desperate9
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- Jan 11, 2020
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Dear kinds souls,
I have an extreme reaction to a particular stressor. To why and how it all started.
The first half of my life was dreamy. Childhood was perfect. Everything went well up until the point when I lost a loving parent. Like a curse had been cast, I went from class clown, funny guy to that awkwardly shy and quiet person. Eventually I experienced verbal and mental bullying by my peers for being so deviant. A year goes by and we had to sell our family home and needed to move to an apartment (key point). It was a difficult change. In the midst of selling the home, I experienced my first panic attack in school. We were in the smallest class room that felt cosy when a handful of us were there, but when the whole class was present it was very claustrophobic. At one point we were studying german, and had to read from the work book. That one time I started to have anticipation anxiety... with each kid reading a paragraph prior to me, the closer it came to my turn, the more my heart rate increased and I could feel it in my throat and skull. This happened a couple more times when I gave in and went to a psychiatrist. I was prescribed Paxil and therapy sessions with a psychologist.
From there on, I don't remember much other that my anxiety in class was completely eliminated. The drug made me sleepy and gained weight. I've always been skinny up until that point. I also became lazy, which eventually resulted in me not passing the class for the first time. Months go by, school starts, new classmates.......I was fitting in like a puzzle piece. Renewed energy, back to class clown once more, kids seemed to accept me as "the new kid". The antidepressant was doing its job. I look at pictures of myself from those days, and I look healthier and happier than I ever was before or after that. Eventually I felt that antidepressants are now holding me back rather than helping me, so I quit taking them cold turkey. We never discussed this with my psychiatrist though. Pretty sure he'd have cautioned me otherwise. So I suffered protracted SSRI withdrawal and was even a member of that old paxilprogress site. I kept believing people that the symptoms will go away and all will be fine. It's been over 10 years and I still have weird symptoms that I never had before, such as forgetting to breathe and bodily joilts.
Long story short, that was over a decade ago. The "curse" came back haunting. Fast forward a few years... I met somebody who's been through similar life struggles and we clicked. Shortly a year after saying our first hello, we got married. Underneath the surface, besides sharing similar life stories, we didn't share enough common values. The marriage eventually broke down, and it caused so much stress that I and my family attribute the diabetes diagnosis to that.
I apologize for the long read. The sole reason for writing it down is that it might give an insight to others that I might not be aware of, and something that could help. Now the key point: moving to an apartment. So diabetes was the first, then followed by two other chronic health conditions. I didn't realize how much I needed peace in my life until I got sick, which fortunately was given.....for a while. We live in an apartment sandwiched between two floors, but both occupants used them for vacation (summer) only. Then the one above us died, and his son decided to "make some cash", so he puts it up for rent and soon after we had young adults (man and woman) move in. My bedroom is very small, almost claustrophobic. It's hard to imagine two people being constantly stuck in there, but it happened. This couple did everything directly above my head; eat, drink, watch TV, have sex etc. 24/7. The guy I knew from school and knew that he lived with his parents in a big family house, having no idea of the costs of living around people in an apartment complex. I have been woken up to their bed squeaking or the guy moaning from pleasure. At one time I was woken up early, and couldn't control myself... I yelled from the top of my lungs and their act was stopped, followed by me jumping on the bed and imitating the loud squeaking. We never directly confronted each other, but they got the message nevertheless. This went on for a few months, they got progressively more quiet and eventually moved out.
Bruised, but not battered, I had roughly a year of peace all to myself and started to focus on making something out of life, so I turned to learning music and songwriting. It helped so much. The curse..... happiness wasn't for too long. The guy who owned the apartment decided to sell it... I was starting to panic, but the word got out that an older widow has purchased it and I was relieved. A quiet, older lady who will be respectful and try her best to fit into this quiet neighborhood. This is heaven.
Yeah, no. This woman arrived here, opened the windows and blasted classical music out in the open. This is a dead quiet neighborhood and lights are usually off everywhere by 10 PM..... but she stayed up well past 2 AM, walking up and down non-stop in heels, have invited "girlfriends" half her age and you could hear what they were speaking through the walls, having loud giggles all night. The highlight was inviting some relatives with children, and the kids were running up and down all day with my bedroom door shaking as if there was an earthquake. That's when something broke in me. After years of not experiencing panic attacks, I started having them daily, but this time my stomach reacted the same way which it never did before. I would have diarrhea from stress so bad that not even Xanax touched it. The worst part was that time when I injected insulin ready to eat my meal, and suddenly she arrives after being away for a month. I could hear the loud, hysterical giggles in the stairway (which no other people make by the way) and knew she wasn't alone. Anxiety came, and with anxiety came panic, and panic suppressed my appetite...... so I was sitting there with insulin in me and food on table, but lost my appetite. I knew that if I don't eat, I could pass out and die. And at that second, I pooped on myself from the anxiety. It was the most traumatizing experience of my life (not the pooping, but the insulin and no appetite and its consequences).
