Does anyone know what I am going through?

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Well here it is... I woke up one day and i felt normal, then i went to church and as i was sitting in chirch i was feeling my heart beat fast and i felt like i was going to drop dead right there and i was thinking of what people might think if i did. I felt like i was swaying back and forth and that i had no control over my body. About 2 days later i had the same feeling only it was worse... my left arm was going numb and i felt like i was going to drop dead again. This has been going on for 7 months straight and i've never felt normal since the first day i experienced this and i've been to the emergency room 3 times. Now i have a portable EKG machine to take my pulse whenever i feel really bad. I feel that depression or anxiety might be bringing on these physical symptoms. I want to know if anyone has felt like this or know someone who has felt like this. I've been reading about depression and it seems like i have the symptoms. I just want to feel normal without living on the edge and living on fear.

Nah, sorry, that's prolly not depression....it could be heart probs or pulse probs or anything....alot of anxiety while your having the attack can make things worse...but i doubt depressions causeing this....yes im not denying your depressed...just sayin i think depression ADDED to your natural w/e happening may make things worse...i do not think depresson alone would cause that to happen that often...panick attacks are kind common...but ide say....you prolly have something other than depression mainly causing it....you prolly need to get it checked better by doctors....

maybe its a panic attack

I think that i might have social anxiety because i dont have any friends to hang out with... i hardly talk to anyone throughout the day and i always think that people hate me and whatever i say is stupid. I've had these attacks in public places like church. Actually the only public places i've been to in a while is church and school. i feel like i have no life as i am sitting here on a friday night. Is there something i can do to reverse these feelings?

It sounds like an anxiety disorder. There is medication and other therapy available that can help.

For one thing i don't like church it makes me upset....and nervous

hello. I think i know what you are going through. The fact these episodes only occur in church tells me it is a panic attack. You should have a doctor check your heart though. The symtoms of numbness are classic shock symtoms with panic and hyperventalation.You are in no physical danger. To give you specific advise i need to know more about your feelings on death, religion and spiritual identity. I think you are probally a sensative person who is developing feelings and thoughts that are not permitted in your religious setting or familiy. These could range from the onset of sexuality or awareness your culutral beliefs are wrong for you, are you are questioning the nature of life and religion? is something blossoming in your mind you wish to push out? all these things are natural.we all fear ourselves and how we change. It is easy for me to say such panic is harmless but i know what it feels like to be so terrorfied by panic you think you are going to die. You are not alone. take care.

Wow..... That's deep man! Really deep.Wow.........

On death i feel like i have no future, i dont feel like i'm going to be anyone. i am afraid that i am going to die. i sometimes think that anyday the world is going to end i dont know why. I feel like i am in dnger with those feelings. These attacks dont just happen at church but also when i'm just laying around. Religon... i am catholic my beliefs in god is on and off like sime days i will believe and some days i wont. I also seem to always look at the clock when it is 11:11 or 1:11, and i think that that is a sign. I also feel the back of my head pulsing and sometimes my whole body...

ok, ive read your responce and i understand the thoughts and feelings you have. I need to think caefully how i respond. Not knowing your age i guess you might be mid to late teen age? You need to find some neutral person that you can talk too, a teacher or an adult you can trust if not a parent, choose someone that will take you seriously. Explain to this person the thoughts and feelings you have. You are not mad, nor are you abnormal. If i could wave a magic wand i would show you the millions of people who have these same thoughts and feelings.It is because you are sensative and intelligent these symtoms happen. Your clever mind is asking you to deal with and think about ideas and realisations, and part of your mind is scared to do this alone and block them out by producing the symtoms you have as a distraction. Part of us always says im too frightened, alone and afraid to think about painfull past events or to admit i cant be myself at home ,or say things that are important to my personality. Once you talk to a trusted adult you will feel better. Then you can if you wish talk to your family. You do need to think about seeing a counselor or therapist because these people teach you to manage these symtoms and feelings so they dont stay around forever, (discuss this with the adult you trust) also you can learn what causes them and understand why. remember you are intelligent and you should trust your intuition on which adults to trust. Even teachers and psychaitrits can be full of shit, go on your feeling you are very important and now is the time to help yourself. take care.

whats amazing is that u seem to know exactly what i am going through. I am 17 so u were right about my age. I'm going too list some other habits i have to see if it goes along of what u are saying. i bite my finger nails a lot and i bite the skin around my nails... most of the time it bleeds... i also bite my lip until it bleeds or hurts too much. I also tend to look at people not as humans, but animals and i compare people's characteristics to that of animals'. i seem to think of people in a bad way like i notice their bad chacteristics insgead of the positive. I also get easily irritated when people chew their food loudly and when that happens i feel like i want to throw things or punch something. i dont know why i think that. And i also think that masturbation is hurting me... I think these things might be taking a toll on my emotions... i havent been happy about anything really... when christmas came i felt ni excitement... when i see my family i have no excitement... and i'm afraid if i ride a rollercoaster or something extreme like that i'll die.

