u/Expensive-Emu-4840

So I haven’t gotten a hair cut in like a year, I’ve never liked getting my hair cut. But recently with my anxiety and panic attacks I’ve been putting it off for ages. But the time has finally come and my appointment is in 2 hours. All day I’ve felt tense and jittery. I’m not anxious about the haircut itself I’m anxious about having a panic attack during it.

I’ve been managing my anxiety pretty well. I’ve been doing exposure therapy and I’ve been putting myself into situations that make me anxious and I’ve been doing good with that. I haven’t had a panic attack in 3 weeks and been feeling a lot better. But I don’t really feel anxious about this, I’m not looking forward to it but I’m not anxious. I just feel so wired rn

I’ve been taking magnesium gummy’s every night to help me get a deeper sleep and also to hopefully help with my anxiety. Specifically the trip magnesium and L theanine gummy’s. They’ve definitely helped my sleep but not done much for my anxiety, ive been getting a lot of brain fog and dissociation recently but thought it was down to my anxiety issues. I forgot to take them last night and the next day I felt less anxious and more productive than usual? Could it just be a coincidence?

Hi, I’m not sure if this is the right place to post this but I’ve been going through some shit recently. Been feeling so numb and been needing to cry for months. I’ve never really listened to asmr before but nothing has worked until a asmr video came on my TikTok with someone saying “everything is going to be okay” in a soft voice and just saying comforting things. It seems silly and I feel cringe for it but I burst into tears almost instantly. It felt so good to cry after so long. Are there any people out there who make more content like this?

People always want a quick fix to anxiety. A button or a pill that will just make it all go away. Frustratingly no such thing exists. But sometimes just understanding what anxiety is can make you feel instantly better! Here’s some facts that made anxiety and panic less scary for me

- Panic attacks are just adrenaline rushes.
That’s all they are. “Panic attack” sounds scary. An “attack” sounds like something horribly wrong is happening to you. Something that helped me was when I felt it coming on instead of saying to myself “I’m having a panic attack” I said “I’m having a rush of adrenaline”. Which sounds a lot less terrifying! And you’re not lying to yourself by saying that. Because a panic attack is quite literally just an adrenaline rush.

- Adrenaline doesn’t cause fear
Sort of building on from my previous point. Adrenaline can make you feel a lot of things. Heart palpitations, tight chest, air hunger, dizziness, headaches, shaking, sweating etc etc. But something adrenaline doesn’t cause is that intense fear or feeling of impending doom you feel when you are having an adrenaline rush. That all comes from your current mental state and how you react to the feelings it causes. If a brain scan was taken of someone who was on a rollercoaster and someone who is having a panic attack they would look the same.

- Panic attacks are harmless
No one has ever died because of a panic attack, nor have they ever had long term physical health issues from them. So no you are not going to die and nothing bad is going to happen to you.

- Very unlikely to faint during a panic attack
This was a big one for me, the dizzy feeling and feeling like I was going to faint always makes me panic more. When you have a panic attack or a rush of adrenaline, your blood pressure rises. People faint because of low blood pressure. So you are actually very unlikely to faint during a panic attack.

- If something was wrong with your heart you’d be able to feel it 24/7
(I want to start of by saying that it’s always safest to get checked out just to rule out any heart problems) But if you had something wrong with your heart you’d most likely be able to feel it constantly.

- People who loose there minds or go “crazy” don’t realise it
One of my biggest triggers was the feeling that I was going to loose my mind, because I can’t quite describe how but sometimes it feels like the slightest breeze could send me into psychosis. And I’ve seen a lot of other people say “I feel like I’m loosing my mind” so I’m guessing this is pretty common. But people who loose their mind usually don’t realise that they are actually loosing their mind. So the very fact that you feel like you are means that you probably aren’t and what you’re feeling is just anxiety.

Pretty much what it says in the title. I’ve been recovering from burn out and panic attacks and I’m doing really well but the derealisation, brain fog and just feeling like I’m on autopilot is becoming super annoying. I’m hopefully going to start CBT soon I have the first initial phone appointment next week.

Does anyone have a way to help Derealisation? The 5,4,3,2,1 and other grounding techniques don’t seem to work for me

Hi I’m in my recovery journey, I’m doing pretty well recently, haven’t had a panic attack in a while. I still get the “anxious waves”. But they don’t progress into a panic attack anymore. The only thing I’m struggling with the actual feeling of anxiety is reminding myself that it will pass. Because it always does. But in the moment it feels like it won’t pass if that makes sense.

I’ve also been experiencing what I think is Derealisation. Especially at work. I sort of look at everything around me and I know it’s real, but I don’t feel like I’m there if that makes sense. I don’t feel present in the moment at all. I’ve also been getting some memory blanks. Nothing major but for example today when I went to the bathroom at work. I remember actually sitting on the toilet but when I was washing my hands I was like wait I don’t recall anything that happened after I sat down. Stuff like that. Not like I’ll just be somewhere and I don’t remember how I got there or anything. I’m just noticing a lot of tiny gaps in my memory like that.

But going from panic attacks and all the physical symptoms to just managing that is massive for me. I’ve been forcing myself to go out and do things that scare me, which I’m not gonna like is really fucking hard but after I did it I felt so good about myself and so glad that I did that.

Today at work I was actually in a good mood (I know crazy right). I engaged in conversation and laughing with my co workers and singing along to songs on the radio. But It felt weird, I haven’t felt like that in so long and it didn’t feel like relief it just felt a bit odd. Then my anxious mind immediately jumped to “you’re having a manic episode you’re going to loose your mind”. “Losing my mind” is a massive trigger for me. And the feeling of loosing my mind and getting myself to realise that I’m not going crazy it’s just anxiety is one of the hardest parts of recovering for me.

So I’m pretty far in my driving lesson journey. Failed my test once this February, got my next one booked in for late July. But since then I have developed anxiety and panic attacks. Not related to my driving just in general, work burn out or whatever. I’m dealing with that and I’m starting therapy next month.

But my last driving lesson I had I had a panic attack whilst driving for the first time in the middle of a dual carriage way and had to pull over on the hard shoulder because i literally I felt too dizzy to be safe driving. Luckily my instructor was nice about it but I just wanted the ground to swallow me up I was so embarrassed. Since then I’ve not had a driving lesson in 3 weeks and I forced myself to book one for tomorrow, because I need to stop avoiding things that trigger anxiety because I know the more I avoid it the worse my brain is gonna make it.

The current state of the uk healthcare system is an absolute joke. So my mum has arthritis in her spine, fractures in her spine, slipped disk, herniated disk, nerve root damage and irritation. Most of this is caused from she never got the right medication after she got a hysterectomy. Causing her to have brittle bones.

Last April 2025 she got a MRI scan and then got told she has been referred to a neurology appointment to see if she qualifies to have an operation to fix her spine. She still hasn’t received an exact date for that appointment. First of all they said if she hadn’t heard back in October then she should get in contact with them. October came, she called, only to find out that no referral had actually been sent. So 6 months of waiting and the doctor never actually referred her to neurology.

So she finally got referred and now they’re saying that she can expect to hear from them by December and again if not get in contact. December came. Nothing. Called again and they said that there is a huge backlog and it’s been pushed back until “some time in the new years”.

Last month she called again. And now they’re saying “some time this year”. Since then she has lost her job because she is unable to work.