Panic Attacks Forum - met with mental health professional

I finally have come to realize that this little problem of mine is getting beyond my ability to control, and furthermore, beyond the ability of the Ativan I am taking to quell my anxiety. I haven't had any pnnick attacks this week yet, but its only Tuesday, so i have a ways to go to the end of the week. Yesterday after I read about derealization and depersonalization, it occurred to me that these things aren't really what "normal" people expearience so I think I have a problem for real that i can't manage alone anymore.

Yesterday I went to the center for mental health in the city where I live and talked to someone. She statrted askeing me all kinds of questions about what's bothering, even though I really don't know what's bothering me, and I started to just rattle off a few things that have had me stressed out here and there. Then she started to dig at me a nd asked aboutmy family and my childhood.

She asked me if anyone in my family was crazy like me and I told her that my dad tried to kidnap my brother and I when I was 12 but I was over that-only he never succeded in kidnapping us because he had a nervus breakdown and ended up in the psych ward instead. She seems to think there might be something significant there. then she asked about abuse and I told her I couldn't remember ever being physically hit by my father but I know both my brother and sister were. Then she asked about sexual abuse and I told her that I wasn't ever sexually abused, but I wonder why I sometimes have icky feelings when my husband touches me and my neighbor when i was growing up is on the sex offender site, and he was sent to an institution when I was little but I never rememeberd him ever doing anything but saying weird things to me that I didn't understand.

So it seems like I may have a great talent for hiding things where I won't find them again cause she thought maybe this all was more improtant than I think it is. I also confessed something that I never told anyone about how I feel about having a second daughter, which is not all that good,. It was when I had her that all this crazy stuff seemed to really boil to the surface and I don't blame her or anything, but I sometimes think "why did I ever bother to have her" which is a really horrible thing to say which is why I haven't ever said it, but I can't help it sometimes I feel that way although in the reality of things I truly do love her beyoond measure-I just have a really hard time feeling close to her.

The thing is, I don't feel like this is really my life I'm living. It seems like a bad made for TV movie and I fell asleep watching it and some day I am going to wwake up to my own life which looks a lot like this, but this isn't really it. It's not liek I don't have a lot og reallygreat things inmy life-I do. I just wish I could enjoy them myself. I just feel like a robot that's being controlled by soemthing else. I feel so...anaestehetised.

My husband thinks I have explosive anger, but it doesn't seem like it to me, but I guess Im not a really reliable source of information about myself. I sure hope he's wrong because I would really hate to believe that I am such a horrible monster. Why can't I just have a shopping fetish or something? I don't want to live the rest of my life like this-feeling so unsure of myself. I know theres a much stronger, happier person in side. I used to know her a long time ago, but in truth, i haven't sen her for many years if I wanted to be 100% honest.

On top of it all, I think the whole issue is making me horribnly depressed. She mentioned the possiblity of being bipolar, but I told her I didn't want to be bipolar, so that was the end of that discussion right then and there. And I'm not about to take drugs for this any more than I already am. I won't do it. I may not have a shining personality, but I don't want to have the personality of the tablet-of-the-month-club either. At least if I'm insane it's MY insanity and not a made up one presented to you by a pharmeceuticle company.

Well, the end of this story is that i have an appointment to day at 5 to be "inspected and detected" officially and for the first time in my life I will probally end up with one of those lovely diagnoseses from the DSM4 -something I have worked very hard to avoid the past 30 years or so.

I worry about what kind of stress this will bring to my marriage, because my marriage is the one thing in my life I am 100% sure of. I'd hate to mess that up too. I can't imagine that when we took vows this is the wife he bargained for. I just feel like this is so unfair to him to have to live life weith some deranged lunatic that has to hide under the covers like a 3 year old because the world is too scary. I don't thik I'm 100% crazy about that part. It is scary out there.

Anyway sorry I just realize I was really rambling there, so i will sttop befoer your eyes start bleeding. Thanks for listening though. What am I going to do if I am crazy? What is to become of me? I really don't want to go, but I don't want to be leik this either. so I guess I dont have any choice. anyway, if anyone has been through all this crazy stuff, it would really comfort me to hear that there may be a way out. Thanks