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Hello.

im not sure if this is classed as reassurance seeking but basically the past few days have been great, I’ve managed to walk round shops witch before I couldn’t do prior to my therapy I’m undergoing anyways last night all of a sudden I just got this big wave of anxiety come over me, like I just felt so scared but didn’t know what off, I felt dizzy and my head starting pulsating! 

I am diagnosed with ocd and GAD but never really experienced just a wave of intense anxiety without any triggers or just out of the blue. Does anyone know if this is normal with GAD or even ocd for that matter? I just can’t seem to shake it especially today I’m on and off with anxiety because of last night. 

I mean I wasn’t even experiencing anxiety when I’m doing my ERP therapy and all of a sudden I’ve got this. 

I’m just overwhelmed and can’t seem to calm down although I’m feeling very drained over it. 

Any advice would be appreciated thank you. 

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I don’t know what is normal, but I do get waves of intense anxiety sometimes  - not always immediately following an obvious trigger I am consciously aware of. 

It tends to happens to me in the evenings. Sometimes I do breathing exercises, placing a hand on my stomach as it rises and falls (in for 3 seconds, then out slowly for 5), which helps me. I do that for 20 minutes, after about 10 minutes I feel better.  

When I’m anxious I think I tend to do lots of smaller, quicker breaths with my chest (not my stomach) without realizing - which I think makes me more anxious. Slowing it down, using my stomach to breathe, extending the out breath longer than the in breath, seems to help me. 

Or I distract myself by reading some articles or focusing my thinking on something that I would usually (when not anxious) find interesting. 

You could also chew some gum. I think it helps you produce saliva, something I think we don’t do so much when in panic or danger mode. I think the production of saliva helps send a message to the brain that you’re not in danger. Not sure if there is evidence to support that, I’ve not looked it up - but I feel chewing gum helps me sometimes. 

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1 minute ago, DC82 said:

I don’t know what is normal, but I do get waves of intense anxiety sometimes  - not always immediately following an obvious trigger I am consciously aware of. 

It tends to happens to me in the evenings. Sometimes I do breathing exercises, placing a hand on my stomach as it rises and falls (in for 3 seconds, then out slowly for 5), which helps me. I do that for 20 minutes, after about 10 minutes I feel better.  

When I’m anxious I think I tend to do lots of smaller, quicker breaths with my chest (not my stomach) without realizing - which I think makes me more anxious. Slowing it down, using my stomach to breathe, extending the out breath longer than the in breath, seems to help me. 

Or I distract myself by reading some articles or focusing my thinking on something that I would usually (when not anxious) find interesting. 

You could also chew some gum. I think it helps you produce saliva, something I think we don’t do so much when in panic or danger mode. I think the production of saliva helps send a message to the brain that you’re not in danger. Not sure if there is evidence to support that, I’ve not looked it up - but I feel chewing gum helps me sometimes. 

Thank you so much for your reply.  

Im pretty good at controlling my anxiety when it’s happening although it’s really not nice at the time I can manage to calm myself down, understand the trigger etc...

but last night it was more scary as I didn’t know what had caused it. So now I’m worrying about if it will happen again when I go to bed, typical anxious mind I suppose, worrying about worrying. 

Omg yes! I chew gum when I’m out shopping as it always stops me feeling anxious, infact ive done that my whole life getting on buses and stuff I would chew gum. That always worked for me. Maybe it’s because your mind is focused on chewing rather then the anxiety ?‍♀️ 

Maybe I had a trigger that I wasn’t aware off, I don’t know. Just feel abit stuck on what’s happened or what to do next. I’m a lot calmer now, but like I said I’m worried at bedtime incase I feel it again. 

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21 minutes ago, rebecca23x said:

So now I’m worrying about if it will happen again when I go to bed, typical anxious mind I suppose, worrying about worrying. 

I do this too. But the in for 3, out for 5 stomach breathing really helps me - when I feel anxiety is taking over. 
I always try to go to bed thinking about something I look forward to the next day. Sometimes that helps me drift off to sleep. 

Anxiety is a real pain. 

I think the key is to send messages to your mind that there is no danger or reason to be fearful. Excess saliva while chewing gum probably helps send that message because we don’t usually eat or produce excess saliva when in panic mode.  

While breathing in with my stomach and out, I accept the anxiety is there (My old friend anxiety is back) instead of panicking that I need to get rid of it immediately; and in my mind I watch it -  imagining it (like a piece of paper or a twig) drifting off down a stream of water away from me; I act as normal as I can, visualizing myself looking calm - telling myself calmly in my mind that everything is fine and will be fine.  

