I have always had anxiety problems...

however, in January of this year I went to my GP for help because anxiety had taken over my life for far too long. In March, I started to see a psychologist and was diagnosed with GAD. Seeing a psychologist has changed my life around. I still suffer from anxiety and accept that I probably always will, but I have learnt new ways of thinking and coping.

The first steps are the hardest - the hardest thing for me was seeing my GP and that first meeting with the psychologist. However, its true what they say - a problem shared is a problem halved.... I now realise I am not alone in how I feel and hope to soon be starting a self-help group. Anxiety is controllable and you are not alone. Best wishes.

Cheryl

I have been suffering with GAD for around 1 year now.

I must say the hardest thing I have found with an anxiety disorder is family members and friends playing it down and the all pervasive guilt we can feel for anything we've ever done wrong in our past, and the setbacks. It's the highs and the lows that are hard to deal with but with a good CBT practitioner and education, these disorders can be overcome.

Marvin

I have been suffering from GAD for nearly 2 years now.

I am no better now than when I was first diagnosed, and I have to say, that I ended up feeling very alone and afraid. My own personal experience within the NHS dealing with this condition is traumatic to say the least. I have only just managed to beg a locum at my GP's office to refer me to a behavioural therapist. None of the other doctors had heard of behavioural therapy and one of my GP's actually said that he did not believe in 'alternative therapies'. I am on disablity living allowance due to the severity of my symptoms. I'll list them in the hope that someone else suffering will see them and realise that they are not alone:

• Palpitations
• Chest pain
• Back pain
• IBS
• Stomach pain
• Breathlessness
• Pains in arms and legs
• Constant feeling that I'm going to die
• Insomnia
• Headaches and feelings of tightness in the head
• Blurred vision

There are just too many symptoms to list them all. GAD can manifest itself in so many different physical ways that you end up not knowing what is real and what is part of the anxiety. I have been given tablet after tablet over the course of the past 2 years. Beta blockers for tachychardia, diazepam, seroxat and more. None have worked. I am no better and now feel no longer able to go to the GP. I have had an endoscopy and colonoscopy. I have had over 20 ECG's and a 24 hour monitor. I only received the ECG's because I ended up going to casualty thinking I was having a heart attack, so many times. I am now told by my GP nurse (who was the only one who took me seriously and arranged to refer me), that I have been referred to a behavioural therapist. I can find no groups of sufferers within my area and continue to believe my symptoms have physical causes. The fact that I'm even writing this shows that somewhere inside, I must be aware that my severe anxiety is causing it. There are just too many symptoms for it to be one physical illness. Doesn't help when your'e sat on your own going through it. If I can help anyone, it is by saying that you must be the first person to help yourself. Be stronger than I have managed to be and demand the help you need. This is a real illness and I have been told that it is second only to depression in this country, and yet I cannot find the help I need.

Suzanna

I have been living a life of constant worry for the past year and sometimes I feel I can't go on any more.

I have always been a worrier but unitl last year I had been extremely successful in both my studies and my career. Now I feel I'll never be a success again. I can't do anything without worrying. I have lost my ability to think logically and I can't concentrate on anything. I feel so guilty about everything bad I have done in my past. My anxiety feels like a punishment. I have been referred for CBT but it feels like I have been waiting forever on the NHS. I just hope that it works and I can finally get over this life of constant fear.

Elizabeth

I have been diagnosed with GAD and I have had this condition now for years.

I am on a waiting list for CBT but of course as I am not seen to be 'at serious risk' i.e. I'm taking trazadone and am coping - just, the waiting list seems to be going on forever. I wake up each morning with chronic stomach churning and it lasts all day - why is my stomach churning? I don't know why. If I won the lottery my thoughts would be: 'what if I buy a fast car and crash?' or 'what if I buy a posh house and get burgled?'. This condition is basically a damned nuisance now and it spoils everything. I can't enjoy anything or relax unless I have a ridiculous amount of alcohol and that's no answer. So to other sufferers out there - you're not alone but I don't suppose that's much of a help to you. I'm angry and fed up with it and I'm sure you are too.

Debbie

I have suffered with GAD for the past 10 years and have found that it only gets more extreme with time.

What started simply as worrying about going to school over time developed into constant anxiety and dread. I am now 21 and each day I worry constantly about anything and everything and it is difficult to get out the house. I have tried SSRI's but got bad side effects and counselling didn't work at all. I have been told that CBT could help me but unfortunately the waiting list is too long.

If I had one piece of advice to give it would be 'don't suffer with GAD in silence, don't be embarrassed to seek help, it is an illness. Go and seek help as soon as you can as it only gets worse with time'. I only wish I had got help sooner; I have missed out on so many opportunities in my life due to anxiety. Don't let anxiety hold you back. Take control of your life. Life is yours to live.

