I'm Chris. I Have General Anxiety Disorder.
Hi, I’m Chris. I have general anxiety disorder, or at least that’s what the psych told me.
I’ve been on Prozac for about 3 years and for awhile, it helped. I felt a sense of normal that I only experienced in brief moments. But now I feel like my anxiety has overcome the medicine and like your article suggests, I’m bobbing up and down in a pretty rough sea.
When I was in the military, my anxiety lent to my roll as an angry NCO that didn’t take any shit from anyone. I found my release by smoking cigarettes, bitching and being an unpleasant person, but I fit in. When I left the military I found out how problematic my anxiety was in normal society. I remember distinctly when my wife came in with a vacuum cleaner and I instantly switched to an angry, irritable person. The sound of that thing was like physical pain that I couldn’t stand.
I still get this way when I get sensory overload.
I also can’t be in social situations too fast, like if I meet strangers in the wrong way, I become stand-offish and defensive. I have to pretend to be social in order to hide the fact that I would rather be alone like some kind of hermit. All of this because I can’t quite sync with others in social situations. Hangouts with friends are difficult because I have to rehearse them in my head and I often feel like I’m staging the whole thing like a play. If I don’t play the part to perfection then they’ll break through the illusion and see that I’m just an actor.
I could fill this whole page up with similar stories but I want to leave it with probably the worst aspect of my anxiety.
Sometimes, I get a wave of energy that’s so intense that I daydream of ways to release it. Kind of like those “satisfying” clips where you watch objects get crushed or destroyed. I imagine myself dying or getting crushed or shot or whatever and all that energy just dissipating. And that would be the end of me and this crazy state of being. Of course I’m not suicidal at all, it’s just day dreaming. But this is the new evolution of my anxiety.
So again I’m learning to ride the waves.