I'm in the middle of week and I was doing great. In fact, I attended an awards banquet last night, sat through the whole event, and didn't feel any anxiety. I then came home to an empty house (my wife had a night with the girls) and wasn't scared. I was thinking to myself that I've got this thing beat.

I went to bed around 11:30 pm without any effort and suddently I wake up around 2:00 am
with an explainable fear. Not really much anxiety, but definitely fear. I walked around a little bit, breathed and talked positively to myself, but it wouldn't go away. I finally gave in and took a lorezapam(I hadn't taken one in two months) and it finally went away.

I thought through the day and could only come up with my diet as being the culprit. I had a Frappucino from Starbucks at lunch, a piece of chocolate cake at the awards banquet and a coffee fudge ice cream bar when I got home. I could see this making me a little nervous, but why the fear? I'd actually been doing very good on my diet until last night (I guess I was a little cocky).

Can anyone relate? I'm telling myself it's just a minor testing opportunity, but I also am a little nervous about feeling this ugliness after almost having forgot what it was like.

BobbyZ:
I know that for me, caffine can make my body and nerves go ballistic! I feel shaky, anxious, weired out and just plain awful. When I drink tea, coffee or Pepsi, it has to be de-caf or I pay for it. My one problem is with my addiction to Captain D's iced tea, and of couse it is not de-caf. A couple of hours after I drink it, my hands shake, etc, and I once even went into a panic attack, Maybe even though you feel like you woke up with fear instead of panic, you were having a panic attack in your sleep that caused you to wake up with feelings of fear. I woke up several times last year w/my heart beating rapidly, palms sweating... all of the symtoms-but when my cardioligist told be it was an anxiety attack I told her that it couldn't have been; I was sould asleep. Well, guess what? You can have them while you think you are relaxed and sleeping. Don't stress about this episode, I really feel the caffine was to blame; also...Starbucks makes great DECAFF drinks!!!

jessie

I think you're right. I had a pretty good day. No anxiety, just a little anticipation from time to time. I'm going to go back to my strict no caffeine diet. Thanks for the words of comfort. I appreciate it.

I agree with Jessie about the caffeine !!
It's bad news for anxiety sufferers!!
Even chocolate and high sugar diets are a NO-NO.

Next time you don't watch your caffeine and over-do it. I would suggest, exercising RIGHT THEN AND THERE!!!! Why put up with all those jitters?? Why allow yourself to have a panic attack when you can burn the adrenaline off in a matter of minutes.

Next time you find yourself in a bind and feel you may panic...then quickly do some jumping jacks and maybe sit ups....or better yet...go for a brisk walk around the block!! Do something to burn off your anxiety.

The Lorezapam is good until you learn ways to cope. Realistic, helpful ways!!

BobbyZ,

Of course I can relate. You just described my first panic attack .

BobbyZ, your probably had closely analyzed and evaluated your performance against "anxiety" for quite some time. That and Frappucino was enough to cause anxiety.

One morning I woke up at 3 am. Instead of closing my eyes and fell back to sleep, I thought to myself, "Oh, no! I still have 'it'. I am still depressed." Within seconds I worked up into a full blown panic.

Here is my hind sight : I expected a full recovery from depression when I had nothing but 6 sessions of therapy. That was unrealistic. My cockiness (stealing one of your words ) led to disappointment. My disappointment led to intense fear.

BobbyZ, you are a very anaytical person. It is obvious by the way you followed the timeline and eliminated possible causes. I can relate to that as well. I thought I had done EVERYTHING right, therefore I should be "cured". Too much anaytical power plus unrealistic expectation plus overactive imagination plus caffine... equal high anxiety.

And you were right on when you said it was a minor testing opportunity. It showed the area you needed to work on more. Just like my early morning episode showed me going to therapies was not enough.

drop

[This message has been edited by drop (edited 02-18-2002).]

BobbyZ,

It sounds like you did great even with the fear awakening thing. Look at the whole day from the other side. Look at all you accomplished, banquet and all. And so what if you ate the wrong stuff. It's okay to do so as long as you know you might feel a little anxious. YOU DID A GREAT JOB, LOOK HOW FAR YOU HAVE COME!!!! Maybe your fear awakening thing was just a fluke to remind yourself that you are not perfect!!! No such thing as a perfect day.

Take care, Silvana

You all are right on!!! I didn't realize how much the old "BobbyZ" used to analyze everything. That was starting me a downward spiral. I was beginning to obsess over my little test opportunity.

The newly emerging "BobbyZ", sees it differently. It was a great day; not perfect, but certainly great.

Thanks to all of you (Jessie, Smears, Drop and Silvana) for the quick adjustment to my perspective. I really look forward to these exchanges. I'm getting better at giving them to myself.

God bless all of you