Claire

I have suffered from anxiety for 9 months.

I am pleased to say however that after three sessions of cognitive therapy I feel that I am in control of my anxiety and am slowly bringing myself back to full health. The best advice I can give is to not give up hope of a full recovery; you will have your good & bad days. I also recommend reading as many self help books as you can and try as many available treatments that there are because as I found anxiety & depression can be controlled. I hope this information helps..

David

I have always been a worrier, but it wasnt until September 2005 that normal worrying turned into GAD.

The symptoms I had at first were:

• waking up with my stomach knotting
• inability to be at ease
• waking up earlier and earlier each day
• tension & tension headaches
• dry mouth
• cold hands and feet
• adrenaline rushes & sweating
• loss of appetite

At the start I was completely uneducated on this topic and of course that made it worse, because I couldn't understand why I felt like this.

As I've managed to tackle the physical symptoms, I've realised that underlying all of this is having a mind of negative thought patterns and key to complete recovery is dealing with those thoughts - no matter how small you think they may be.

I have been really lucky to have the support of great family, friends and work. I've also had a supportive doctor and got a psychologist before any of this started due to earlier stress which now I see was a sign of the upcoming anxiety.

If I can give some advice it would be:

• Don't believe that you cannot beat this
• Fight tooth and nail to get yourself a psychologist
• Help yourself - getting better relies on you wanting to get better
• MAKE YOURSELF do the hard things - they sound cliched but exercise, vitamin supplements, relaxation sessions are all crucial
• Understand that you will be better on some days and worse on others
• Enjoy the good times and celebrate every little thing you do
• If you can invest in just one book, I'd recommend the anxiety and phobia workbook by Prof Edmund J Bourne (see the recommended reading section of this website)

Good luck ... we can do it

Craig

I have been trying to figure out what is wrong with me for ten years now.

I thought I had OCD because of the constant worrying that preoccupies my thoughts. I had one year of CBT and spent 2 years on Lustral - a form of SSRI antidepressant. I felt better then but a couple of years after coming off these tablets the constant worrying returned. I constantly worry if I have hurt someone's feelings and keep going over the conversation in my head. I try to concentrate on what my friends and family are saying but the current obsessive thought is always there and I don't often hear what they are saying to me. My worrying can cause severe anxiety at times when I am under pressure or stress. I get panicky and sweat and often end up with a severe migraine and have to go to bed. Since reading this website about GAD and other people's experiences I do not now feel alone and just writing this is helping relieve the knot in my tummy that I woke with this morning. I saw a GP yesterday and have been referred to a counsellor for stress and anxiety counselling. I feel I have been so used to behaving in a certain way that I need help to break the cycle of worrying about irrational things which are having a serious effect on the things that matter most in life. I have been prescribed diazepam for when I am at my worst but have been told Xanax is good to calm you down. I ah however looking forward to the counselling which I hope will treat the constant worrying that I have about anything and everything. I am also looking forward to my first holiday where I am not sat on a hot sunny beach somewhere worrying about if I have left the TV on or whether I have locked the door etc. What I recognise is that I have a mixture of both OCD and GAD like symptoms.

Claire

I diagnosed myself with GAD after many visits to my GP with physical and mental problems.

I was prescribed Venlafaxine (Effexor) which I have found to be very effective, along with visiting a therapist. I have just finished the NHS 'Stresspack' course which was very informative and designed to be accessible for people with anxiety problems.

Ray

I have just discovered your site listed in a book I recently read on panic and anxiety, and having read the experiences of others, especially Suzanna, I could be reading my own life story.

