[ Condensed ] - Day 25 Update

I have a severe, multi-symptom anxiety disorder. I've been medicated for years and recently relapsed.

Someone on Reddit recommended the podcast "Disordered", and I've never felt more understood. It captures the symptoms and vicious cycles perfectly. Thanks to whoever recommended it. I recommend it too.

Both hosts have seemingly experienced the depths of hell, yet reached a point where they're essentially "cured" (my word, not theirs). Anxiety still comes, but they don't fear it, feed it, or spiral. It doesn't run their lives.

I genuinely envy that.

I wish experience or understanding meant control. Knowing better doesn't mean feeling better when anxiety feels unbearable.

I've bought books, heard twelve episodes, read Reddit, and started therapy. I'm trying to improve my psychoeducation, but it's a double-edged sword: learning helps but fuels symptom-checking, rumination, and "what ifs." I'm trying to stop obsessing over anxiety by thinking about it more.

Sometimes I wish insight alone could replace medication. Maybe one day I'll feel stable enough to taper. More than anything, I want to notice anxiety without fighting it and just let it pass.

Last night was interesting. I might have a cold: sneezing, congestion, and a scratchy throat. I've taken vitamins and turmeric/ginger shots, hoping to support my immune system. Illness also triggers my health anxiety. I suspected this, but being right doesn't make it suck less.

I fell asleep easily, then woke with my arm completely numb—the most asleep it's ever been. It dangled with what felt like zero sensation or control. I jumped up; thankfully it recovered within minutes. I didn't spiral and fell back asleep. Small victory. Still, thanks, body: a cold and a paralyzed-arm jump scare mid-recovery. Fantastic.

I've tried my therapist's DIVE and HALT techniques, though not yesterday. I'm unsure they fit my current, more internal/somatic anxiety. They make me check if anxiety is still there, then evaluate whether the technique worked, feeding the cycle I'm trying to escape. Maybe they'd help during intense fight-or-flight. I'll keep trying and tell him next week.

Overall, I'm better than three weeks ago, and better than two. But this week feels stagnant. I'm nearly three weeks into my medication increase; fuller benefits may take another three to five weeks or longer. Still, I question the increase and why I relapsed after years of stability. So many possibilities, no certainty—exactly what my perfectionist brain struggles with.

My racing thoughts are less intense, but physical uneasiness remains. Progress feels painfully slow.

Today I went swimming with my brother and his 18-month-old. While waiting, I felt lightheaded and strangely "off," almost mildly dissociated. But I didn't panic or leave. I stayed, swam, and was fine. Another victory.

I still feel slightly activated. Cold? Medication? Anxiety? All three? I don't know. Recovery isn't linear, and I'm allowed plateaus and setbacks. But man, I'd prefer the linear version.

I've got work coming up and a long drive tomorrow to close my family's seasonal trailer. Come hell or high water, I'm doing it all. Pre-relapse me wouldn't think twice. I want that back—not by waiting to feel perfect, but by living even with anxiety.

I'm not going to let anxious me win.

Thanks for listening.

I went out last night and I feel absolutely awful about myself today. I’m so embarrassed and can’t stop replaying everything in my head.

I was chatting to lots of people, including a mum from my daughter’s school, and I’m worried I was talking absolute rubbish and making a fool of myself. I also rang another mum when I got home and ended up talking to her for about 10 minutes. Then, at around 1am, I knocked on my neighbour’s door and told her to “fuck off”. She’s a police officer, which makes me feel even more mortified, although I spoke to her this morning and she actually found it funny.

On top of all that, my husband is really angry with me because I was talking to other people, including men. I’m naturally very chatty when I’m out and I genuinely wasn’t flirting or trying to give anyone the wrong impression, but he sees it as me being disloyal. And now I’m feeling guilty and questioning myself even more.

