Can moderate anxiety turn into something more?

[ryan2022]

Just wondering lately, after having gone through the worst two weeks in recent memory.

Can Moderate to severe anxiety turn to something else?...worse?

I'm actually feeling better the past two days, but its been a hell of a ride. Basically a one foot in front of the other sort of thing, and its been really tough to be out of bed.

I worry about my future mental health with this. Can it eventually cause damage? Or does it make you stronger in the end.

Years ago I had to walk around all day for work in steel toed boots.....I had a broken toe at the time. On a scale of 1-10, I would consider that pain about a 1, compared to the 12.5 I've been feeling.

I'd lay their squirming on the couch, trying to find some comforting thoughts, with my arms around my head, just trying to breath. I just started to worry about the damage it was causing me long term.....more mentally than anything else. I know the body recovers fast, just not sure about the mind.

Any thoughts?

 

[bigrob]

Yes it can.

I have gradually grown worse over the past 20 years despite being on medicine to treat it.

See someone and get help. I had to....I couldn't take anymore. I'm in therapy now to try and break the "negative thought patterns".

 

[ryan2022]

Good point, its the increase in negative thoughts that gets to me. Its really tough. Feels impossible sometimes.

What do you find works for you, in terms of help? Psycho therapy like psychology?

I've talked to a councellor who is great, but the coping skills he's given me dont always work.

Its hard not to just give in. Sometimes fighting them off is terribly tiring.

 

[Kiwong]

I'd say anxiety and depression goes in cycles. I've been suffering from depression and anxiety for ten years. I have to say that over that ten years, I have been forced to fight hard and in so doing have lived some of the brightest days of my life.

There have been neutral times, neither good or bad, some real highs, then punctuated by terrible lows. The lows used to really jump up and bite me hard.

The thing that I never saw coming was the panic attacks I had for a period of five years. This was a physical manifestation of extreme stress and anxiety over a long period.

However, thins improved at least for me. I managed to stop the panic attacks.

And I have definately been lower than I am at present. My low point was around 2005, when I thought I was dieing and there was no hope for me. Then I lived three years with severe knee pain.

Somehow I lifted myself out of that nightmare, rebuilt my knee, stopped the panic attacks and today I am running half marathons.

Of course my anxiety has developed from acute shyness into a mental illness that makes my life difficult. Probably more so now that I am well enough to try and put myself out there in the world of people, whereas before that I was locked alone in my own headspace of pain.

 

[ronnierocket]

Yes it can. I suffer from depression for ca. six years, and I think people's reactions to my always-depressed mood generated my SAD. My depression turned slowly from severe to moderate, but my anxiety gets worse and worse: if people don't understand you, you get more and more afraid of them.

 

[seafolly]

Absolutely! My anxiety turned from something manageable like not raising my hand in class to being unable to test in a regular classroom with others, no presentations, and being reluctant to socialize in the span of...a month? That eventually became full blown agoraphobia despite meds and regular therapy.

What we'll be like "after" is a complete mystery and I think it varies from person to person but from what I hear from those who conquered agoraphobia is you're never fully cured. You just learn to read the warning signs in your body and you work like heck to nip it in the bud.