Hi all,

I hope this is the right place for this post, but please feel free to put it elsewhere if not.

I am someone who struggled with severe anxiety issues even pre-meds. At points I was not functional because of my anxiety. To be honest, Cymbalta helped me a ton at first and is probably what got me through law school and into a successful (up til now) career.

Through this whole horrible process of WD and changing up meds this past year, I’ve had a really hard time distinguishing between what is my own anxiety and what is anxiety induced by WD/nervous system issues caused by too many med changes. But what I’ve kind of landed on is that my own anxiety generally rises and falls circumstantially or based on specific thoughts, whereas WD induced anxiety often feels like it comes out of nowhere and then disappears just as suddenly with no real triggers.

I’m wondering if others who have struggled with anxiety issues outside of the withdrawal process have similar experiences? Thanks in advance :)

@SarahMc

I think this is a great idea for a topic.

Essentially I agree with what you’ve said about the differences between the two. Chemical anxiety is a different beast to normal anxiety.

I do think that one can influence the other.

Stress can certainly make wd worse. We have only one cns so deciding what is you and what is wd is hard whilst in the midst of wd.

Certainly considering how things used to feel and comparing to now is a good way to help too I think.

Very interesting question, thanks for starting this topic @SarahMc

I had (have?) a lot of anxiety issues due to a posttraumatic stress disorder.

And then I had /have normal anxiety, which is part of life.

And now I have this withdrawal induced anxiety, so how to find out what is what?

I find that the anxiety that comes from withdrawal which I would call chemical anxiety is very much in my body and not in my head or thinking. Usually, I have no idea why I should be anxious now. It creeps up often when I just sit peacefully on the sofa. And then I can localize it, often it is in my legs, for example. And of course it is there when I wake up - without any connection to a difficult dream or anything. I sleep peacefully or a dream something nice and then I wake up and: bang! there’s this anxiety and my body is shaking. Another sign for this kind of anxiety is that it feels like having had too much coffee or being hypoglycemic. I can even induce it by having something sugary on an empty stomach or if I get too hungry, so could be somehow connected to the sugar level in the blood or to the insulin.

The PTBS anxiety usually has a trigger. It creeps up with pictures and thoughts. (In my bad phases I had chemical anxiety, that was induced through the trauma, too. Trauma is also a stressor for the central nervous system, and in those times, I was so alarmed all the time and in constant cortisol rushes that also trauma and chemical anxiety came together.)

“Normal” anxiety has to do with something that stresses me or scares me. A worrying about the future, a deadline that I might not be able to reach, a conflict, which I do not know how to solve it and so on.

Of course, all the kinds of anxiety can come together. A really bad idea is worrying about the anxiety. 😅

I hope that helps and I am excited to hear what others think!

Thanks both. That's helpful, and I definitely agree that chemical or WD-induced anxiety can make my natural anxiety worse, and vice versa. Which I guess means I can have both at the same time, and definitely adds to the difficulty of telling them apart 😅

Another distinction that occurred to me today is that some of the coping strategies I've developed over the years to deal with my own anxiety don't seem to work much, if at all, on WD-induced anxiety. For example, even at my most anxious before WD I could count on strenuous exercise to at least help lower my anxiety levels. For some reason, that doesn't seem to be the case for WD-induced anxiety. It just comes and goes mysteriously and on its own timing, and there doesn't seem to be much I can do except wait it out.

9 hours ago, SarahMc said:

and there doesn't seem to be much I can do except wait it out.

This pretty much is the common theme with all wd symptoms.

Hey, I often thought about this myself. Had bad anxiety before lexapro, then that made it worse, then boom, WD’s added fuel to the fire. Also, something I don’t see a lot of on this site, or it might just be me.. But as a woman, I know the monthly hormonal shifts definitely reset any stage I’m in. Like, what’s that? You’ve been in a window and felt semi decent? Nah let’s just drop that estrogen and progesterone (which apparently make you feel better and normal), so we can throw you off for another month 🥲 But yeah there’s so much more to WD’s beyond anxiety it’s ridiculous