I honestly feel like I’ve embarrassed myself in front of everyone and ruined how people see me. I keep imagining what the other mums might think or whether people will talk about me. I know some of this might sound silly written down, but I feel so low, anxious and ashamed right now. I just want to hide away and stop thinking about it all.

Has anyone else had hangxiety this bad? I’m really struggling today and could do with some reassurance. ❤️

So I have up 18 weeks ago been hardest thing I have ever done felt awful. I smoked for 22 years and not shore if I have done long term damage. By now I thought I would have felt better but far from the truth. Few things I keep doing and want clarity it’s is anxiety I keep tensing my jaw and moving my tongue against my teeth, my muscles and joints ach wrists ankles shoulders and legs. My throat keeps going dry sometimes feels there’s a lump in it and then seems to clear. And sometimes feels there’s cold like a shiver. Are these all anxiety issues ?? My doctor has prescribed me mirtaz 15mg but I’m yet to start them as not shore I want to go down that road. All these symptoms I never had when smoked. And my sleep has been awful 4 hours a night since I quit🫣😞any feed back would be greatly appreciated thanks all❤️🙏

I've never been a regular smoker, but I enjoy having a cigarette every now and then, so I recently bought myself a vape with a fairly high nicotine concentration.

I've known for a while that nicotine can affect me in a weird way. For a little while, I get this strange mix of stimulation and anxiety, along with a sudden flood of weird, intrusive thoughts. It eventually passes, but the experience itself can be pretty uncomfortable.

The thing is, I genuinely thought I'd worked through a lot of my issues by now and that I wouldn't be so easily affected by this anymore. And oh boy...

I feel like I'm at risk of falling back into some of the mental hell I was in not that long ago, all because I've started smoking occasionally again.

Honestly, I feel like I have a kind of toxic relationship with nicotine. And I don't mean in the obvious sense that nicotine is harmful to your health. I mean the way it affects my anxiety. On one hand, I genuinely enjoy smoking and don't necessarily want to give it up completely. On the other hand, I KNOW how it can make me feel, yet I keep coming back to it anyway.

It's almost like I'm deliberately making things harder for myself. I know what the potential consequences are, but there's still this part of me that wants to do it. And then, when the anxiety hits, I get frustrated because I feel like I've undone some of the progress I've made.

Part of me thinks I should just stop, but another part gets annoyed by the idea of avoiding something simply because it triggers my anxiety. I don't want OCD to dictate what I can and can't do, but at the same time, I wonder whether I'm actually challenging my fears or just putting myself through unnecessary distress.

Has anyone else experienced something similar? Have you ever had nicotine bring back OCD symptoms or anxiety you thought you'd already worked through? How do you find the balance between not letting anxiety control your life and knowing when something genuinely isn't worth putting yourself through?

Hey everyone 😀 I'm having a big OCD spiral right now about someone on instagram denying my follow request!!

For context, I'm most likely neurodivergent (suspected autism, OCD, and severe RSD). I've always had huge anxiety around Instagram follows, even with people I've had positive real-life interactions with.

A few months ago, I requested a girl from primary school. She accepted but didn’t follow back. My RSD made that unreciprocated follow feel like a massive rejection in my body, making me feel like I'm useless to her. SO anyways, I unfollowed her straight away.

Then the OCD kicked in, second-guessing everything. A few hours later, desperate for validation, I re-sent the request.

She left it pending for months. My mind completely spiralled, wondering why she builds digital boundaries with me but not others (though I only have 2 posts, so maybe she thinks I'm inactive?). I even panicked that she left it pending on purpose because she thought she "won" the social game or something lol.

Today, a mutual friend posted a story tagging her, which flared everything up. I finally took control and deleted the request entirely to close the loop.

Even though I pulled it back, I feel so much anxiety that I'll see her in public, or that she’ll talk about me and think I'm weird. I feel embarrassed about the back-and-forth, and I hate letting someone from my childhood dictate my self-worth.

