Anxiety and the effect it has on sensory and social issues

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I have had obvious problems with anxiety and depression for about half my life.

I've also had issues with social interaction and sensory overload, most prominently in early childhood.

It's been difficult to disentangle these problems from one another, but I think it goes like this:

1. It takes me a lot of effort to control my sensory issues. I have a strong dislike for crowds, loud noise and talking, certain chemical odors, certain food textures, etc. I also have to put a lot of effort into acting "normal" with people. But when I don't have any other demands placed on me, and I'm calm and relaxed, these aren't too big a deal.

2. When I'm under stress from family or school, it gets harder for me to control the above issues because the effort involved gets diverted to the additional stressors. For example, I become much more fussy in my eating habits when I'm stressed...the difficulties I have with smell and food texture get worse. I become hobbled.

3. If the additional stress also plays upon a sensory issue, like getting bullied in a chaotic recess playground, things can swiftly escalate into a crying fit.

4. If the stress plays upon one of my trauma issues, like parental abandonment, or witnessing a suicide attempt, it can escalate into a "meltdown" -- trembling, and being unable to speak -- along with vivid playback of traumatic memories.

5. If the stress does not play upon either of these issues, but is chronic, my ability to handle sensory issues will deteriorate as it continues, and I will develop nightmares and less vivid playbacks of bad memories. I will also develop my usual suite of anxiety issues: fear of interacting with people, paranoia about being bullied, insomnia, dead appetite, irritability, and thoughts about death.

6. When I am not having issues with family or school or work, my sensory issues are easier to control, and I appear relatively normal.

7. The best way I've found to control stress is to not be "on" all the time...admit that I have certain peculiarities and roll with it. For example, I got myself a set of earplugs, and rather than denying that I don't like noise, or getting disproportionately angry at people because of noise, I just put my earplugs in.

It's kind of a chicken-and-the-egg conundrum, isn't it? Which comes first - the sensory overloads, the anxiety, the social ineptitude or the depression? They're all constantly racing around my brain in an endless frenetic circle, like the tigers in Little Black Sambo.

I'm like this too.. stress makes my sensory issues worse... which causes more stress.. which makes my sensory issues worse.. etc. I've tried to control the sensory stuff.. but then other sensory stuff seems to set me off.. I wish I knew how to control it other than making the stress go away

I think part of the problem is that current psychiatric thinking views anxiety and depression as two very different things, with anxiety representing an up state, a stimulated state, and depression representing a down state, a state where you don't have the mental energy to do any of the things you enjoy or need to do to live. However, it can be difficult for somebody who is feeling bad to distinguish between the badness that comes from being frightened and overstimulated, and the badness that comes from being down and unable to scrape oneself out of bed in the morning. If your "depression", your pessimism and desire to die, is driven by anxiety issues, you can seem bipolar to a psychiatrist even though common sense would tell you that constantly being frightened and upset would make you very unhappy about your life. And of course it is common sense that viewing the world as all bad would make you anxious about things.

I used to view the world, as a horrible place to live, and that used to make me anxious, all the time.

I have not had a good weekend and start to this week.

A few things have happened all at the same time and I feel very anxious and unhappy.

I don't like it when things go wrong all at once, and it makes me really stressed and I just want to be on my own.

I know that doesn't help but that's the way I am.

I don't like unfamiliar places, crowded transport makes me nervous, some noise affects me too.

People pushing me into doing something I don't want to do makes me anxious and more stubborn. As the more they push the more I won't do what they want.

Vikki ***

I get nervous of existing. Everything I do is a struggle - even though I seem to get through each day fine. So I say to myself that I must be strong, because if I wasn't strong, I wouldn't be getting through the days. I'll be in hospital, probably.

I'm frightened that I'm going to loose the will to live. I'm frightened that I'll loose all my will-power to fight off every-day frustration. I'm frightened I'm going to suddenly lash out and scream in public, then end up being carted off to a mental hospital. And I fear mental hospitals. Theyare literally my worst fear in the world - I do NOT want my life to end in a mental hospital. Over my dead body, mate!

Back to the topic - I get anxious over little things, but all these little anxieties run into one big anxiety - which causes frustration. And beneath this frustration (what I fight off every day) there are so many little anxieties that are all mixed up that I don't know what I'm anxious about any more. Then if I got an ''anxiety overflow'', it causes a melt-down.
Just picture a bucket of water. If it gets filled with too much water, it will spill over the top, then cause a mess. This is the theory of my frustration. If too much anxieties get built up, it ''overflows''.

List of what causes an ''anxiety overflow, or overload'':-
1. Judgement/critisism
2. Boredom
3. Embarrassment
4. Social phobia
5. Fear
6. Confusion
7. Jealousy
8. Anger
9. Isolation
10. Intolerence
11. Disappointment
12. Sorrow

double post - can't delete