Balance issues/boat sensations/dizzyness/vertigo

Today I have this pressure and extreme tightness in my chest.. and a knot is my stomach... clearly symptoms of anxiety. Anyone have tips to calm down the anxiety? i feel like I am using all my tools... i am doing breathing exercices, gratitude journal, exercice regularly, meditate in the morning and evening, consult with a psychologist... i am at my wits end... lol

 

It sounds like you're doing everything right. Sometimes it just takes time to create the new (calmer) neural pathways.

Here's something I wrote to myself as a reminder. It's a culmination of ideas from other people (not me). But it was an important concept that I didn't get at first:

Stop worrying whether my symptoms might flair or get worse if I'm not doing every TMS technique correctly.
Don't puzzle and stress, wondering if I fully understand every TMS concept.
That rumination about doing everything right actually fans the flames of fear.

Move out of problem-solving mode. There's nothing to fix.
My obsession with getting well is actually perpetuating the symptoms.

So, what do I do, then? Go live my life. Take care of business.
Focus on the things that interest me and the things I enjoy. Have some fun.
Think of what I'm grateful for and what brings me joy.
Be indifferent to the symptoms. Acknowledge them, then let them go.

Understand that there is nothing wrong with me. There's nothing wrong with my body. I'm normal.
ALSO... there is nothing wrong with my brain. My brain isn't screwed up and causing TMS. My brain is normal.

 

OMG thank you that resonates a lot with me. I feel SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO exhausted at the moment. not a drop of energy left lol.

 

I think you are focusing too much on it...the thing about anxiety is that it doesn't go away until you stop thinking about it... which is really hard.
Instead of the gratitude journal, maybe try the opposite. Write about what you are angry about, what was maddening about a situation from the past, maybe even what your younger self was hurt over.

I've been having great results with that. Every time I feel a symptom, or have an urge to check my pulse rate or a yen to symptom search, instead I grab the pen and write about...stuff. After just a week or two of doing that, my nervous system settled down, symptoms settled down and checking myself abated.

 

Also want to add for your writing-- since this all started to exacerbate when you were going back to work after a long hiatus--- try writing about what you might NOT like about going back to work. Anything you might subconsciously be afraid of or mad about.

 

This is a pretty brilliant supposition, @Booble! I've never thought about it in this way, even though I've known for years that getting back in my car can stop these same symptoms immediately. I do feel like my car is a safe space, but this makes even more sense, especially for the bicycle ride that @Bananas00 described.

Thank you, dear @plum for the link - when I was reading the original post that was my immediate thought - that particular thread is always at the top of my list for PPDD.

@Bananas00, I've had all of this for years. Many years "Before Sarno", my doc told me that a lot of her post-menopausal patients suffered from dizziness, and she didn't think there was anything wrong with me. I was always prone to motion sickness, probably anxiety-based, and I experienced actual MDDS for a number of days after a week-long sailing trip. It felt exactly like I was still on the boat - which I had quite enjoyed, thanks to taking meclizine every day! Anyway, although my doc seemed a bit dismissive, I was actually reassured for a long time, until 2011 (age 60) when I started having increasing and cascading symptoms, both physical (pain and GI) and neuro (dizziness, imbalance, shakiness, panic attacks, and depression). I describe this in my profile story. The PPDD still tries to catch me unawares at times when my brain feels unsafe (big shopping venues with too many bright lights, people, and visual input, for example) but I've learned that deep breathing and self-talk can turn it around almost instantly.

It's good that you got checked by your doc so you can proceed in a different direction. You're getting fantastic advice and information from @Booble and @Cap'n Spanky - now it's time to change your thinking. Check out the Structured Educational Program (SEP) on the main wiki, and Alan Gordon's Pain Recovery Program here on the forum. I would start with the SEP to establish a foundation in the basic knowledge and techniques (I think that I got through about two weeks of it, back in the day), and, if you are ready for more, you could switch over to Alan's program for a deeper dive. Both are free, no signup required - you just the work on your own.

The first step towards recovery is to stop posting details of your symptoms (try just saying "balance symptoms" and leave it at that) and don't ask questions about other people's symptoms. You will find, once you start "doing the work", that new symptoms will crop up out of nowhere - this is your brain on TMS, trying to distract you with a new symptom once it senses that you don't believe in the old symptoms anymore. Be ready for this - and be ready to laugh and see it as good news. This work is all about completely changing the way that you think about your body and your mind. You can do it if you're willing to let go of your old assumptions and try something completely different.

Good luck!

~Jan

 

Thanks, Jan. I'm new to TMS but an old hat at how a lot of this stuff works after a lifetime of health anxiety and learning to work around it. Which is why Sarno so immediately resonated with me.

By the way, my mum used to get that same sea-sickness AFTER she got off a boat too. She took a lot of boat trips (she and my dad used to go on Freighter Boat cruises) and she would be fine during the trip but when she'd step off the boat, she'd get sea sick. She was the only one (per her doc) to put on that sea sick patch thingee once she got home!

 

We have SOOOO much in common! Have I mentioned that before? Exactly my experience.