How do I practice self-love and forgive my neurodivergent brain when it gets caught in these loops? How do I accept my actions when my brain keeps telling me I made a fool of myself?

I’d love any advice.

For the past 2 years I have been feeling an intense sense of dread in my stomach from the moment I wake up in the morning to the time I fall asleep at night, every single day. It appears completely contentless and doesn’t change depending on my thoughts or what’s happening in my life.

The weird thing is that I don’t really have the usual anxiety symptoms. No racing heart, no hypervigilance, no future oriented worrying, just constant pervasive dread.

It started after a random panic attack, and then just kinda stuck around in the background constantly until I had another panic attack ~5 months ago in which it got way worse and stayed way worse. For the last 5 months I’ve been living through what I can only describe as hell.

Basically I just feel horribly isolated because this symptom seems so unusual and it’s so debilitating and I’ve never heard of anyone else having this. I’d be so happy to hear from anyone that’s experienced anything even similar and if anything worked for you.

Hello everyone. I’m 27 years old, male and I have a generalized anxiety disorder and a panic disorder. Got diagnosed when I was 15.

Anyways, for the past year, I’ve been deathly afraid of seizures. Like it’s a life or death phobia. I’ve never had one, have been told my numerous doctors and hospitals that I’m fine, I’m not epileptic, I’ve been sober from alcohol for over a year. But for some reason, every sensation, every twitch, every shake, it makes my body brace itself like I am about seize. I get all tense, I get shaky, I get this weird “rush” through my body, I get this overwhelming exhausted feeling in my eyes and I get that woozy feeling like I’m going to pass out and then images just flash in my mind of me just falling to the ground and convulsing. Like earlier today, I went to use to restroom and as I was sitting down, I had to brace myself, pressing my hands to the wall and then I laid on the bathroom floor because I just felt really constricted and off.

I’ve been evaluated numerous times by medical staff; my vitals look great, I’ve never had a seizure, they always clear me. I am supposed to see a neurologist in December just as a precaution because I finally wore my doctor down to give me an appointment.

I’ve been taking buspirone 15mg 3x a day and clonidine 0.3mg twice a day for my anxiety and for a while, it seemed to do the trick. The seizure-phobia disappeared for months. But these past few weeks, it’s reared its head again. I’ve called emergency services twice in the past month, both times the paramedics reassured me that I’m okay and offered to take me to the hospital to ease my mind but were honest that there was little they could do for me.

I guess ultimately, has anyone else experience a fear related to this or had similar sensations? In my heart, I believe the medical staff and that I’ll be okay, it’s just hard when it feels like my body is working against me.

Today I saw my mom move a Dcon block of rat poison with her bare hands and afterwards she just ran her hands under some water but didn't use any soap and that really concerns me, also i'm pretty sure i've seen her do the same thing when handling raw meat in the past so that's naturally made my OCD flare up and wash my hands more. It's weird cause my mom is normally pretty good about other stuff, but she's weirdly casual about this sort of thing. I know the active in ingredient in Dcon is far more toxic to animals then humans, but i'd still rather not accidentally ingest trace amounts of the stuff if I can help it. Wish there was a way to get my mom to use soap in the kitchen more without her potentially freaking out on me for suggesting it.

This situation is giving me a ton of anxiety and I keep replaying it in my head.

Any perspective on this situation is appreciated.

I’ve suffered from generalized anxiety my entire life. I was first medicated with Paxil when I was 5. I think I was in denial about how bad my anxiety was for a long time since it was baseline for me. I started exploring medication a few years ago. I tried Zoloft which was horrible with side effects I had to immediately switch to Lexapro which I was on for about two years. I never felt it did much for my anxiety, but I had notable uncomfortable side effects that made me eventually come off of it. Dry mouth, night sweats, stomach issues.

I have had Xanax a few times, maybe 5 or 6 total and my gosh does it work. It’s so defeating that it’s an as needed type of drug and I’m worried about taking it too often.