First i have to tell you i am not an expert in the medical sense, but i have a lot of experience in dealing with mental health issues.Most of what you say like painfull masturbation,(perhaps through doing it excessivly)biting nails and lips are signs of acute anxiety. Anxiety becomes acute when we dont manage or discuss the fears that build it up. It is true some people are more worried about life than others however it gets out of hand like in your case when we are alienaited and dont have friends and family to duscuss our worries with, often we are ashamed at the things that worry us and feel we cant discuss them. When you say you see people more like animals, it has to be said we share a lot of charictaristics with animals, the problem is you pick up on that and exclude the human side and the possibility of humane warm relationships. Perhaps it is because you dont trust people after bad experiences or you are angry at specific people or people in general. The term for seeing people in this way is dehumanisation and is very common in people with anxiety and depression.The feeling that death is coming and you will soon die is a text book case of anxiety and if i had a pound for every person i knew who had experienced that (including myself) i would be a very rich man.I will though gently encourage you to vocalise your feelings with a trusted adult and perhaps you could go with that person to discuss it with a doctor.I can offer more insight but i need more information on your emotional relationships with your family members, and about reasons why you might feel angry or dis-trust towards other people.It is possible you are depressed. Wanting to be alone and feeling angry are particular charicteristics in men when they have depression. Take care.

the relationship with my family is not the best it could be... i hardly talk to my family ... i feel embarresed to say anything because i feel intimidated by them. Especially my family that i dont see all the time. I always frown upon my dad because i feel he is a fake or a hypocrit and i always think against whatever he says. With my mom i feel more open to talk to her about things ratger than my dad because with my dad i feel that i cant say or do anything wrong. I think if anyone elses is the cause of why i am feeling like this it would be my dad because he has always yeld at me for the little things that i did wrong... i guess i'm afraid of telling him anything. He always talks to me about school and how i'm doing good (at a 3.94 gpa) when i know he is saying in his head is "you should be doing better". Now i really dont care what he thinks and everything is slipping, my grades, my social life, my sport that i play, and my life. I remember when i got into my first accident i thought he was going to kill me when he arrived to the scene, but all he did was say nothing and it looked like he didnt care a bit about me... thats all i can recall with my relaionship with my family.

firstly sorry if i take a long time to reply. I am british so there is a time difference, also i dont own a computer, i only have access while im here at the university which is mostly daytime.We have a problem. I am willing to talk to you in a very honest manner about anything you want to discuss. Only that as we chat on this servise we leave in writing our correspondance like a story for all to read. I am happy to keep going with this if you are brave enough to have your intimate concers posted in a public forum, we could just ignore others will read it and our identities will not be disclosed anyway. If you prefer to swap email address i could send you mine as a private message i think. Im not geat with technology, perhaps you could suggest a solution.It is great you are willing and able to talk frankly about your feelings. It is doing this that allows somebody in your situation to be able to guide their way out of negative experiences and help orientate you in a posative position.You actually have good insight as to why you feel the way you do. What is difficult is processing the hurt and pain you have experienced, and the first big deal about that is accepting why you are feeling as you are. Thats such a big deal because it means seeing the people we want to love us for how they really are, this often means a process of feeling greif and loss because we didnt get the care and support we so desperatly want, it can also make us very angry that we didnt get that support from the very people who's job it is to give it to us.You know you talk of yourself as being a failure in your fathers eyes. Well heres news for you. HE IS THE FAILURE. He fails to see you for the unique, wonderful person you are. He is unable to see you different to him and he has failed to modify his behaviour to support you as your real self. In short he thinks you are just an extension of him, like a soilder at his command. The word for this is narcicissm. To confuse matters i bet his negative uncaring attitude towards you is more his own bitterness and perhaps jealousy at not being young or wanting to of done things different in his life. In short he may not see who you are becuase he is clouded by his own depression and anger at things in life, therfore not activly been cruel to you but he may not have no mental space or energy to love or care for others because he cant get his own suffering out of his mind.Back to you. What im trying to do is show you nothing is set in stone. Your experiences are not your fault, but at your age it is common to think since im the kid it must be me at fault, it must be my problem. The truth is it is not. i would ask you to spend some time thinking about these ideas. If they dont seem plausible to your situation we can explore other ideas. Keep the honest feelings coming, tell me more about your experiences even if you dont know why you feel like saying one thing instead of another.I have a challenge for you. I want you to take an activity that you used to do for fun and try it again. I want you to be aware of how you feel, and just listen for negative thoughts and attitudes that you experience, see if they colour how you feels about doing the activity, see if you can seperate them in your mind and try to watch these thoughts like an observer rather than merge them into who you are. Give it a go. Include a friend in the activity, dont beat yourself up if it isnt a great success. Mostly i want you to just realises your negative feeling and thoughts almost like they are not you. Imagine if you had toothache for a year. You would forget its your tooth that aches and eventially just think all of you is in pain. The mind in no different. See if you can get a perspective on having negative feelings without merging them into your total identity as if its all you are. Take care.

