Living with Anxiety

I experienced my first panic attack when I was 17. I thought I was having a heart attack
and went to the emergency room. I felt very foolish after they did various tests and concluded
that I had just had my first panic attack. My primary care physician
later diagnosed me with GAD, Generalized Anxiety Disorder.

Since then, I've been having these attacks on and off. There will be periods of time
where I'm fine, and other periods where I can barely function due to anxiety. I have
been on almost all the medications there are available out there and not many of them
were able to tame my anxiety. I've tried Ativan for awhile and it did help, until
my body got so used to it that it stopped working for me. The same was true for Valium.
Right now, I'm not on anything due to breastfeeding my son. Not being on anything
is very hard as I have to talk myself out of my anxiety vs. trying to prevent it.

I spend most of my days constantly worrying about money, family, the world ending, whether
or not I'm going to die of a heart attack, or any other thing that pops into my head
or that I see on TV or read about. I always have to tell myself it's the anxiety and not
necessarily reality.

Some days it's very hard to go to work and make it through the day. I'm sitting there feeling
like a truckload of adrenaline is rushing through my veins and I can't do anything to
stop that feeling. I try to distract myself or even call someone to talk to to try
to calm me down. Most of the time it does help to talk to someone, but for the most part
it's only temporary.

Living with anxiety is tough. Many people don't realize what it's like and can't understand
why I have so many irrational feelings and thoughts. They try to understand, but in the end,
I'm pretty much alone.