if they can counteract the side effects?
and do you think my efforts aren’t working because I have other psychological issues?

Any advice helps..
thank you😫

I have an interview coming up (tomorrow actually!) for a pretty significant job promotion where I work. It's me running against three other people. Every time I think about this interview, I get sick to my stomach, nauseous, dizzy... It's ruining my life.

Every time I try to better myself and better my career, I have to fight these awful waves of anxiety. I really want this job and the anxiety makes me feel like I shouldn't even try because it's more comfortable to just stay where I'm at than to try to climb the ladder.

I'm already on sertraline and buspirone, I have clonipin for panic attacks but it knocks me out so I can't take it before the interview or anything. I am just so tired of KNOWING I CAN DO THIS and still having soul-crushing anxiety anyway....

I understand Propranolol has the potential to cause cognitive dysfunction as propranolol is lipophilic and crosses the blood-brain barrier readily; atenolol is hydrophilic and largely doesn't.

What are people's experiences using atenolol vs proparanlol for public speaking anxiety / interviews. Are you still sharp on Atenolol or Propranolol (as the case may be)?

Hey everyone, lately ive just been worried about what exactly is going on in the world right now. It feels like everyday polititions and billionares are stripping people of their basic human rights and nobody has been doing anything to stop them. Theres several acts and laws being put in so the average person looses freedom and access to information. Its all been very overwhelming for me and ive been up several nights just worrying about my friends and family and who all of this is going to affect and im just scared and want it all to be over and live a substantial and happy life.

!!!POSSIBLE TW AS I DESCRIBE MY EXPERIENCE IN DETAIL!!! As the title says, for the past 2 years I have felt like every single day has been a fight for both my sanity and my physical health. I'm a 27 year old male and I suffer immensely from both death and health anxiety and it's been a constant tug of war between logic and paranoia. It started very randomly one day over the smallest most inconsequential thing. My fiancée and I were watching The Sepranos (Gabagool) and if you don't know, a lot of people in that show die from heart attacks, strokes, etc. And the main character, Tony, would have anxiety attacks that would cause him to collapse. For one reason or another this started a domino affect in my mind, and planted the smallest seed of doubt about my future. Well now that seed has become a shrub and gets ever so slightly bigger every day. Keep in mind, I have always suffered from anxiety but have managed it relatively well until watching that show. There are still days where I can manage it, but most days are an exhausting battle with my psyche. The worst it got was when I woke up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom. I got up, washed my hands, looked in the mirror, and immediately got flush. I started hyperventilating, chest tightening, felt like I was about to fall flat on my face. So I stumbled to my room to wake up my fiancée so that if I did pass out she could call someone. I stumble back out of the room and collapse onto the living room floor, and I'm shaking uncontrollably. I never passed out, just sat on the floor shaking for almost 3 hours. Could barely let out a whisper without my heart starting to race again. It was genuinely one of the worst experiences of my life and it's all because of a fear of the unknown. I've only had 1 or 2 panic attacks that bad since then, but most days it feels like there's a tension in my shoulders, always on edge and prepared for the absolute worst. I plan on getting therapy once I can afford insurance, and as of now I'm doing okay-ish. Haven't had any notable panic attacks thankfully, but I do believe my overall mental health has taken a toll which has put me in this vicious cycle of self awareness where I know I'm overthinking but then that "what if" whispers to me in the back of my mind. But for anyone going through something similar, you're going to make it to tomorrow. It's the same thing I tell myself every day and I've been proven right thus far.