Just curious.

I myself haven't left my house but 3 times (once by ambulance) in the past 9 months. It didn't used to be like this though. I loved walking, being outside, long drives, but now I can't do any of that. I go outside, get in a car, or even go to my girlfriends house, and my stomach gets majorly upset. I get nauseous, crampy, discomfort, and feel like having a BM too. I went to the doctors one day for it, and they gave me Bentyl (Dicyclomine) for IBS, and Phenergan (Promethazine) for nausea. The Bentyl just makes me have really bad dry mouth, and a horrible loss of appetite. I haven't touched the Phenergan yet because from what I understand they interact badly sometimes when taken together, and I really don't think IBS is what's going on (mostly cause I'm constantly nervous, shakey, and the other stuff only happens when I go outside). I asked the doctor if I could get anti-anxieties prescribed, but he said no because he didn't want to monitor my usage, or someone else would have to or something like that.

Anyways, I was just curious if anyone else does/has experience(d) this kind of stuff.

Yeah my stomach starts to feel bad, it made me stop going to school,m andd I tried going to a learning center, and felt ill there too.
But my problem is different, I can go outside, I go to the gym every few days (hoping it will make me fit and boost confidence), I sometimes walk down town, and I walk my dog every day.

I dont know what causes it, probablly anxiety/stress. But I hate it, it restricts what I can do, and I feel kinda helpless, but I am seeing a psychologist soon 13/14th of April, so hopefully I can get back to normal, if that fails I will try hypnosis or some [censored], becuase at this point I dont care, I want to be able to go out more and feel fine, becuase if I cant how can I move on in life ?
Doc gave me beta blockers, I dont tink they helped, but I was on them 2 weeks, still have problems, but I cant stay inside much, that can lead to agrophobia and depression, I felt what I assume was minor agrophobia, becuase when this started didnt want to go anywhere becuase of being ill, and I sure as hell dont want depression (had it before not nice).

It dosent sound like IBS, are you fine inside your home ? If its only outside when you have problems it sounds more like anxiety, IBS would be a constant problem.

Good luck getting better.

I don't like being around masses of people, makes me uncomfortable and nervous for some reason. Don't know why.

I know exactly what you mean. I'm working on seeing a psychologist myself, the issue for me is getting there. But I called and they said in extreme cases they can send someone out, it just takes time. But it really does make you feel helpless. I just got a dog two days ago, so I might try taking walks with it for a little bit in the mornings and see if I can't at least get myself comfortable with being outside.

Yeah I'm fine at home for the most part. Like I said, I'm kind of constantly nervous, and feel stressed often, but when those get really bad, I feel like I do outside even when I'm inside. If it really is IBS, I'd imagine it'd be IBS onset by anxiety.

I used to but I got over it with therapy/my own. I also had IBS, and I realize how hard it makes life but try to find out what foods upset your stomach the most (for me it was dairy, processed sugar and deep fried foods) and EXERCISE. I can't stress that enough, I weighed like 130 pounds and was 6', but just from improving my diet and exercise I'm up to 160. As for the social anxiety, its one of those things you have to face head on. Start in small steps though, and remember the more awkward and anxious situations you put yourself in, the less there are.

I disagree with the last one, I felt bad in school, but put up with it for about 3 weeks, made numerous attempts to go back, but nothing changed.
Maybe at that point I was getting anxious subconciously, but I didnt get used to it, it just got worse.

I cant stand sitting in the house all day, I'm always trying to go out with friends and run errands. I used to be more of a shutter bug though until I entered high school, 3 years in and I still love going to school to see and talk to people. I'm not very social and I hate meeting new people, most of my friends are people who approached me so its a wonder I have so many. Now after all this you might think I dont have any issues, but I get pretty mild winter depression (which is gone since winter is leaving, wooo!) I also tend to take things very personal and its almost impossible for me to take even constructive criticism lightly.

I also have an extreme fear of rejection and a super low self esteem that prevents me from doing things out of the ordinary. I always assume everyone thinks I'm a dumb ass and they're only going to tell me "no" or turn me down, even though I've never been, what I would consider, bullied or anything, just as far as I remeber I have never had faith in my own skills in anything. :shrug:

Does depression count as an anxiety disorder?

When I was ten, I was in our car in LA while my dad and sister went into a gas station. This guy came up to the windows and began looking in. He kept at it for about ten minutes and as he was about to try to get in,my dad came out and yelled at him "What the [heck] are you doing with my car!?" The guy rushed off while claiming he was looking for tools because his car had broken down.

For probably about a year after that, I would hyperventilate when we would go shopping and I would panic that our car would be stolen or broken into or that we would come home and have our house broken into or burned down. Even now, I find it hard to sleep some nights because I worry the house will burn down or that we'll be broken into.