Edited by DC82
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1 minute ago, DC82 said:

 

While breathing on with my stomach and out, I accept the anxiety is there (My old friend anxiety is back) instead of panicking; and in my mind I watch it -  imagining it (like a piece of paper or a twig) drifting off down a stream of water away from me; I act as normal as I can visualizing myself looking calm, and tell myself everything is fine and will be fine.  

This actually makes so much sense. Because when I’ve got the anxiety I think of myself being even more anxious and having a panic attack, or I visualise myself being anxious every day and never being able to stop it and I end up in a right state. 

So yeah maybe I’ll try that, try just think of myself being calm, sort of accept that anxiety can’t harm me and that it will go eventually. It’s so hard to tell yourself that though when it’s happening I think, maybe I just need to practice it. I spend so much time trying to deal with ocd I forget about my GAD and then all of a sudden it hits me big time and I panic??

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13 minutes ago, rebecca23x said:

So yeah maybe I’ll try that, try just think of myself being calm, sort of accept that anxiety can’t harm me and that it will go eventually. It’s so hard to tell yourself that though when it’s happening I think, maybe I just need to practice it. I spend so much time trying to deal with ocd I forget about my GAD and then all of a sudden it hits me big time and I panic??

I know what you mean. I’m in no way an expert and I struggle with it too. I find my OCD and anxiety correlate - when one goes up, the other tends to. I used to drink some red wine, but I decided the cons probably outweighed the pros - I don’t want to make the anxiety worse. Although, sometimes I see a bottle of wine in the supermarket and ask myself if I should drink to escape. 

Edited by DC82
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Hi Rebecca,

I get waves of anxiety and not a trigger or intrusive thought in sight.  I think my anxiety and OCD go hand in hand. When I have anxiety on it's own I start analysing why because I don't have an intrusion.....I have learnt to just sit with the anxiety, trying not to analyse now or push it away but just to say "ok I know you are there and that's fine" I will sometimes then go on to exercises to steady myself like breathing etc or mindfulness...like the count 5 things you can see, 4 things you can touch, 3 things you can smell etc..  I also paint and have canvas paint by numbers and often find my anxiety naturally eases when doing those.

As you are in therapy, are you doing ERP etc? My therapist told me that because you are dealing with the issues anxiety can crop up whenever for no reason sometimes. Stay strong!

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16 minutes ago, Laura86 said:

Hi Rebecca,

I get waves of anxiety and not a trigger or intrusive thought in sight.  I think my anxiety and OCD go hand in hand. When I have anxiety on it's own I start analysing why because I don't have an intrusion.....I have learnt to just sit with the anxiety, trying not to analyse now or push it away but just to say "ok I know you are there and that's fine" I will sometimes then go on to exercises to steady myself like breathing etc or mindfulness...like the count 5 things you can see, 4 things you can touch, 3 things you can smell etc..  I also paint and have canvas paint by numbers and often find my anxiety naturally eases when doing those.

As you are in therapy, are you doing ERP etc? My therapist told me that because you are dealing with the issues anxiety can crop up whenever for no reason sometimes. Stay strong!

Hi Laura. 

Thank you very much for your reply. 

Aw that’s such a relief. I was so terrified because I didn’t know why it had started and the past couple of days have been brilliant, infact I even managed to colour a yellow square on my mood chart (yellow square means amazing day) then all of a sudden I was hit with all this anxiety not knowing where it had come from or anything.  Im definitely going to take your advice and just sort of accept it’s there, like I say usually I’m good with it, can tell myself it’s just anxiety etc.. but the fact I didn’t know where it had come from, I just lost control. 

Yes I am currently in ERP therapy for my ocd. I’m on my third ritual that I’m being exposed too. Maybe that might be it you think? Although I never experienced any anxiety while not doing the compulsions, maybe it’s just built up ?‍♀️ 

 

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1 hour ago, DC82 said:

I know what you mean. I’m in no way an expert and I struggle with it too. I find my OCD and anxiety correlate - when one goes up, the other tends to. I used to drink some red wine, but I decided the cons probably outweighed the pros - I don’t want to make the anxiety worse. Although, sometimes I see a bottle of wine in the supermarket and ask myself if I should drink to escape. 

I used to mask it with wine too until I found the next day I was 1000 times more anxious then to start off with but I get it, you escape for that bit time at first don’t you, anxiety is such a pain but I suppose it’s iust a feeling like any other feeling?‍♀️

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Rebecca I really think it could be anything but one thing I found that whilst I was doing ERP my anxiety was pretty high but came down quickly and I started doing exposures better and more easily and I would have a great few days and then the anxiety train would smack me outta nowhere. My OCD itself isn't majorly bad at the moment,  I have my bad days but more so I am extremely functioning and can see it as OCD however my anxiety has been in overdrive and I have found myself questioning it but I just figure hey it's there and I am not going to let it ruin my experiences and life. 

You've got this!

 

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