Tuesday, September 4, 2012

No Xanax!?!?!?!

Well, I stopped taking Xanax about a month ago. I was only taking one a day, 1mg., and decided I could live without it.  Now I am questioning that decision!!  I had a horrible weekend of anxiety and crying and now this morning, I am feeling better, but my heart rate is up, 117, and I am shaky and anxious!  I just took the dogs for a walk to try and release some of the adrenaline, and it helped a bit, but I still feel anxious. I know many people do not like to take a medication that can become addicting,  and that is part of the reason I stopped taking it, as I had taken up to 5 pills a day at one time, but now I SO wish I had one. Uh.  I hate feeling this way.  I have yet again, looked up the steps to helping yourself get over a panic attack and the only one that really helps is exercise...or getting busy doing something else.  My house is spotless right now from this weekend! How do you cope when you are overly anxious or in a panic?

4 comments:

  1. I've been fighting off a lot of panic attacks lately, they've been appearing at the most inconvenient times, (while I'm trying to cook on a camp for 70 volunteers etc), I had to cause distractions. Chopping onions, washing up, sweeping and mopping etc, to hold off the attack long enough until it either dissipated or I had the time to go off, be alone and let the panic happen... sometimes, I had to just take myself off for half an hour and have it out with the panic, couldn't hold it off any longer... it's been a real pain lately and I've never thought of medication as an option until now, they've been becoming more frequent.
    I'm sorry that you've been struggling with them too.
    Hope you find strategies to manage them easier soon.
    take care

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  2. Oh, I just hate that feeling. Exercise is usually a good coping mechanism for me but sometimes that overwhelming kind of anxiety just seems to come and go when it wants to and I never know the why's or how's.

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  3. The only things that works for me is exercise, doing something else that is physical, and breathing exercises. It doesn't always completely get rid of the anxiety, but it diminishes it by a good amount.

    I'm not gonna lie to you though, I miss Xanax too. I used to get a lot of anxiety at nights and that led to insomnia (I have bipolar so that led to mania and psychosis), so to prevent all of that from happening I would pop a Xanax. It got to the point that I had to have one every night to be able to relax enough to sleep.

    Point being, I am sorry that you are struggling, but it might be a good thing that you have decreased your use. Have you thought of just using them in very, very bad situations as a last resort? That worked for me too. I tried all the coping mechanisism and if they didn't work, I had the pill.

    Hope you feel better!!

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  4. Shannon, I hope you're feeling better now. I have started trying to focus all of my attention on the bodily sensations of anxiety--what it feels like to be in a state of high anxiety. Sometimes that focus helps me. And exercise can help, too.

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