Daily physical symptoms of an anxiety sufferer.

I usually find when I write about something, I box it off and it helps ‘put it to bed’. It can help me move on and put things behind me. So far, so proverbial. There’s one aspect of anxiety though that I don’t think writing about will help. I will try, but I’m pretty certain this is here to stay and it’s the physical symptoms that accompany anxiety.

I have a friend who suffers from fibromyalgia. These symptoms are crippling and I can only imagine how difficult it must be to live in pretty much constant physical pain because of anxiety and muscle tension. And it’s odd, because it isn’t tension from direct thoughts. There’s nothing that the conscious mind is doing that causes this level of tension. There may be a trigger, but it’s likely to be something that either happened a long time ago, maybe that can’t even be immediately recollected, or, it may be something more recent. But this trigger (if it can be traced to some ‘thing’) will create a cloud; or an ill feeling.

And by using the phrase ‘ill-feeling’ that’s exactly what I mean, unease, discomfort; anxiety.

This part of anxiety, ‘the ill-feeling’ is always present. It may diminish in size, it may shape shift, it may become so big that it totally overwhelms and causes the sufferer to just want to stay in bed. And it’s this anxious feeling which, I think, triggers the physical symptoms.

EFFECTS

For me, this can manifest itself in many different ways. All of them, unpleasant. A dozen or so times a day, I will find I am pushing my tongue up behind my teeth. Sometimes only a bit too much, sometimes really hard. I wrote this post a few days back, but tonight I've decided to post it, as it's making me feel ill, the back of my teeth feel odd, and I keep forcing my tongue into them, which has resulted in a sickly feeling. Which is weird as nothing tonight is bothering me at all. 

I know some people suffer with teeth clenching, but I’m lucky not to be one of them. I know that this problem can cause serious dental problems. Sometimes I will find that my legs are tense, sometimes both legs, sometimes just one, or my arm, neck, or hand. Also I get tense buttocks a lot! I think that’s how I’ve ended up with such a pert bum, (so it’s not all bad).

From time to time I’ll be trying to get to sleep and I’ll realise although I think I’m lay on the pillow, my head is actually being held above it. Relaxing my neck makes my head sink into the pillow, and that part is lovely, although it’s usually short lived, either because I’m doing it again in a few minutes, or because I’ve nodded off. When I was at my worse a few years back, I can remember many occasions where my mind was somewhere else completely, but my whole body was rigid. It was usually after these tense 'fight or flight' episodes where focus my mind of relaxing, which would work and then I'd be fit for nothing, but sleep.

I don’t always remember being like this, and perhaps it’s a part of the side effect of the Citalopram? Perhaps it's because of the breakdown? But it’s certainly unpleasant, and I assume something that will be different with every person who has anxiety. Maybe cannabis oil is the solution as has been reported elsewhere (as a substitute to Citalopram, not a supplement)? Maybe there’s a trigger that can be pinpointed. Maybe someday we will have the answer. But it’s definitely worth being open about, discussing and focusing efforts on curing, because it’s nasty, unpleasant and can cause crippling problems for some people.