 

It si funny that I have too found that when driving I don’t feel dizzy, even when feeling dizzy at every moment

 

I have only had one moment when driving where I started to get a bit of the woozy and I told myself in no uncertain terms, "DON'T GO THERE!" and luckily was OK.
I also make sure I have water to either drink or rub on my forehead and a snack or something to keep my blood sugar up. Sorry, that's kind of anti-TMS in one way but it also keeps my mind at ease knowing I have those backups so I don't have to worry or think about it.

 

Thank you all, these are all very good suggestions that i will put into place. I have to say I am VERY scared of going back into burn out... and relive it... as my doctor told me many people relapse after a burnout so it has been in the back of my mind, like "Omg am I going to have to take months off life again, not being able to handle myself, etc." "Am i going to be able to work again", "what if i'm unable to- I need to pay the bills lol". I'm a lawyer so i'm obviosuly in a high stress environment. And now every symptom rings the danger alarm like, omg is this the beginning of my initial burnout state again... I'm just tired of living in fears and I know for sure it is not good for my symptoms. I just feel like I can't control these fears.

 

I have to attend a wedding this weekend and I was about to cancel it due to my dizzyness.. but then I've decided to go despite everything lol. I have NO club of how this will end up but I felt like staying at home ruminating and focusing on my symptoms would not help and maybe even make it worse.

 

Exactly... before having the balance issue, My whole body was hurting in a fibromyalgia way.. and since I had these symptoms in the past and they went away, I've decided to not buy them and just ignore them completely. they disappeared.... and the new ones, which are terrible, came.

 

I also have health anxiety since a young age. EVERY time i'm convinced I have the worst disease and EVERY time I do all the tests and have NOTHING. I'm a pretty healthy person except for these anxiety issues but they are in my own opinion worst than having an actual physical disease...

 

Welcome to the club. If it's any consolation, my health anxiety friends are some of the smartest, most accomplished people I know.

I've dealt with it forever as well....my first HA memory was when I was just a little child. I had put some of that Johnson's Baby Powder on my face and I told my mother, "Mummy, I put baby powder on my face!" She said, "Baby powder isn't for your face. There is special powder that is for faces."
And I took that to me that putting baby powder on my face was going to kill me. I washed it off and was scared for hours. I was probably about 5 years old.

I think if you try the writing about all those thoughts and fears about going back to work...and try to discover and include anything that you are angry about related to it...even if it's anger about your fears.... you might find some of it dissipates. It's been a surprisingly good release for me. I really let that inner scared, unloved, fear-of-failure, fear of not being loveable enough me have a voice. And honestly, I never knew I felt anything of those things. I'm a pretty confident, even tempered, peaceful, success oriented person in my outer self.

 

OMG this resonates a lot with me. On the outside I’ve got everything together… Im a partner at my firm, I give conferences, I teach at school, I’m a really sportive person and I excel at sports…

but now I feel completely disarmed. Unable to function. Ran over by anxiety. I just want to feel my joyful self again. It’s so difficult feeling this way.

 

Darlin', THIS is your brain on TMS!

Your poor anxiety-ridden brain is desperate to convince you that this is true, so that you will stay home and stay "safe". The problem is that this is a very primitive mechanism that worked fine when the physical world was in fact very dangerous, and you had to stay alert to danger all of the time, living just long enough to breed and raise the next generation. You would be dead well before 30, but you would have done your job by then - so no problem. Also, the dangers humans had to face, while very real, were also relatively few in number.

This brain mechanism works for shit in the modern world. As a modern human, you not only need to educate your primitive fearful brain that you're physically safe, but you also need to be willing and able to soothe, comfort, and nurture it.

And, perhaps I haven't said this soon enough - above all, you need to be willing and able to love yourself enough that you know, deep in your heart, that you deserve to recover and experience your best possible life.

Go to the wedding, and any time you feel dizzy, stop, take some deep breaths, and say to yourself (preferably out loud if you're by yourself, or with a trusted person who supports you in this): "Hey brain! This isn't necessary, I'm perfectly safe, there are no physical dangers here, and I would like to have a nice time!". Take some more deep breaths, and also drink some water (thanks to @Booble for that reminder) because we often forget to hydrate when we're anxious and our stomachs are tight - it's an act of self-care that is physically and mentally beneficial at the same time.

You CAN do this.

~Jan

 

I hear you. You're definitely not alone. For some reason us smart, successful people also seem to be prone to this. Yay us. LOL

The good news? Even Sarno stuff aside, this kind of thing comes and goes. It will pass and you'll feel joyful again.
Add the Sarno way of looking at it and it might dissipate quicker.

PS. It's NORMAL to feel both worried and excited about going back to work.
I too used to speak at conferences, etc. and I wonder now, "how the heck did I do that?" I get A LOT of anticipatory anxiety. Once I'm actually doing the whatever, things go great. And I actually feel exhilarated.

 

i needed a mom voice like yours lol. The problem is that I constantly feel like I am walking on a boat in a storm. So I would constantly have to talk to my brain. In the moment I hate my brain and my personality so much… I would like to be anyone else but me.

 

it’s actually the worst year of my life. Burn out with severe anxiety and insomnia, and then this extreme anxiety lashing out preventing me from working or doing anything… I really need a smooth period in my life… and now I’m panicking about what is going to happen with me, i can’t really take another work leave. I just want to feel normal again. It’s the worst period of anxiety I’ve ever lived and the longest….