Recovery

Everyone recovers at different times.  Don't base the time it takes you on someone else's - we're all different and everyone's body heals at a different rate.

It took me 6 months to recover on SSRI's, and at the time it felt never ending.  Now I look back I see that 6 months is short compared to the 16 years I was ill.  Some people recover after 3-4 months, others much much longer.  Just let recovery come to you in its own time - it will.

Anxiety Explained

Basically anxiety is caused by stress.  Stress is adrenaline surging though the body and if prolonged over a long time and you don't rest inbetween, it'll build up to its peak and can result in a panic attack or anxiety.  When this happens it can be frightening and you then fear this.  You become anxious about having anxiety.

Anxiety comes with side effects too - strange thoughts, depression, nausea, shaking, aches / pains, insomnia, headaches, feeling of depersonalisation ..... and many more.  The sufferer begins to get anxious about these side effects which just adds more anxiety into the pot ...... making the anxiety greater.  The very thing you fear.  You start to constantly search for an answer, you question why, what if and don't understand what is happening to you.  Your body doesn't rest and you become despondent, confused and tired ...... yet you continue to fear anxiety.

The answer lies is understanding this ........ stop trying to over analyse each symptom.  All the symptoms are due to anxiety, and once the anxiety eases so too will these symptoms.  Learn to let the feelings be there, relax towards them but whilst still carrying on with your day.  Relaxing and not tensioning / fighting is the way forward, as fighting causes stress and more anxiety.  Work with the feelings there and your body starts to relearn not to react to anxiety with more anxiety and slowly starts to recover.

Changed Medicine - from Prozac to Citalopram

Switching medicine does happen sometimes when you find one type doesn't suit as well.  Its doesn't matter which meds you're on though you will still go through the same waves (feeling good / anxiety) as it seems a normal part of recovery. This seems to be what you're having now - so its absolutely normal.  These last completely throughout recovery too, though they do lessen as the months go by.

It can take months and months to reach recovery so it does take lots of patience. The more you let a setback bother you the harder it will seem.  The best way to deal with them is to understand they're temporary, relax towards it (because tensing and fighting it just creates anxiety and frustration), work with it there but in a relaxed manner, don't keep checking if its still there - it will be ......  This will help you ride out the storm - it won't give you instant relief ..... that comes after practice.

In the UK 40mg is the maximum dose you can take on Citalopram (Celexa in the US) and a lot of people do struggle on this dose and do find in time they have constant side effects and have to lower.

Try not to be in a hurry to recover - it will take time, whatever type of SSRI you're on.

This feeling will go though and you'll be back to that lovely normal feeling again.  Don't forget these setbacks will happen time after time until they cease.

Sensitised Nerves

When you suffer with stress over and over, your nerves become a little sensitive over time.  This means that they start to become 'trigger happy' and emotions start to become more exaggerated.  Your nerves cannot sustain this sensitivity forever and needs time to calm every so often ...... but what do we do?  ... we continue to add more stress and make our nerves more and more sensitive, pushing and pushing them until they can't cope anymore until they break down, resulting in an outpouring of adrenaline and anxiety.

For a 'normal' person, if they'd had that anxiety feeling they'd be able to cope with it, but to a person that's been working those nerves to the maximum and feeling those emotions more and more, they will probably respond to the anxiety differently - with fear.

So our nerves are now screaming at us - the heart is pounding, we sweat, shake, and the anxiety is raging around our bodies and we feel absolutely terrified of all these new feelings.  We are over reacting to a physical feeling, but our emotions are already exaggerated, our bodies tense and alert and we start to fear this.  Our body is super sensitised .......... everything we feel and think is over exaggerated.  We hold our bodies tensely, fighting this 'thing', we clench our teeth, hold our stomaches tight ........ it is so tiring.

We simply need to reverse this, to bring this sensitisation back down to normal, and that is by relaxing towards the anxiety, release the tension on the stomach, release that clenched jaw, ....... just let go of tension and float along.  We should not react to the anxiety with tension, not fear it ....... and this will in time make our nerves calmer, soothing them so eventually they'll return to normal which will then bring all our reactions back to normal too.

This is what I meant about the body needs a rest.  We rush about and hold it so tight against fear which adds to the problem.  If you held a heavy weight for a long time then your muscles would soon tire and would scream at you they wanted to rest.  This is the same about tensing to anxiety.  Stop rushing about, slow down, let go of those tense / tight muscles, relax, slump ....... but don't just sit there, but instead whilst relaxing you must at the same time carry on about your day as normal.  Slowly.

This is why 'normal' people don't have this reaction to anxiety because their nerves are at a normal level.  When your nerves are heightened they will respond to anything and everything - its like they're alive and buzzing around your body.

Treating anxiety is to first understand that everything you think and feel are all due to anxiety.  All the what if I did this, what if my anxiety doesn't go, what if I'm this and what if I'm that ........ all these questions and many more that go round and round in your head all day create anxiety and they're never answered.  I had my fair share of them.  People start to avoid things and places because they feel anxious - but it isn't these places they fear, but it is the fear itself they fear.  They fear that feeling so avoid places because they know they'll feel it there ...... and so the association with places starts.

