Can anxiety kill you?

Thank you Ginger

During Covid I needed a release so I got exercise equipment, lost weight, felt great. My birthday comes and I got a shock to my system that I’m not 30 anymore (58)
I just keep thinking about my son, who is autistic, what will happen to him?
I also keep waiting for the things that I won’t be able to do anymore.
I think long enough and the anxiety comes flooding in.
How can I stop thinking about the eventuality?

Thank you Ginger,
There’s so much out there that I’ve tried, it comes on so suddenly and so acutely it’s hard to get a handle on it. I have a primary doctor, a psychiatrist and a psychologist. They keep telling me I’m very healthy, that it’s in my head.
But I still have the attacks. Thank you for taking the time to reply, and I hope to have more interaction with you and Laurie

Ginger has good wisdom. Good recomendations.

Can anxiety kill? Experience from a healthy (physical) body and brain.

The General Anxiety disorder started early in life for me, mid teens. I did not know I had GAD. I just coped with it. At 31, it came to a pinacle. My dad died from a long illness. I was promoted to president of the company I worked for. I had two daughters, toddlers, and a son on the way. A wonderful wife. The stress of my type of work and the promotions, eventually to the top, was a pressure cooker. It near exploded.....

These events and situations are necessary to describe so you can see Ginger's recs are good. A good doctor that listens, a diagnosis, and medication is what I needed.

Anxiety itself and the severe panic attacks seem like they can kill. I had no depression but got to the point I would have an anxiety attack at a stop sign (turn left or right) or similar meaningless choice and I would shut down. After it was over I just had to sleep and hour or so.

Anxiety is a genetic and environmental interaction. Genetic, proven in some forms of diagnosed conditions, environmental in the forms, daily work and relationships of life, and small or large events (pressure cooker). The pressure cooker starts off slow, then pressure increases until it is too much and/or to fast.
The presure cooker seals the pressure inside (like your body and brain seals away stress and some keep all to themselves) and the interal organans and workings of those are the contents of the cooker.

I was "normal" and healthy early on, but someone turned thebburner on high (events).

At 31 my hair started turning white from brown (skipped gray), my heat rate went to, once awake and a little movement to around 90 to 110 bpm as the daily normal (from BP of 135 over 65 and heart rate of 67 resting, all chemistry in good numbers), and I vomited each morning in the flower bed when I was on the way to work. I avoided, with extreme prejudice, any conflict or disorder (coping mechanism). When I finally went to the doctor at early 32, my BP was 190 over 90 - 110, cholesterol total (back then) 290, triglycerides 500, amd so on. I was drinking, daily, a bottle of wine plus. I was mad and angry all the time (andrenyline and cortisol release). My wife was ready to take a break and move in with her parents, for a short time, until I got things figured out. It should have been a joyous time. Instead the effects of the anxiety were killing me literally.

Why did I go to the doctor? I added life insurance as I was worried about my family. I did not recognize my symptoms. I did not know I had any symptoms. My wife told me, but I could not see them.

I had to have a blood tests to add life insurance. My insurance agent and close friend called. He said, first, leaglly, I have to tell you about the policy and price. He said, I can get you a policy, but you can't afford it. He said, by law, I have to tell you to seek medical attention immediatly. The data shows to you will have a massive heart attack in the immediate future and you will die. My head nearly exploded. Then, the friend, encouraged me to go to a doctor asap. I did, he listened, diagnosed me with anxiety disorder (what it was called then), prescribed a short-term, immediate impact (kicked in by 5 to 10 minutes) medication, and a long term medication treatment (venlafexine XR 75 mg per day).

Within hours I improved, within weeks I was able to get off the short-term medication. I have been on the same dose (Effexor XR 75 mg, back then) of Venlafexine XR 75 mg per day since. Decades.

Most doctors may not realize how critical and fast an anxiety disorder may get out of hand and destroy a person's health.

Be your own advocate with a close family or friend aiding you.

Jt

@cosette2024 As you can see by the other posts here, you are certainly not alone in feeling anxiety!

As we get older, and face it, we cannot escape that! there are things we can no longer do as well, or at all. It is part of the big scheme of things. Do I grieve those things I cannot accomplish anymore? Well, yes, definitely. If possible, I try to modify and accommodate to continue doing those things to some degree, before giving up completely on it. And sometimes, finding a replacement for those things can be an exciting adventure!

Thinking about your son and what will happen to him. Looking at the possibilities, are there family members who will be able to step in and assist him? Are there funds set aside to help him out? Have you looked at long term care for him when you are no longer able to? Taking those needed steps now will ease your mind, I bet.

You can do your best to think ahead and prepare yourself for eventualities. Remember they sometimes turn out differently, though. I'm not saying it is easy, because it isn't always so. I had to learn to be forgiving of myself, and be flexible [boy, that was difficult!]. Did my wildest dreams 10 years ago ever imagine where I would be now? Absolutely not. But I had to believe that it would turn out as good as I could get it to be by hard work and dealing with the little details as they came up. And you can, too.
Ginger

Thank you so much. It’s so comforting to find someone that won’t think I’m completely irrational. I had SVT my whole life, then I got it fixed when my heart rate went to 210 and did not come down. It was combined with the anxiety so it kept going in this vicious cycle. Now it’s the news I have to avoid

God Bless you. I would love to be your friend.😘🙏🌹💕

Develop a daily order. Make or get a daily planner. Write how you will start the day, times of what you plan to do, how you finish. Do not rigid. Sometimes things change. Just adjust and record notes. Do not allow time or plan on doing the things that cause serious anxiety. This does not mean to become an introvert or withdraw from anything. See if this helps.

Read Pslams.

Jt

@cosette2024

Hi there. I have experienced (and still experiencing) something similar to you. I'm 55 and came closer than I want to admit to missing out on the rest of my life. It's been a journey the last couple of years. I learned a lot about myself and now trying to figure out what I want to do with the time I have left in this life.

I developed a frantic fear of death or more closely, a fear I am running out of time. I am pretty healthy right now. I can probably go another 25 years or more. Like you, I think about where I will be in 10 years, will I be able to get up in the morning and do whatever I would like to do that day? The fear of missing out. It is scary.

Interestingly, I have been in places where there are a lot of people who are much older than I am. One group I meet with at 5:00 a.m. at the local YMCA. Many of them are retirees. The fact they are up in the morning and exercising everyday...looking forward to traveling or other activities gives me some inspiration. I also cardio hike with a woman named Angela who is several years older than I am. She is a force of nature. I so hope to be like her when I grow up.

I do not feel my age. I sometimes get reminded I can live in a senior community, get AARP membership, etc. I think it is a question of outlook.

Like you I am physically active and do many other activities. However, what is your purpose in life? This is a tough question, something I have been struggling with for a couple of years. I was once asked this question by a counselor, and I did not have an answer. I wrote about this in a different post, where I talked about the need for love. My desire to love, be loved, and be in an emotionally safe harbor. But to do that in a meaningful way, I have to love myself first. Warts and all (I do not have any warts, just an expression). I have/am going through a bout with depression and survivor's guilt and those conditions took away my feeling of love away from me. I found it easier to love others and not love myself. It is an unhealthy way to live. This revelation has helped me think more about what I want out of life. It has been a challenge to say the least.

So, my feeling is you have to love your 58-year-old self for who you are. You have to find your purpose going forward and it will give you energy and inspiration. You sound like an amazing and thoughtful person. I think you still have more to offer this world.