I wouldn't call either time a disorder. I think the first time was my response to a traumatic experience and yes, I did have anxiety. Nowadays, I think it's in my nature to worry about things.

More often than not, depression is accompanied by anxiety.


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I used to get anxiety feelings described above when I had to do something...something i'd be held responsible for if it was to fail. After a while, I just figured "whats the worse thing that could happen to me?" Not from the situation though...from the actual feeling of anxiety.

Its hard to explain..but after a minute or so, it went away.

You and me both.

Depression is a lot different, I realize my case is atypical too, both my psychiatrist and psychologist were amazed when I told them what happened. With depression you need help for it, i didn't take medication but I've heard it can really help some people or counselling, but it's very difficult to get over on your own. My depression was caused by the ibs and social anxiety, so when I got my ibs under control, both SAD and depression diminished, and by getting over my SAD with exposure my depression disappeared.

I had no idea so many people here also suffer from anxiety. I was diagnosed with anxiety along with depression a few years ago. In some regards its improved, but in others its gotten worse as well. School is especially difficult (despite being ridiculously easy, content wise) and I'm currently not attending. I was diagnosed with IBS, although the symptoms of which have improved somewhat since the diagnosis, so I'm a little skeptical of it's medical implication (imo, it has more to do with the comorbidity of depression/anxiety. But that's more of a personal thing, it seems like such a misunderstood disorder in the medical world). I was seeing a CBT for a while and prescribed a plethora of medicines, but they always gave me side effects so I eventually stopped taking them. I'm currently considering obtaining a medicinal marijuana card (the one good thing about my state) so hopefully that'll relieve my stomach symptoms and make my other medications easier to handle.

Anxiety is a difficult thing to overcome and I wish you guys, and gals, the best of luck.

I have GAD (general anxiety disorder). It svcks big time. I have some medicine that prevents me from having actual anxiety attacks (when I can't really even go anywhere or do anything because I have such bad nausea and discomfort). Though the medicine prevents attacks, I still have feelings of anxiety if I get stressed out and sometimes for no reason at all. When my anxiety is acting up I have bad loss of appetite and typically have insomnia. I seemingly get stressed out the most from being in unknown situations or around unknown people. It made for some awkward dating experiences when I was a teenager. I have a girlfriend now who really understands what I go through because she also has anxiety.
This disorder bites the big one but what can you do?

I hate crowds, but not because of anxiety. I'm a big guy. Six foot and 250lbs. I'm not fat, I'm big. Little people like to cut in front of me in crowds. I'm not sure why, but it seems to happen an abnormally large amount of times. Other people tell me they notice it as well, especially with kids. I once knocked a kid over because he cut in front of me while I was walking through a mall and he got pissy with me and tried to push me. He fell over and I didn't budge (the kid was like nine) then his mom got mad at me and called the rent a' cops.

I don't get people, so I stay away from crowds as much as I can.

I think I used to, although I never got a diagnosis or anything. For maybe a little over a year I wouldn't leave my house except to go to school, and I'd have panic attacks fairly often. If someone sat too close on a bus I'd have one, so I ended up having to walk everywhere, although I always felt like I had to hold my breath if someone walked past me, which meant I couldn't go anywhere where there would be a fair amount of people. I ended up dropping out of college because of it. Luckily, I have wonderful friends who would drop by to see me and eventually got me back outside. I ended up going to Uni and I think that really helped. Just being in a different environment (although I didn't move far away, I couldn't have handled that!), with new people who didn't know about any of the nervy crap helped me think that I could start over. It was difficult, but by the end I could give presentations and seminars - something I never thought I'd be able to do (I'm by no means the best, but I'll give it a go). Hopefully you've got good friends and a good girlfriend who can support you and help you out.

I get pretty severe anxiety attacks, it helps to keep things organized though. If I feel like I'm in control of my daily life then it's less likely that I have an anxiety attack. It's not as serious as the anxiety disorder the OP described, but I did lock myself in my dorm room for a week once. :/

There's a major difference between suffering an actual anxiety disorder and having a lack of self confidence or not liking being in a crowd. It sounds to me like the OP may have agoraphobia or a panic disorder. Medication isn't going to be enough to treat it; all it will do is relieve some of the symptoms. You should speak to your doctor about psychological therapy to help you overcome it.

I used to have this too long ago, maybe 10-15 years ago, after a prolonged amount of time of reclusive behavior, getting similar panic attacks as described by OP. The way it was fixed was simply going out in public more and getting re-familiarized with being around other people. Socially isolating one's self isn't really healthy at all if ever expecting to function properly around others.

Sorry guys but this is a gaming forum and any advice given could potentially be incorrect. How one person is effected is different to others and the only correct help can be given by professionals.