Lets all be anxious/depressed together.

How I Cured My Anxiety

First off, this isn't some spam bull**** where you go buy a book at the end. I've been on boards for over a decade and, having been in a place where I thought the curse would never leave, I wanted to pop back to this thread and offer some advice and, hopefully, some hope for fellow anxiety sufferers.

I won’t go into the details of the awfulness of anxiety - chances are that, if you’re posting here at 4am, you know well what it’s like. But I’ll give a quick history of my battle with it for context.

18 months ago: first panic attack. Thought I was dying, A&E, etc. Then another one two weeks later. And that’s how the spiral began.

Truthfully, having anxiety was one of the best things that ever happened to me. I’d always had it. I’ve known since I was 12 that something ‘wasn’t quite right’ and I’d probably have a mental health issue some day. The slight derealisation a few times a day for as long as I can remember, the tension, the agoraphobia, thinking I was going crazy - having these attacks forced me to come to terms with it all.

There is Hope. You Will Get Better.
Life was a bucket of sh*t for the next 6 months, when I finally sought help after presenting myself to a Garda station at 4am asking them to put me in a cell. A year on, I am 99% free of anxiety. Here’s how:

1) Drugs!
I got Lustral, an SSRI as you likely know. First month: suicidal. Awful. Never again. Tip for anxiety sufferers: don’t read the warnings. Really, bad idea.

Medication is not the solution. Medication is the cast on the leg that protects the leg so it can heal. Medication will only work in combination with other things.

2) Meditation.
Not even joking. I was the absolute last person to ever consider such nonsense. But I downloaded (on the advice of the only good doctor I ever met) ‘’Full Catastrophe Living’’ by Jon-Kabat Zinn.

I felt 10 times better within a week. It's a great, great book, and it actually f*cking works.

3) Exercise
Specifically, running.

Same doctor told me to get runners, and go run as f*cking hard and as fast for as long as I could and not to stop until I couldn’t breathe. I smoke 20 a day and haven’t exercised since Junior Cert PE, and I ran 3km. When I got home, I genuinely burst into tears because I felt normal for the first time in 6 months. I never believed I would feel normal again.

Run.

4) Smoking
Not gonna tell you to give up smoking, because it’s not gonna happen.
What are f*cking great are the electronic cigarettes. Just nicotine, nothing else to get the nervous system excited. Within two or three days you will feel a serious drop in your anxiety levels. Hand on heart, I cannot stress electronic smokes enough. Don’t the the disposable ones from Spar; go to a stall in a shopping centre and get the real ones. I’ve had great success with the VIP brand.

5) Finally, this article from Cracked.com

http://www.cracked.com/funny-7783-anxiety/

Seriously. F*ck every other blog or help site on the internet, they’re only trying to sell you weeds or a bad book. Follow this article’s instructions religiously.

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So that’s it. I had it as bad as anyone - probably worst than most, truth be told, won’t go into it here - but it gets better. I would have killed for someone to have told me that at any time. I haven’t posted in this thread in ages, but I came back on the off chance that it might give another person with the same problem some hope. I thought I'd never be able to leave my house, and now I'm making more money than I ever thought I'd make and having an absolute blast. You are going to be ok.

Anxiety is not permanent. Anxiety is bullsh*t, and it can go away.

You will get better, and any anxious thought that makes you believe otherwise is a goddamned liar.

Rob