Posted by Vincent_QC on April 27, 2013, at 10:13:17
In reply to Re: For the Anxious, Avoidance Can Have an Upside (nm) » JONO_IN_ADELAIDE, posted by Vincent_QC on April 27, 2013, at 10:11:58
Why my message didn't appear?... It's a mystery! lol
Anyway I was saying that the same thing happen for me... In 2010, when severe anxiety (panic, health anxiety, somatic) hit me, I stop to drive my car, then I start to stay home all the time and by the end of 2010 I was and still are agoraphobic...
What I find funny is that I do some exposure therapy between 2010 and 2012 and my fears didn't decrease with exposure, in fact i'm worse and worse with each exposure out of my house... Even funnier, now at home I don't feel safe, it's like I didn't feel not anxious at home... It's like I don't have any place to hide and feel safe now, who scare me a lot...
Same thing for meds... at first when my Doc add some propranolol for the somatic anxiety it's help me to get out of the house, I had less tachycardia and panic was a lot harder to trigger when I wasnt at home and now my dose is 3 times higher than the one I was taking at first and it's doing nothing at all, just make me feel SO tired and heart race and is pounding all the time, little events like a phone call or a bad news will trigger panic attacks or tachycardia... Same things for the clonazepam, when I start to stop working it's like I lost faith and said to myself that I had nothing to help me to cope with the anxiety and of course the anxiety increase to the point that I start taking it every 2 hours in smaller doses just to prevent the increase amount of anxiety I had between interdose...
Now I feel terribly anxious at home, it's worse when i'm out the house, it's like i'm not used anymore to too much exterior stimulus like being around a lot of peoples, even my own family, bright light at Wal-Mart and strong sounds...). It's like I told to myself and my brain that now my meds don't work so I have anywhere to hide to escape and not trigger panic attacks or chronic free floating anxiety even at home, and it's like my brain know that my meds don't work anymore so nothing can't stop the anxiety at all, even staying at home with peoples that I trust...
Avoidance is the worse thing that can happen for an anxious person for sure... the more you avoid and harder it will be to be able to get out of your house...it's a bad vicious circle...
Of course, if I was able to return in the past, I will never start avoiding places where I was used to go and driving my car...but I can't travel back in time so I have to live with the conséquences of my own décisions...
Now when I have to leave my house, I need to take double dose of clonazepam, sometimes add a small dose of Xanax (even if it's not RX by my Doc, still have a full bootle of 0.25mg pills from 2 years ago), and double my propranolol dose... and even with all those meds in my body and brains it's harder and harder to get out...
poster:Vincent_QC
thread:1041892
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20130408/msgs/1042745.html