My problems started 10 years ago, when, at the time I was approaching the menopause, I started having palpitations and missed heartbeats. I was also under a considerable amount of stress at the time, which I suppose did not help and the result was a complete breakdown. Like Suzanna, I have had a multitude of medical tests, ECGs, visits to casualty, etc over the years. The first five years were the worst, with depression, some agoraphobia, panic attacks etc, and my experience of the medical help available is comparable to Suzanna's. I am an intelligent person and I know from reading and research that I suffer from Generalized Anxiety Disorder with the addition of panic attacks and phobias, but at no time over the last ten years has any doctor ever told me this. Similarly, although I have had numerous heart investigations, all they tell you is that 'there is not a problem', which is not enough. I feel that the major thing which keeps my anxiety alive and feeds it all the time is my heart phobia. I need to know why it misses beats all the time, sometimes singly, sometimes in a great run of beats (these are the worst) and afterwards I feel light headed, very cold, nauseous, and it can last for ages. In spite of all the years and all I have read on the subject I have never conquered this overwhelming fear that I am going to drop dead when this happens, and it can so easily escalate into a full blown panic attack. You feel so alone, as if no one in the world can help and I remember many times when I was just in floods of tears just saying over and over 'please someone help me'. I don't think anyone who has not experienced it can understand that overwhelming fear, and to everyone else you look normal. After 10 years I have learned to live with it to a degree but I regard my life as far from 'normal'. I worry constantly over the smallest thing; I cannot cope with even minor problems, I am reduced to tears at the drop of a hat and I am constantly aware of bodily feelings such as heart palpitations or missed beats, or a pain anywhere (if it is in my chest it can send me into immediate panic) Indeed, any bodily symptom, and I think I have something dire. I have recently been referred for Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, will it help? Who knows? The psychologist said that my whole attitude is too negative, I basically don't believe that I will ever be any different I suppose. For anyone who is at the beginning of this illness or has never read them, I have found the biggest single help in the whole awful business to be the books and tapes of Dr. Claire Weekes, she is dead now unfortunately, but I feel she understood the illness better than anyone else.

Sharon

I have just read all the emails about GAD with great interest.

I am now in my 40s and have been a sufferer - well forever it would seem. Certainly from the age of about 14 I struggled so much that I had to stop school for a while - whilst I tried to cope with panic attacks and globus hystericus - lump in the throat. I have had many setbacks over the years and my most recent involved 'missed heartbeats' as Sharon explained in her email. These go on for days at a time, often with no let up and they make me feel dizzy, sick and physically weka. Mentally I feel like a small child. The doctors are very dismissive saying that there is nothing to worry about - but even though this might be the case - I still have to cope with the symptoms. I constantly worry about all sorts of things on a daily basis and don't really feel it will be any different for me. I would say however that I did see a psychologist a few times who practiced in CBT. This proved to be wonderful and gave me a few years relief on and off. Unfortunately my GP will not let me have more help through the NHS due to having had therapy before. Dr Clare Weekes' books have also proved to be invaluable as has Dr Roger Baker's book: Understanding anxiety and panic. My particular fear is of fainting and anything that can trigger this can me me feel anxious and low very quickly. For example, seeing stars when I get up too quick, or having a dizzy spell makes me anxious for weeks. I mistrust my body and misinterpret a whole raft of physical symptoms that are associated with the anxiety that I experience. Having had some great years of being anxiety free as a result of receiving good quality CBT, I do now know that it is entirely possible to live calmly - so never give up. I am also learning a musical instrument which is a great therapy in itself as it is helping with my breathing and plus, I have to concentrate therefore you cannot be worried at the same time and have the anxious thoughts. Antidepressants help some people but unfortunately I wasn't able to tolerate their side effects. The main thing for me though was as I said, talking therapy - in particular CBT.

Louise

After reading through these comments I am so glad to see that I am not alone.

I've always been a worrier, as has my Mum, but after work got really stressful because of staffing issues and I had to do two people's jobs as well as my own, and just after being promoted, the GAD started. At first I just thought that I was being silly and that it would pass after I moved house as my home life was also stressful but it just got worse. I now have a mixture of physical symptoms that accompany the anxiety including:

• palpitations
• chest pain
• blurred vision
• difficulty breathing
• pains in arms and legs
• difficulty sleeping

I went to my doctor who didn't even listen to what I was saying and prescribed my beta blockers. I could not believe I was taking beta blockers at 23 years old. They didn't work by the way. I now realise that I need therapy to beat this thing and remember how to relax and enjoy life rather than being convinced every five minutes that I am taking my last breath. It's horrible when it gets that bad. I haven't told my boss or anything - sometimes I wonder how I manage to do my job. I hope that everyone else using this site gets the help that they need in order to get rid of their anxiety.

Jenny

I really don't know how long I have been suffering with GAD but on this occasion it has been about three months.

I have been suffering with depression for about six years on and off. I think thats why the anxiety started with me worrying that I will be suffering with depression forever. I have never been great in the mornings but they are torture at the moment. I wake up and immediately start to be anxious about the day ahead. I am taking the anti-depressant Mirtrazapine at the moment which at least enables me to sleep and eat both of which I seem unable to do without medication. I have been given a great book by Dr. Claire Weekes which lays out just how I am and I'm sure many others are feeling. Basically it is simple, we all fear the feeling of fear and the distressing physical symptoms it brings. I am working on what she advises which is to face the fear, accept it, float through it and let time pass. I am practicing it as often as I can and hope one day to be free of fears tight grip.

Lynne