Ever since then I can't sleep just by the thought of this.....lady. Whenever I hear the giggles or any slight noise above my head, I become hypervigilant and jump up, look outside if there's any car that just parked outside. Whenever I hear a car outside, I just panic. Can't leave home anymore without Xanax, and even that doesn't guarantee that I won't get nauseated and have the urge to poop. She was here today after being away for months, and fortunately seemed to left and didn't even make much noise.....but there's always the "what if" thoughts. What if she'll bring people to party again, what if the relatives with kids show up. What if I lose my appetite and die from hypoglycemia? There's no way I can calm myself down anymore. Even if I tell myself that I'm safe and nobody can come into our home and hurt me, it just doesn't work. As soon as she leaves, I eventually calm down.
We don't have the financials to move to a house, and moving to another apartment would be too stressful as it's playing russian roulette. I can't leave home either way due to panic attacks and I already accepted having a wonderful childhood and an adulthood ridden with incurable diseases and downfalls. All I want is just peace. Nothing more, nothing less.
My psychiatrist prescribed SSRI-s. I haven't taken one in over 10 years and scared to as I don't see how it would help because in the past I went to a stressful place (school) back to peace (home), but now stress is at the place one calls home and there's no way to escape it. Antidepressant is sort of a last resort to keep my mind at bay, because if I try it and doesn't work out, then there won't be any last resort and I would contemplate suicide. Xanax helps somewhat with bodily symptoms, but it doesn't remove the fear from my mind. And I'm also extremely worried that I'd become addicted to benzo and the only times I take a tiny amount are when visiting dentist or flying. I know it sounds outrageous, but I feel as if a gun were held to my head 24/7 whenever she's here. She could care less, my loving parent tried to explain the situation to her and she is hostile. I would not be able to confront her after all this misery as I would lose it. Other than that, she has every right to own and be present in her apartment. I can't take this anymore. Please tell me how to go from here.
I have an extreme reaction to a particular stressor. To why and how it all started.
The first half of my life was dreamy. Childhood was perfect. Everything went well up until the point when I lost a loving parent. Like a curse had been cast, I went from class clown, funny guy to that awkwardly shy and quiet person. Eventually I experienced verbal and mental bullying by my peers for being so deviant. A year goes by and we had to sell our family home and needed to move to an apartment (key point). It was a difficult change. In the midst of selling the home, I experienced my first panic attack in school. We were in the smallest class room that felt cosy when a handful of us were there, but when the whole class was present it was very claustrophobic. At one point we were studying german, and had to read from the work book. That one time I started to have anticipation anxiety... with each kid reading a paragraph prior to me, the closer it came to my turn, the more my heart rate increased and I could feel it in my throat and skull. This happened a couple more times when I gave in and went to a psychiatrist. I was prescribed Paxil and therapy sessions with a psychologist.
From there on, I don't remember much other that my anxiety in class was completely eliminated. The drug made me sleepy and gained weight. I've always been skinny up until that point. I also became lazy, which eventually resulted in me not passing the class for the first time. Months go by, school starts, new classmates.......I was fitting in like a puzzle piece. Renewed energy, back to class clown once more, kids seemed to accept me as "the new kid". The antidepressant was doing its job. I look at pictures of myself from those days, and I look healthier and happier than I ever was before or after that. Eventually I felt that antidepressants are now holding me back rather than helping me, so I quit taking them cold turkey. We never discussed this with my psychiatrist though. Pretty sure he'd have cautioned me otherwise. So I suffered protracted SSRI withdrawal and was even a member of that old paxilprogress site. I kept believing people that the symptoms will go away and all will be fine. It's been over 10 years and I still have weird symptoms that I never had before, such as forgetting to breathe and bodily joilts.
Long story short, that was over a decade ago. The "curse" came back haunting. Fast forward a few years... I met somebody who's been through similar life struggles and we clicked. Shortly a year after saying our first hello, we got married. Underneath the surface, besides sharing similar life stories, we didn't share enough common values. The marriage eventually broke down, and it caused so much stress that I and my family attribute the diabetes diagnosis to that.
