background anxiety

[gingerbreadgirl]

does anyone else find that even when you're not thinking about anything in particular, you still have anxious feelings in the background such as butterflies in the stomach and so on? X

Edited August 19, 2014 by gingerbreadgirl

[AttemptingToHeal]

Yup. I used to have this when my OCD was bad. Now I'm much better I do still get it occasionally if I'm having a bad day (e.g. tired, people being a**holes), and sometimes it just appears for no reason. Often I get background anxiety because I'm aware in the back of my head of something in my life not being the way I want, so it sits there pulsing like a flashing warning light, trying to get my attention. I wonder though if this is normal for non-OCD sufferers too, just they experience it at a lower intensity?

[gingerbreadgirl]

Thanks attempting, good to know I'm not alone! You're right it is like a warning light saying 'something's wrong'. It's weird because the 'background anxiety' tends to get worse when my OCD obsessions get better... I'm not sure if it's perhaps the remnants of it, just more noticeable when I'm not totally fixated on something. But then I start getting fixated on the anxiety itself, wondering if it means I'm having heart trouble or some kind of adrenal problem, for goodness sake!... sometimes I just feel like saying 'shut up brain'! lol x

[taurean]

I get this very occasionally, and yes you are right it is a warning mechanism.

I had a wonderful book by a psychologist called Sue Breton (not sure whether i kept it) but in it she explained how and why anxiety forms and repeats itself. She used the analogy of us having a "sentry" inside our head; if something unsettling happens, the sentry will review it and decide if it needs to press the alarm button.

When other potentially distressing things present themselves, the sentry will review "memory windows" to see if it can find something similar in your memory - and whether it deemed that necessary to raise an alert - if it did, it will trigger the anxiety response again.

Sue taught her patients how to dumb down the anxiety response of the sentry so anxiety was not triggered, and how to reframe the memory windows so the sentry doesn't press the button when a similar thing arises.

so, if we follow this way of thinking, something is activating your sentry causing an anxiety response - as you say, something the sentry is considering as "not quite right". If you can ascertain what it is, fix it and tell the sentry to "stand down" the anxiety will fade.

[taurean]

I've found the book - I did keep it.

It's called "Why Worry How to Stop Worrying & Enjoy Your Life" by Sue Breton.She has a degree in psychology, and practices psychotherapy specialising in anxiety-related disorders.

I found it very useful.The publishers are ELEMENT..

[gingerbreadgirl]

Thanks Roy, such a useful response as always!

[AttemptingToHeal]

Thanks Taurean, I may pick that up to read. Sounds like a combination of ERP and voluntary re-programming like EMDR.

GingerbreadGirl, are you performing ERP? I'd imagine as you get better be re-educating your fight or flight system, then this background anxiety would be less intense. My background anxiety has in some cases gone down, but in a lot of cases has not. I think it's when I can't see a realistic solution to something, or there's a continuing problem I haven't yet resolved or can't work out how to fix, that it gets bad. This may be because I still haven't yet learned how to not panic when things go wrong, I just know how to calm the OCD and don't respond to that like I used to.

[Guest AJ45]

So in simple terms is there anything we can do to calm this background anxiety? For 3 days I have felt like I can t breath, today my heart is racing as well. It's just becoming constant.

[taurean]

Yes,I think so

With background anxiety, we can see if we can spot what it is that is alerting our "sentry" such that he is triggering an alert, then address the cause. Or at least understand the trigger and seek to dumb down our response to it.

Providing we are fit enough to exercise (i.e. don't have a medical condition which would make it unsafe) some strenuous aerobic exercise will burn off the stress hormones cortisol and adrenalin triggered by the "fight or flight" response from the sentry, and so long as we have then resolved or dumbed down the cause of the anxiety, it should then dissipate.

We can apply distraction techniques to take our mind away and off the issues that are bugging us in the background sub-consciously.

But it seems to me AJ that your current symptoms are rather more than background anxiety and more up front anxiety with panic.

Edited August 20, 2014 by taurean

[Guest Stormwave]

Since coming off my Sertraline and Amisulpride 7 weeks ago, I've been suffering from this terribly. I can manage the OCD reasonably well now, after having had lots of training on it, but the background anxiety is really troubling me. Makes everything more difficult, no appetite, always feeling anxious but often for no reason.

My psychologist called this generalised anxiety, and my psychiatrist said I might always have it if I stay off meds, I'll just have to learn to live with it. Going to take some getting used to if I choose to stay off the meds.

[Guest heartplace]

Occasionally I feel this way, but for the most part I actually feel pretty calm! Wonder if it's the Fluoextine making me feel that way though?