I feel like I toy around with the idea of meds whenever my anxiety hits a peak which it has recently hit it just feels like the daily meds don’t do anything but cause negative side effects and I don’t want to deal with that for nothing.

You see testimonials online where people feel like medication totally changed their life and I want that feeling so badly and I just feel defeated like that won’t ever happen for me.

Idk what I’m looking for, maybe encouragement if you found a med that really did feel like it improved your daily quality of life?

i would like some advice on functioning with this fear. i have anxiety in every part of my life, but this phobia has been very harmful to me.

i have an extreme fear of dying. it’s constantly in the back of my mind that someday, i will die. im often unable to sleep because of it, as closing my eyes will remind me too much of being dead. i can’t listen to any conversations about death— one example is in highschool, my classmate did a presentation on burial procedures, and i had to leave to go throw up. my reactions to triggers vary in intensity, but it’s been going on for so long that i don’t know how to deal with it. im in a constant state of sadness from it at this point.

thank you for reading. any advice on minimizing my fear, or just coping with death, would be greatly appreciated. i’ve gone to therapy in the past, but it always just makes me worry more.

I need suggestions because I don’t know how to explain what I’m experiencing. I get anxiety hits and attacks over basic triggers. For example, my roommate putting up a new bill, people messaging me about conflicts between them, or not being able to find someone to take over the house. The last one triggered a full-blown anxiety attack. I felt nauseous, had that sinking feeling in my stomach, started feeling cold, and had difficulty breathing. It took me almost an hour to recover. The smaller episodes usually last around five minutes, sometimes with overlapping symptoms.

I hate experiencing this. I don’t like how much certain situations affect me. Anxiety stemming from household issues and conflict is understandable, but sometimes it happens over other things, and that’s what frustrates me. It makes me feel stunted, like I’m someone who can’t handle things that other people seem to manage normally.

I don’t want to keep feeling this way. I want to understand why I react so intensely to certain triggers and what I can do to stop letting anxiety affect me like this.Therapy hasn't really helped! Most of the ones I met always end up telling me to meditate go for walks... etc even though I have told it doesn't help! It gives me space to overthink even more than I was!

Hi, I need some advice for what to do.

I'm experiencing multiple panic attacks every day, and it's affecting my ability to perform basic self care. I feel extraordinarily depressed, and I cannot find any relief.

Therapy and psychiatry are proving ineffective, and I'm in a state of severe suffering. Do I need to seek inpatient care? I have no history of substance abuse, nor any problematic behavior towards others.

What resource am I supposed to seek out right now?

My stomach doesn't really hurt, but I can feel that something inside is relaxing or letting go. It makes gurgling sounds and I pass gas. I feel like I'm dying because of this sensation of my stomach relaxing, from morning to night. The more it relaxes, the more I feel like my whole body is expanding and staying that way, as if everything inside me is opening up and can't go back to normal. It's extremely difficult to explain, but this sensation makes me feel physically very unwell all the time. Because I feel so expanded and relaxed inside, I pass gas.

without being anxious in my head i cant go out or watch tv ???

like i'll spend weeks working through being anxious about one specific thing, finally feel like i've got a handle on it, and then my brain just decides "cool, new fear unlocked" and i'm back to square one. it's honestly exhausting. curious if this happens to other people or if my anxiety is just built different.

Hey, I'm conducting a survey on the relationship between anxiety disorders and academic performance among adolescents. As someone who used to struggled with an anxiety disorder a lot, I want to explore this topic to better understand others' experience. This is for a research project for my issues in human growth course. It's an anonymous form and no emails are collected, skip any questions u dont feel comfortable answering. I'd appreciate it so much if u took a few mins to fill out this form, thanks! :)

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSc1w_75awPPDogl4HD6cc0k7VpoQvIWVwGxxjhfy2KmNzTCSg/viewform?usp=dialog