Emotional blockage and anxiety

Hello to you all

This is my first post on this forum, and I hope there are anybody out there who takes the time to read it. It will be a long one, but hopefully I can get some valuable input by writing here.

First of all, let me introduce myself. I am a 26 year old male from Norway, currently reciding in Poland where I study (Psychology. Ironically huh?)

To make a quick summary of my situation. Over the last couple of years, I have gained some severe symptoms of some form of social anxiety. This being, I suddenly started getting panic attacks out of nowhere in "social" situations. Most of all during presentations at my university. This was a huge punch in the face for me, as I just weeks in advance had truly loved presenting my material in front of as many students as possible. I gesticulated. Had tons of energy, and even made boring material sound interesting for my classmates.

As this progressed, I started to realize what was actually going on. The fact that I was having real panic attacks (took some time for me to realize), instead of just being nervous (being nervous to some extent on a presentation is something I see as a good thing, as it keeps you on edge). I would freeze during my part of the presentations, loose my breath, sweat, but I always seemed to pull myself together and finish my parts. This of course lead to more stress related to such situations, and it kept happening over and over again.

I did not do anything to help my situation. As the man I am, I told myself that I can "train" myself to be more confident, more secure and in general get myself back on track. Instead it went the completely opposite way. Instead of trying to push myself into situations where I would have to be social and "visible", I escaped. I attended less classes, felt ill a lot, until one day, about 1.5 year after the first episode where my panic attacks would get so bad I would struggle to go to my mailbox in my building.

That day I took the first step and seeked help. My studies were starting again, and I knew I had to participate this semester in order to keep my student loans etc. So two appointments were made. One with a psychiatrist and one with a psychotherapist. The psychiatrist prescribed me with a benzodiac (for a fast effect the first six weeks), and sentralium for a weaker and more long lasting effect. At the same time I started my therapy (not sure if the names of the meds are the same around the world).

Aftera few sessions, the therapist suggested long-lasting "dynamic psychotherapy". She came to a conclusion that I was blocking emotions. Meaning ALL emotions, and instead putting them out physical (panic attacks). This sounded strange to me at first, but after a while I started to realize that this was something I had struggled with for many many years. Most of all, when I realized that I had not been crying (at all!) during the last 13 years. Apart from a few meltdowns (during arguments in a relationship as an example).

The longer the sessions went on, the more I realized and learned about my own situation. I was still on the medication, but lowered the doses along the way. I also realized that it all had roots in my fathers side of the family. There has never been any sort of physical abuse in the family (which I am aware of), but I grew up with a grandfather (father's side), who wos a psychological torturer. The family does not show any sort of emotions, and there are patterns going through in all of them. Many short relationships, only talk about work/weather during family dinners as a few examples. Appearantly I was affected a lot stronger than the others (from what I could see).

As of this day I have been in therapy for about 10 months (had a few months break as I went back home to work during the summer), and now my studies are starting up again, and my problems are back just as strong as before. The last week has been hell. I have a grandmother (father's side) who is ill and doesn't have long left, and instead of being sad about this, I feel physically ill. I get anxious and depressed, but never sad. I need to wait a few weeks before my sessions start again, but I am thinking about getting a second opinion. I made progress during my sessions, and it helped a lot, but it takes a long time. The thing that struck me is that after almost a year in therapy, then a few months without, it feels like I am back to square one (of course I am now more aware of my problems and what lies behind). I have so many moments where I wish I could just sit down and cry or get angry and just let it all out, but I am incapable of it. I can try to watch sad movies, listen to sad music, record myself on my webcam in order to "talk freely to something". Nothing works. The second I can feel myself tearing up, my mind wanders over to something completely different. Often resulting in laughter or a joke or something like that.

I guess the aim with this post is to hear if there are anybody out there with similar problems? Techiques? Tips and hints? Basically anything at all that might help my everyday life run smoother and help me towards my goal?

If so, feel free to write here, or send a pm.

Thank you for reading

Hugs from the Norwegian hunk

I don't have an officially recognized anxiety disorder, but I've lived most of my life always feeling on-edge in publicity. My theory, personally, is that my mental differences listed in my signature make me constantly aware of embarrassing myself with my social awkwardness, which leads to symptoms similar to that of Generalized Anxiety Disorder. Not saying that your problems are the same as mine, but I like to think of it as sort of "turning off" in society. Hoping the more extroverted people won't ask me how I'm doing or anything, because the words in my mind just aren't there.

I get anxious and depressed, but never sad.

This is something I can relate to. I shift through Bipolar depressive and anxious states much more frequently than once or twice annually, but I never really feel "sad." I sometimes get watery-eyed from highly emotional music, but really cried in several years.

Surely there will be subsequent posts from those who do have chronic anxiety and can provide insight on how you could diminish it, but I felt maybe it would be kind of 'consoling' (A euphemism for that word would be more appropriate ) to share my semi-related complications.


Hopefully my lack of empathy hasn't led me to say something I'm gonna regret later, on a side note...

Just posting again to correct a typo I made. Meant to say "But I haven't really cried in several years."

I do wish I could just edit that, but this site only warrants a brief time-frame to correct your mistakes.

To the original poster (don't have the user name in front of me):

Yes, I can relate to smiling or making a joke instead of crying- it is part of my dissociation. Feeling the hurt, the fear and I automatically dissociated from it. It becomes a mental habit.

In therapy I was taught SKILLS first, skills how to endure distress (hurt, fear) without automatically dissociating or distracting myself with impulsive behavior aimed at not feeling the distress (and in turn causing more distress). Insight is useful only in combination with skills. Skills to endure distress are such you develop, over time (a long time) doing meditation, Mindfulness exercises... expanded to Mindful living.

Intellectual insight does not translate to undoing the mental habits built into the brain a long time ago. Skills do that.

atina