Entry 1-

I’m trying to log my anxiety here and since this is the first day I will be going on and on so sorry ahead of time for the long post.

What brought me here is my CBT therapy failing me after 2 years of steady but remarkable progress with anxiety and/or depression. I was diagnosed with Anxiety Disorder and used the thought replacement method of CBT/REBT/RET to combat anxiety. It worked like a charm but for some reason I keep having panic attacks at my therapy sessions and even my therapist wasn’t able to help despite being so good and helpful all this time.

As a result I decided to come here and document my journey/seek others with similar stories. I am also looking into meditation classes and using free apps to relax and regulate my anxiety.

What I’ve learned is important to my recovery is that I have to watch out for my health problems/physical symptoms of which I get plenty. Sometimes it is very hard to tell if I really have an issue or if my anxiety is causing the symptoms. Furthermore, it is important to realize that I did not choose this to happen to me. The exact origin of my anxiety is unclear though mostly immaterial. Human beings are just programmed a certain way and there is little to nothing we can do about that. This is better known as fight or flight (or freeze). The people who fight are best off because they can act in the face of this energy and even though they become hard to deal with for other people, they are not really debilitated by the burst of energy that comes from this concept. Whereas freezers are the people who become depressed in this and the flighters are the ones who have to run aka anxiety disorder.

So in the long run, I didn’t choose this nobody did no one wants to have to run and hide and cower when things become “too much for them”. Again, it is CBT concepts like this and practice that helped me make so much progress but lately I’ve backslid. And I’m not sure why. It could be related to having gone back to the hospital recently for a nasty episode of heart palpitations that were so bad I thought I was leaving this earth and I got so dizzy that I could barely see. OR that I have been very sick with a nasty virus and bed ridden for several days/in for almost a week. Either way, I’m still living through this and unsure of how to combat this particularly chaotic round of anxiety I’m facing.

To end this post, I’m just going to c+p my response to someone with a similar story to mine (almost identical really) who also had a lot of this start to happen as a result of marijuana usage. After the first time I smoked, I had a massive panic attack though I didn’t realize it at the time. Anytime I backslide I start to feel very dazed and unwell and even unsure of who I am or what I’m doing or what day/time it is. It feels sometimes like I’m trapped and I’m watching a movie not living my life this is what I keep coming back to and all I want is to undo this and go back to before I tried the drug which I believe had such a detrimental impact on my life.

Anyway, if anybody has anything they’d like to contribute/comment on please feel free to. I will now paste the quote below, thank you for hearing me out.

”

Hello, I have pretty much had the exact same situation as your unravel over the last few years. The first time I tried marijuana (non-edible) it sent me into over drive, I had a mega panic attack (though at the time I didn’t realize it bc I had no idea what a panic attack was). I left weed alone, smoked a few times after but very rarely because of how it made me feel. Ever since then I’ve had this heightened sense of awareness, like I’m extra conscious and not myself at all. It feels like I’m watching a movie not living my life. Overall quality of life went down. Before I was mostly care free with little health problems. Now I have no appetite, no energy, am always sleeping in/can’t sleep at night, heart palpitations though no heart problems have been diagnosed, nervous, anxiety/depression preventing me from doing things, the list goes on similar to yours. I can’t sit through anything and my anxiety is ruining my life.

A friend turned me away from anxiety meds and instead told me that I should try his therapist because she’s the best. She believes in breathing exercises and logical thinking-all part of something called CBT-over medication.

It worked like a charm for two years but now I’ve been recently been having more physical symptoms than before and back sliding. I feel like I wish I could go back and never touch marijuana and let myself know it would have this effect on me but it’s impossible.

I currently don’t really have a solution, my progress with anxiety has backslid so much over the last month or so that I don’t even feel like I’m alive or am aware where I am/what I am doing. My thera[ist told me to try meditation for anxiety because it should be able to penetrate deeper than changing your thoughts is able to. This is also what I have joined here. I was glad to see someone else out there has a similar experience to mine and I hope you can get better.”