Hello,
I know there are tons of articles and videos about this topic on the internet. But I think I need to interact with real people with similar struggles (feel free to share articles and videos that have helped you, though).
I’ve always had anxiety problems, even as a kid. I got diagnosed late (at 30) with ADHD, depression and social anxiety, and I started taking meds for those. The meds helped, but after a year or so I stopped taking them, mainly because I was feeling better and they were too expensive. Unfortunately the cheaper options gave me too many side effects.
I can function without the meds. But this year is being really hard on me and my wife, and my anxiety is starting to get out of control again. I’m getting some panic attacks and they make me feel like shit.
Can you share some tips on what works for you when you are feeling anxious?
Thanks a lot and wish you the best.
I don’t take meds for anxiety and chiefly because the ones that aren’t controlled substances just do not work. I don’t cope well so I am the last person to have any advice. I try meditation but even that only gives me momentary relaxation. The root of the problem is honestly capitalism and the difficulty of living in a society where there is no safety net where most of us are one or two paychecks from being on the street. For people like myself that already suffer from mental illness, the present situation only makes things that much worse.
I agree 100% on capitalism being the root of the problem. Unfortunately, we live in this shitty system, so we need to adapt as best as we can. I never tried meditation, can you give me a tip on how to start? Do you use an app for it?
The guided meditations in the Headspace app are good… even just the free ones.
Headspace is a good app and I had forgotten about that.
Sure! Check out Sarah Raymond on YouTube. She has some really good guided meditation. Here is a website that can help you find some apps. Guided meditation is much friendlier for the beginner because it is not easy. In order to have longer term positive effects it has to be done on an intense basis frequently and be mostly unguided. I used to be a member of a Zen temple when I lived in South Philly. We would do literally all day meditations once a month and 2x weekly evening meditation sessions. When I could do practice with a true Zen master was when I really felt the positive effects of it against my mental illness. It enabled me to cut back on a lot of medications to the point where I was down to only one low dose medicine called Clonodine which is a blood pressure med but also helps fight PTSD-related nightmares. I think if I had been able to continue practicing Zen long term, I would have eventually developed new pathways in the brain to at least dampen the PTSD nightmares to the point where they’re a minor bad dream.
If you find some benefit with guided meditation, then I would look to see if you have a Zen center near where you live. As an atheist, I generally appreciate Zen because it is animistic. The downside of Zen is that it is very dogmatic but it does not have beliefs in false gods. Rather Zen teaches you to embrace the impermanence of life rather than be fearful of it. The one nice thing about Zen is that it took my fear of death away and taught me to find some peace in the hear and now. I’d love to continue this discussion with you if you’d like.
While I certainly sympathize with the situation of having no safety nets, and can certainly see how that would cause additional worry… as someone who does have and rely on such safety nets, let me tell you it doesn’t magically fix anything. I’ve still had major issues for about 16 years. I know I’ll have money to live a decent but boring life and won’t end up on the streets, sure, but I can still be anxious about literally anything else.