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oscillating anxiety and mood symptoms

13 years ago 0 +0 / -0 2606

Hello Nick,

Thank you for sharing this with us, really sorry to hear about your loss. You have received some really great suggestions and advice from your fellow members. I hope that you will benefit from their insight into your query. Over and above what everyone has suggested I would also recommend reading through session 16 of the online program here at the Panic Center. This session deals with grief and loss. It explains the stages of grief (as you probably know there is a grieving process that we all go through when we experience a loss) and also has a portion on coping with grief. Take your time and allow yourself the time to heal. Know that we are here for you, please do feel free to post as often as needed.

Samantha, Health Educator

13 years ago 0 +0 / -0 3

Davit and Sunny,

Thanks so much for your help. I agree, and I think that one of the complications my panic has caused is to encourage me to feel afraid of feeling too much grief, which only blocks the process that lets us work through our grief to reach a healthier place. The image that keeps appearing to me in my mind is that I'm like a bell that's been struck hard and is swinging one way, then another, then back. But I know that over time, the swings will become less extreme (overall) and gradually I'll settle back to a balanced state, provided that I come to understand and accept what I'm feeling at any moment, why I'm feeling it, and how best to respond. Your comments have given me a lot to think about. Thank you!

Nick

13 years ago 0 +0 / -0 6252

Hi Nick

To add to what sunny said about emotions. If you try to bottle them your mind will try to find something it can replace it with. Usually something related. Not wanting to cry can bring up anger at the situation or yourself and if you don't like anger or have no release for it you will go to frustration at the sheer lack of control over these emotions and that can cause fatigue. Which can quickly escalate into hyper in an attempt to get away from it. And the fact that you are not stable and can see it, brings you right back to "sad" again. Over and over unless you can break the cycle. You can use the cognitive triangle to stop this. It works like this. Something makes you feel an emotion, lets use "sad." This is the action or trigger corner of the triangle which opens the thought corner. This is where instead of fighting it you question why. This is also where you admit you are sad. This is where you find something to do about it because this is going to control your reaction corner of the triangle. You can decide it is okay to be sad or you can decide it is time to stop being sad. (grieving is over and it is time to celebrate the memory with pleasant thoughts). So the reaction will be tears or a smile. This goes back to the thought corner to be used in memory as a solution to the action corner of the triangle and is there when something triggers a sad thought again. This is all positive thought.

On the other hand lets say, a thought or sight or some sense sets off a trigger that opens up the thought corner of the triangle. (it has to, that is the only way to get to the reaction corner, you have to go around the triangle) Now here you try to block it instead of dealing with it. The reaction is confusion and unfulfilment because you have not done anything with it. This you take into memory. This adds to the negative you already have and since it all goes back to the action or trigger corner of the triangle as a solution it triggers a replay because it was not a solution. Now to get away from this cycling you open thought and try to use something different as a solution. "Anger" maybe. Well you can see this is not going to work because you will do the same with it as you did to "sad".

CBT works by changing your thought patterns.

All of this works better if you are relaxed. Since you are not using Imipramine ( a mood stabilizer ) you will have to do this on your own. What ever relaxes you.

All of this bouncing around is simply because you are not dealing with your emotions in an appropriate fashion. Challenge them when they pop up instead of trying to get away from them. Feel the ones that are supposed to be there. (including anger) Discard the ones that are not supposed to be there because you are using them to avoid one you don't want to feel. Let it happen. This is very close to closure and is necessary.

Try to keep negative thoughts out of your thought memory so they will not be available to the thought corner of the triangle and you can only have positive relaxing reactions in the reaction corner.

Hope this makes sense and helps.

Sunny is right about celebrating their life, celebrate yours too, keep negative as far away from you as you can.

Davit.

13 years ago 0 +0 / -0 1665

Hi Nick and welcome to the site. No need to apologize for the length of post. Sorry to hear about the loss of your friend. That's tough. Glad to hear you are studying CBT with a therapist. It is proven to be one of the best for anxiety and stress related disorders. As for the meditation and relaxation exercises, it took me about three months to feel the full benefit. I don't know how long you've been practicing them, but don't give up, your body will listen. As for mood swings, I remember when my best friend died just a couple of yrs. ago this fall, I could cry just about any ol' time, then feel quite peaceful knowing she wasn't suffering anymore, other times felt she was watching me and I would smile. I think the grieving process is up and down.

The suggestion I would have for you is to cry when you feel like it, feel sad if you feel like it. You have a reason to be feeling these emotions, don't bottle them up. Is there a good friend or family member you can talk to about your friend, go over all the good things, celebrate their life? I found that helpful.

Hope to hear from you again,

Sunny

13 years ago 0 +0 / -0 3

Hi guys,

Lately--the past month or so--my panic and high GAD have taken on a curious, alternating quality that feels confusing to me. Within a single day, I may feel tired, then wired, then sort of okay, then depressed, then panicky, then agitated, then mildly content, in no particular or regular order--all randomized. Some days I'm mostly feeling one way or another, or feel one of a few symptoms, but other days I feel what I can only describe as wild emotional instability. My best friend died this summer, which precipitated all this panic, and I do realize that part (maybe most) of the oscillation comes from trying to cope with grief, physical distress and illness, panic, depression, and GAD simultaneously, which wears you down and makes you more susceptible to mood swings. But I feel as though my days have no emotional predictability. I may feel anxious but contained one moment, and then, five minutes later, morbidly melancholy. Then, thirty minutes later, numb or panicky or anything else. (Note: I'm not bipolar, or at least never been diagnosed as, nor has any of my friends or family suspected me of anything remotely like it. Also, I don't think even super rapid cycling can cycle that quickly.)

So two questions: first, is there anything anyone can recommend I do or try that may help me to regulate my emotions as I go through this? I'm trying mindfulness, CBT with a therapist, diaphragmatic breathing, and meditation, and I know that at some point they will bring about changes, but so far not much. Recommendations can be herbs, foods, behaviors, docs to see, questions to consider, anything. I'm pretty desperate. (Note: before the death, I wasn't prone to mood swings.)

Second, anyone have any idea how normal ("normal") this is? I've dealt with panic for about ten years now, and anxiety my whole life, but this is the first big loss I've experienced, so I don't know if mood swings like this are common or signs of something quite wrong with me. I'd rather be down all day than up and down and up and down. It adds so much to my anticipatory anxiety and keeps the trigger on my panic alarm too tight.

Note: just discontinued imipramine, which I'd been taking for three years, and am currently cross-tapering from Lexapro (also three years) to Zoloft (at 25mg). The mood swings started before the meds transition, but I'm sure it hasn't help.

Thanks, and sorry for the epic post,

Nick

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