well i tried going to baseball practice but when i did i ended up hyperventilating and being rushed to the emergency room. (This was before u posted ur suggestion.) Today in school i felt weird again... i felt like i had no control over my body... i felt like i was going to die.... my heartbeat when up and my palms were sweating. I've been looking online again and i looked up over-ejaculation and about pre-mature ejaculation which i think i have... and most of the symptoms are similar to a panic atack. could my serotonin levels be down or other things that are associated with over-ejaculation? i feel like i have not much time left to live. I'm going to the cardiologist tommorrow and i dont think that they will find anything wrong with my heart. Do you think a blood or urine test might find something that is wrong with me? And i dont have an e-mail address as of now so i guess this is the only way we can communicate...I really want to feell normal again i hope the doctor can help me... thanks for infroming me abot what i might be going through

These really sound like anxiety symptoms. They make life miserable so treatment is important. Fortunately there are much better anti-anxiety medications now available than there used to be.

Hello, Im so sorry to have been out of touch for a long time. Usually when you reply i have it sent to my email address and i read it from there. However having not hearing from you for a while i thought i would log on here, and now i find you have replied, you must have thought i had forgoten you, well i have not.Ok. I would be very suprised the cardiologist finds a problem. Who is making you see all these doctors and why cant they see it is clearly an anxiety problem?In order for you to feel better and get these panic attacks in order, you need to work with a psycotherapist regularly for a long time. I know you are scared. I know you have good reason to never trust another god dam human being. I know you dont think you can get better. I know you cant understand what caused the problem. I know you want the answer to be something you can do yourself in secret without opening up to somebody in reality. I know you feel weak and too scared to do anything.I also know everybody on this site thinks they are an expert and you get conflicting information.You need to do some hard thinking. There are no magic wands. Nobody can make it better overnight. You can learn about what it is you experience, not through reading a book or internet research, you must do it with a therapist who can guide you back to your full self.I have some questions. 1, Who if anyone knows how you feel, i mean everything.2, Who can you consider telling.3, Are you ready to think about getting better. I will check my emails again 7.30 pm my time (its now 6.45pm). If you are not around to reply,i will next check my emails 9am monday moring my time.Take care.

Well tanks for not forgetting about me, but today i went to a psychotherapist and explained to him what i explained to you. I feel that he can help me because he seems to understand me like how you understand me. I go back to the therapist monday to take some tests. I plan to be a regular visitor there. After the meeting with him i did feel just a tad better. And you are right about the cardiologist and what he would find... which was a very healthy heart. Lucky for me... my school has delayed entry next week so i can spend less time there (i have been having the attacks mostly at school). I'd have to say you are a very nice person for caring for a stranger over the internet and i'd like to thank you for your information and caring.

Hi,
i got your email, thankyou. It came to my address and i clicked reply, im a little concerned it does not show up as a posting. It was very detailed so i hope it is not lost. The return address was webmaster@afraidtoask.com I hope you recieve it.
Take Care.

my e-mail address is brewersfan01@yahoo.com so i didnt get anything that u sent me through e-mail.