Its the same with scary thoughts.  We fear our thoughts, and so our mind goes looking for more.  They produce anxiety and so we then avoid these thoughts which just exaggerates them.  We should instead let those thoughts be there, let them flit in and out, relax towards them and carry on with whatever we're doing.  The anxiety will build up but it will also pass too.  Over time ..... much time ..... your body slowly becomes desensitised to the place, thought or whatever it is and relearns not to be frightened.  You're reversing the process.

It was this that I began to understand.  For a very long time though I couldn't get started on this as I expected to feel relief immediately.  I'd think 'but I let those thoughts come and go and they still frighten me' ......... but I didn't understand that yes they would still frighten me, but I had to let them, relax, carry on.  It wasn't until I started taking SSRI's that it all began to fit together and I could see what Dr Weeks meant, could see it was just anxiety I had and how to relax towards my fears.  Yes the medication helped a great deal but I think 16 years of anxiety I just couldn't do it with just a book back then as I had too many habits to deal with.

So yes - its definitely physical.  Nerves are physical and they become 'jagged'.  They just need to become smoothed out again.  

Take away the hurdle of the constant questions, there is no need to over analyse each symptom ...... they are all there purely because you have anxiety.  Once the anxiety starts to ease, so to will all those symptoms - so why waste time trying to sort them out.

Setbacks, Insomnia and Intrusive Thoughts

Sometimes we tick along being able to cope with mild anxiety, soothing it, finding calm with various techniques we've learnt over time which is brilliant ....... and occasionally we can be confronted with a huge panic that just needs that little bit more help.

Anxiety is usually brought on by stress, whether built up over time or as a shock.  We each can only deal with so much stress before it builds up and often results in anxiety which can feel quite frightening.  Its at this point that we can become afraid of that feeling, which then in turn produces more anxiety and you can get stuck in an anxiety cycle - anxiety / fear / anxiety etc.  Anxiety produces many side effects which can be strange thoughts, racing heart, headaches, nausea, aches / pains, depersonalisation etc etc which the sufferer can become afraid of too, especially the thoughts.  Being afraid of these produces even more anxiety - the very thing you're already afraid of.  All this adds to the anxiety / fear / anxiety pot.

Starting medication can also be difficult as it usually makes the symptoms worse to start with, and you don't just get better like you would on other prescriptions meds, but instead go through wave after wave of anxiety mixed with feeling good making the sufferer very confused.  The meds are very good though - if you can stick with them.

2.5 months on meds is quite early still.  Feeling up and down is perfectly normal and shows the meds are working.  Having those periods feeling great followed by anxiety is exactly how the meds work throughout recovery.  Yes I've had such bad anxiety bouts that its affect my stomach too - really not nice.

So yes - you will get setbacks all the way through recovery, and sometime afterwards ..... but they get easier.  I based my recovery time on the time when I stopped waking up with anxiety - the first I woke up feeling good was 6 months from the start of taking meds.  I still had setbacks from there on but they were nothing by then and coped fine with them as by that time you're having weeks and weeks of feeling good and the setbacks are mild.  They do eventually stop altogether.

Recovery seems to be 3 steps forward and 2 steps back all the way.  You will get these waves anxiety hit you every so often mixed with period of feeling well.  Don't worry as this is perfectly normal, and seems to be the way the meds work.  The setbacks are awful and they completely change the way you think, because thats a side effect of anxiety.  It will go - the thoughts will go too.

Not many people who go on to feeling really well don't return to the forums to chat.  Its good so many recover biggrin  Some return for various reasons and often find some I know.

Yes there was a time when I couldn't sleep - thats a side effect from the medication too, and sometime the anxiety.  I didn't take any sleeping aids though know some people do.  This side effect usually wears off though.  Something else to help is to not use a phone, tablet, laptop, computer a few hours before bed as the light emitted interferes with our sleep hormone.  Even a Kindle can disturb sleep.  I know even now if I've used my laptop too much before bed, I wired and lay awake for hours and watch each hour go by on the clock eek 😜

Yes when I recovered the intrusive thoughts stopped completely.  They are a side effect of anxiety - thats all (hard to believe I know as they dominated my life at one time).  When you're suffering with anxiety you will be intrusive thoughts, and as you recover and the anxiety starts to ease, so too will those thoughts.  When the anxiety is no longer present neither are those thoughts.  I can think of the thoughts that used to bother me and they no longer have that hold over me that they once did.  They don't produce anxiety, so don't frighten me.

When you're better everything gets put back into perspective.

Anxieties Little Tricks - Intrusive Thoughts

Anxiety does play little tricks on you.  Anxiety makes you fearful about everything, and so it'll also make you fearful about not recovering too. Negative thoughts are a side effect of anxiety. You think recovery only happens to others.  I thought exactly like this too.  But you will get through this.

It is a complicated condition, though I found reading about it began to unravel the scary mess I found myself in which helped take a lot of the fear away and put me onto one path.  Once you're out of it all you can see it for what it is.

Nobody knows what this is like.  You can explain it to be people but they still wouldn't get the full horror of living with this terrifying thing daily.  You feel alone, are afraid to talk about it for fear of being mocked or not believed, and you spend your days trying to find your way out of it.

You will get back to being yourself again.