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I can't take it anymore - immediate help please!
First off, please don't tell me to get a counselor or a psychiatrist, because they do not help me even in the least bit. All they do is make me angry and I don't know why. It's the more they speak, the more irritated I get. I just hate talking about myself; it's the thing I hate the most to do. Like I'd rather talk continuously good about my worst enemy than ever talk about myself. I've given so many counselors and psychiatrists (been given so many different medications) a chance that I can't even begin to count. I'm so sick of being a guinea pig on all these medications and I'm so sick of constantly repeating my life story to every counselor. Like there's no more counselors that I can go to, to be honest. My father just gave up, he said I'm no longer seeking therapy.
I'm trying so hard to get my life together. I've spent so many painful, lonely years doing absolutely nothing. I've had two jobs in my past, but was fired from both of them due to constant anxiety attacks every day. So I gave up then. I'm 19 years old without even my learner's or a job. I'm so sick and exhausted of sitting on my butt all day feeling pity for myself. I'm sick of wondering if I should just overdose very heavily on my strongest prescription drug. I'm sick of getting angry all the time when my anxiety acts up and everyone's thinking it's anger issues. I honestly don't have anger issues at the least, it just comes from irritation of how painfully my anxiety makes me hurt.
Like I try to build up motivation, because there's SO MUCH I want to do with my life. I want to get my license, be a senior caregiver, volunteer all the time (at soup kitchens, hospitals, nursing homes, walks for cancer, animal shelters), donate all the time (clothes, money, food, blood), but I just don't have the motivation to study for my learner's or study caregiving.
Can someone PLEASE give me advice? I'm desperate here, because I have no idea how much longer I have until I kill myself.
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Want to answer more questions in the Health & Fitness category?
Maybe give some free advice about: Mental health?
That lady who is the Long Island medium had horrible anxiety attacks and suffered from them terribly until age 29.
From her website "After suffering from debilitating anxiety and trying to manage it on my own and with a therapist for years, my mom introduced me to a spiritual healer and teacher. After just one session, she told me that I was suppressing Spirit’s energy, which caused a lot of my anxiety, and helped me learn to channel Spirit through my chakras and release it with my words."
Perhaps you need to see an energy healer.
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Having been where you are to a degree I believe I can talk to you even though you don't want to hear what I have to say. For you see that this is the problem to begin with or part of the problem. Like you I didn't think therapy could possibly help me. I mean what does talking do? How does talking about myself fix anything? I trust real medicine for if you cut yourself you put a bandage on it and it gets better but therapy; where does the bandage go?
The next and biggest part of the problem is finding a therapist you are comfortable with. You may be more comfortable talking to a female, one closer to your own age. You need to be comfortable with your counselor as you need to be able to tell him or her your deepest darkest secrets. I was fortunate in the psychologist I worked with. She saw I was keeping something hidden and until I gave it up we didn't find the root cause of my problem. She finally brought it out of me and I started to get better. I suffered from major depression which was triggered by one event but the cause was something else.
You say you have been to a number of therapists and I understand you are frustrated. I suggest you try one more only this time try for a better fit. Start with calling your insurance company and asking for a psychologist who you feel you will be more comfortable with. Describe who you feel you will be more comfortable with and let them give you a list that meets those requirements. Then call and interview them before agreeing to be treated by one.
Before you go back or try therapy again you need to rule out any organic causes for how you feel. I know what your thinking because I felt the same way. Fact is organic problems that you are not even aware of can cause you to have the problems you are feeling. You need to schedule an appointment with you family doctor and your GYN if you are female for complete physicals including complete blood panels, brain scans and chest x-rays; the works. If those results are normal then you schedule a visit with a psychologist.
Should you feel medication is required or your family doctor thinks medication would help schedule a visit with a Board Certified Psychiatrist. These are Medical Doctors who have done a fellowship in psychiatry and are certified by the college of psychiatrist to practice psychiatry. In many states any doctor who has done a rotation in psychiatry during residency can practice psychiatry. The Board Certified Psychiatrist is better qualified to treat you for medications if needed. No your not crazy but most depression is due to a lack of hormones secreted into the brain making a Board Certified Psychiatrist the best doctor to see for medication.
I know this has been long and I appreciate you reading this. I ask you to trust me and what I have told you. Like you I didn't think therapy would help and it didn't until I met the right doctors I was comfortable with. Please give therapy one more try only this time make sure you not our parents chose the doctors. You're an adult now and they should not be choosing your doctors as they have no legal say in your medical care even if their insurance is paying for it.
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I dont know you well enough to advise what may give you motivation to study for drivers license or to become a caregiver. Perhaps finding a way to become anxiety free will do it for you.
I used to have severe anxiety but then my situation isn't exactly yours. However I did say, used to have, and that means I found a cure. And the cure is CBT, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. I've also read a book about this that first let me know about the fact it exists. Unfortunately, you are done with counselors and psychiatrists and dont want to hear about them. I will agree that for the most part, very few people are helped by the traditional methods that have been used.
There are psychologists who are trained in CBT to help work with a patient. The treatments are actually fairly fast and do not involvement continuous visits for years, just the few needed to get at the root of what cognitives/thoughts may be distorted causing your anxieties in the first place. Sometimes we form very distorted thought based on a few bad experiences. For me, the distorted thoughts were just there from as young an age as I can remember and only got worse as I got older. It is crippling of ones life, I do understand. I'll give an example: I tried in grade school to write with pencils that had worn down, were blunt and almost impossible to write with because I had the thought that if I got up to go to the front of the classroom to use the pencil sharpener, that all my classmates would start laughing at me and tease and call me names. I had no reason to beleive this as it had never happened to me. So when going for a cure with CBT, there is an amount of productive talking one needs to do about oneself. Rather than you just beleive me, or being afriad of getting your hopes up only to be dashed again, I would suggest you first check out this website by a psychologist who began to write for the general public to give them hope that they can be cured and lead a normal life. Since this involves your parents also having given up, try this website
Here's the website: [Link](Mouse over link to see full location)
and the Dr/Authors name is David D. Burns. He has a book devoted just to anxieties called, When Anxiety Attacks. I found it at my local library so I would check there first before seeking it at or ordering it at a bookstore. The process to read it and so the self help is not as easy as you might think. I couldnt do it either but the perspective of an outsider who understands distorted thoughts and can spot them in you and help teach you how to spot them and then do the exercises/experiences needed for you to work through that helps to negate the distorted thoughts. I know its not what you wanted to hear and a Dr. trained in this method may not be near you however if you and your parents decide this is worth giving it a try after reading the book and the website, then you could ask Dr. Burns to research for you for the closest Dr.s to your town because I am sure it will be worth the extra drive if you end up cured after a handful of visits if you cooperate on the excercises you are given. Is it scary? Hell yes! At first fear is what will hold you back and again, fear and negative emotions as well as positive ones are hooked closed to our thought life and that can determine how one person can be angry and upset when stuck in traffic and another instead of afriad of being late, knows nothing can be done about it and just sings happily along to a song on the radio I have no other suggestions dear. But as someone who was previously very anxiety ridden, I felt I had to at least share this. If you are not willing to try and have already given up, then I guess your next call will be to crisis prevention phone line when you think you might be ready to commit suicide.
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