I apologize for the long read. The sole reason for writing it down is that it might give an insight to others that I might not be aware of, and something that could help. Now the key point: moving to an apartment. So diabetes was the first, then followed by two other chronic health conditions. I didn't realize how much I needed peace in my life until I got sick, which fortunately was given.....for a while. We live in an apartment sandwiched between two floors, but both occupants used them for vacation (summer) only. Then the one above us died, and his son decided to "make some cash", so he puts it up for rent and soon after we had young adults (man and woman) move in. My bedroom is very small, almost claustrophobic. It's hard to imagine two people being constantly stuck in there, but it happened. This couple did everything directly above my head; eat, drink, watch TV, have sex etc. 24/7. The guy I knew from school and knew that he lived with his parents in a big family house, having no idea of the costs of living around people in an apartment complex. I have been woken up to their bed squeaking or the guy moaning from pleasure. At one time I was woken up early, and couldn't control myself... I yelled from the top of my lungs and their act was stopped, followed by me jumping on the bed and imitating the loud squeaking. We never directly confronted each other, but they got the message nevertheless. This went on for a few months, they got progressively more quiet and eventually moved out.
Bruised, but not battered, I had roughly a year of peace all to myself and started to focus on making something out of life, so I turned to learning music and songwriting. It helped so much. The curse..... happiness wasn't for too long. The guy who owned the apartment decided to sell it... I was starting to panic, but the word got out that an older widow has purchased it and I was relieved. A quiet, older lady who will be respectful and try her best to fit into this quiet neighborhood. This is heaven.
Yeah, no. This woman arrived here, opened the windows and blasted classical music out in the open. This is a dead quiet neighborhood and lights are usually off everywhere by 10 PM..... but she stayed up well past 2 AM, walking up and down non-stop in heels, have invited "girlfriends" half her age and you could hear what they were speaking through the walls, having loud giggles all night. The highlight was inviting some relatives with children, and the kids were running up and down all day with my bedroom door shaking as if there was an earthquake. That's when something broke in me. After years of not experiencing panic attacks, I started having them daily, but this time my stomach reacted the same way which it never did before. I would have diarrhea from stress so bad that not even Xanax touched it. The worst part was that time when I injected insulin ready to eat my meal, and suddenly she arrives after being away for a month. I could hear the loud, hysterical giggles in the stairway (which no other people make by the way) and knew she wasn't alone. Anxiety came, and with anxiety came panic, and panic suppressed my appetite...... so I was sitting there with insulin in me and food on table, but lost my appetite. I knew that if I don't eat, I could pass out and die. And at that second, I pooped on myself from the anxiety. It was the most traumatizing experience of my life (not the pooping, but the insulin and no appetite and its consequences).
Ever since then I can't sleep just by the thought of this.....lady. Whenever I hear the giggles or any slight noise above my head, I become hypervigilant and jump up, look outside if there's any car that just parked outside. Whenever I hear a car outside, I just panic. Can't leave home anymore without Xanax, and even that doesn't guarantee that I won't get nauseated and have the urge to poop. She was here today after being away for months, and fortunately seemed to left and didn't even make much noise.....but there's always the "what if" thoughts. What if she'll bring people to party again, what if the relatives with kids show up. What if I lose my appetite and die from hypoglycemia? There's no way I can calm myself down anymore. Even if I tell myself that I'm safe and nobody can come into our home and hurt me, it just doesn't work. As soon as she leaves, I eventually calm down.
We don't have the financials to move to a house, and moving to another apartment would be too stressful as it's playing russian roulette. I can't leave home either way due to panic attacks and I already accepted having a wonderful childhood and an adulthood ridden with incurable diseases and downfalls. All I want is just peace. Nothing more, nothing less.
My psychiatrist prescribed SSRI-s. I haven't taken one in over 10 years and scared to as I don't see how it would help because in the past I went to a stressful place (school) back to peace (home), but now stress is at the place one calls home and there's no way to escape it. Antidepressant is sort of a last resort to keep my mind at bay, because if I try it and doesn't work out, then there won't be any last resort and I would contemplate suicide. Xanax helps somewhat with bodily symptoms, but it doesn't remove the fear from my mind. And I'm also extremely worried that I'd become addicted to benzo and the only times I take a tiny amount are when visiting dentist or flying. I know it sounds outrageous, but I feel as if a gun were held to my head 24/7 whenever she's here. She could care less, my loving parent tried to explain the situation to her and she is hostile. I would not be able to confront her after all this misery as I would lose it. Other than that, she has every right to own and be present in her apartment. I can't take this anymore. Please tell me how to go from here.
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