Lately I'm almost always anxious and nervous?

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Hi,

I started seeing a therapist about 6 months ago for depression. I was extremely stressed due to some major changes in my life, barely ate, and I cried a lot and had kind of a panic attack at work. After a few sessions the therapist diagnosed me with Generalised Anxiety Disorder - which was a new thing for me. I never thought I had 'anxiety' before, at least not the general kind - I knew I was somewhat socially anxious and i have a degree of agoraphobia.

Eventually the big changes were over and I was settling in to my new living situation, and was more relaxed. Still depressed but not anxious at that time. But then for some reason it started again. I don't know what triggered it - but now, for the last 3 months or so, I've been anxious a lot of the time. It's a really unpleasant feeling, I'm very tense and cannot relax. The only thing that helps is distraction, and being outside in nature. During the week it's usually not too bad - I go to work and am distracted for that time. Then I come home and don't have too much time before I go to bed, so the anxiety doesn't have enough time to 'build up' I guess?

But weekends have been really hard, I don't usually make plans as I used to love relaxed 'do-nothing'-weekends. In fact I always loved staying in and just being on my own. Now I can't do that anymore, I get very tense and nervous and time seems to go really slow. Then in the afternoon or evening it often gets so bad that I feel like I'm gonna explode if I stay in my flat any longer. I go out then and go on a long walk in nature, and that really helps. So after like 1-2 hours outside, I will be much calmer, but then I eventually have to go back into my flat and some of the tension comes back. I will often be very sensitive to noise then and just put in earplugs and distract myself with loud music or something.

Some nights I also have trouble falling asleep, but it's not too bad. I do however dream a lot (and a lot of weird/scary s**t) and I wake up early almost every day - 3/4 am or 6/7 am, when I normally get up at 8:30.

I've mentioned all this to my therapist and we had some helpful discussions about why I'm feeling those things, and it seems to be some kind of general unhappiness with my life at the moment. But it's just really sh***y, I almost dread weekends and free days now because I think I'll have a panic attack maybe and I just don't know what to do with my time. I can distract myself with some things or go out but those days are still really long. Plus I cannot really relax anymore which sucks. I'm afraid this state of anxiety will not go away

Any of you familiar with these feelings?

I've been in that situation too. I too was told it was an "anxiety" thing - I just didn't understand that because I'm alexithymic and thus can't differentiate. It helps to really understand and know what is going on at an intricate level, what the root cause of the problem is.
I do this in a religious context but the method itself doesn't have to be, and has been partially taken up by mainstream culture in the form of mindfulness based stress reduction.
I started typing the method out but it's actually a bit long, and might be boring for other readers, but if you're interested in the meditational method feel free to PM me and I'd be happy to pass it on
Being unable to just be with yourself in silence and stillness - like being alone in a flat - in my experience points to something in your life you're not addressing. You're trying to run away from it. There's a high level of aversion. The meditations I do turn you toward those things, in a very kind and gentle way. This allows you to examine what is going on for you without feeling anxious or afraid.
Because you can't distract yourself forever, and the stress of knowing THAT is always there, below the surface, just waiting to crash tackle you, ends up adding to the anxiety and the whole thing self-perpetuates. Because you're essentially living with an internal enemy. In my case it built up into a near-fatal substance issue - because nothing separates you from your own mind faster and more completely than a substance. But I don't do that anymore and these methods are the reason why.
I could suggest you fill your life up with things you like and look forward to, which will raise your mood and help you get out of your own head - and those things are certainly important. But it reads like your situation is a lot like mine was and if so, just distraction isn't going to cut it. Whatever is underlying it will still be there waiting, making you unable to be settled unless something is happening. Which I agree isn't pleasant.

I had the same thing going on, along with spells of agoraphobia as well. It was sheer hell, especially due to the panic attacks.

I can't recommend you do what I did, but I hope you'll pay special attention to both your physiology along with your psychology... but mostly your physiology.

Remember that you're not alone in this, and it's not all in your head.

I agree with C2V here:

_________________
31st of July, 2013
Diagnosed: Autism Spectrum Disorder, Auditory-Verbal Processing Speed Disorder, and Visual-Motor Processing Speed Disorder.

Weak Emerging Social Communicator (The Social Thinking-­Social Communication Profile by Michelle Garcia Winner, Pamela Crooke and Stephanie Madrigal)

"I am silently correcting your grammar."

Dear Sanctus,

I'm so sorry you're going through this, the modern world can be a very scary place to a sensitive soul. I wonder if the weird scary dreams might indicate you're experiencing some PTSD?

My theory of autism: "sensitive people freak out and develop post-traumatic stress disorder (ptsd) when repeatedly terrified by loud, chaotic and harsh modern world"

Anyone very sensitive could easily be traumatized by supposedly normal experiences in modernity (lets start with all the terrifying emotional pain very visible on many NTs who claim to be "totally OK!"), and the resulting unprocessed trauma is could easily make you feel afraid and anxious.

My whole life I've felt like the world is made from hot cast iron, no matter how I touch it, it burns me (sometimes a little, sometimes a lot). It took me a long time to be able to articulate this to myself, so from my perspective you're figuring things out early, which should give you a strong foundation to improve your life, before you blindly undergo to much trauma!

If you have lots of pent-up unprocessed trauma from being sensitive, its not surprising you'll start feeling afraid a lot of the time (i.e. anxious), and if you're feeling a lot of fear and pain in your encounters with reality, you may start to feel helpless, which is pretty much the state that triggers depression.

I think the C2V's suggestion to meditate is very wise, its a good way to start working through difficult experiences... coping both with reality-as-it-is and yourself-as-you-are.

In my experience, anxiety can be very very physical, so there's a lot of sensation to deal with if you try meditating. Many people consider anxiety a more difficult state to meditate through than say, depression alone.

This can be really difficult, because you're asking yourself to experience overwhelming and difficult sensations. Sometimes I experience the greatest peace immediately after I gently coax myself into experiencing a part of my body experiencing great pain and suffering due to anxiety. For example, you might start by focusing closely and unflinchingly on your belly as you breath when you are feeling anxious. It might feel like you can't breath while watching your belly! This could make the feelings WORSE short term, because you're actually letting the awful "can't breath" tightness in your gut flood into your conscious mind more fully. But I find, if I can hold the focus (autism can help here....) sometimes it dissolves into great peace.

I hope you can find your way back to being-alone-as-a-refuge.