Does anyone you know not understand ur anxiety disorder and think ur nuts?

Well, nobody really notices it from me except my boyfriend since I live with him. He just tells me I need to stop taking life so hard, and that I need to learn how to just relax. But its not that simple for me. If i ever do feel relaxed, then I think that somethings gonna go wrong if i dont think about it. I constantly jump up thinking my heart just tried to stop, which causes me to breath hard, and causes my heart to beat faster. Sometimes its so bad parts of my body go numb or something. I never tell anybody about that because they usually dont help when trying to calm you down about it and end up making you feel worse.

My husband sufferes from anxiety but won't admit that it is a problem. Instead, he makes me get up in the middle of the night several times a week and sit in the parking lot of the emergency room at the hospital. One time we had to go 4 times in one night. His heart rate goes up and won't stop and he's afraid something will happen and he won't get to the hospital in time, so we have to sit in the parking lot. We went inside one time, and the lady took his blood pressure and told him that he should relax, and that his pulse was high, but not to be concerned about the rate unless it goes up to 180. He won't go to see anyone about it because we can't afford to pay for all of the tests. Last night he woke me up and I didn't want to go so he started calling me names and now won't talk to me and says I don't care about him. I went the other million times, and I am tired of going. It is always after I am too tired to drive and not even alert. So now my whole weekend is ruined.

I've been on meds for about 6 years or so for several different things. At first, my grandmother was the one who really didn't believe anything wrong, just believed I was making this worse than they really were. Believed I wanted attention. However, she's mellowed out about the whole thing and really doesn't have much more to say about the issue.

I've lost quite a lot of friends because of it, it makes me unreliable as I pull out of things at the last minute & let people down. I'm fed up of being told to "pull myself together" if it was that easy don't they think I'd simply do that?

I was very lucky when I was going through serious anxiety issues to have the support of my then husband and my sister, who was then studying to be a therapist. My mom never really understood and told me that I should just "buck up" and ignore my symptoms, so I just got to the point that I did not discuss it with her anymore. I used my support system to help me through a bad day or a bad time. There is some really great literature out there that you can use to show your parents that this is a real disease, just like diabetes or cancer. They would never tell you that you could control diseases like that, right? Sometimes it takes some education for people to really understand it. Could your doctor talk to them? Check out these publications: http://www.nimh.nih.gov/publicat/publisting.cfm?dID=2

When I first started having major panic attacks all the time I felt like I was personally going crazy. I didn't know what was wrong I went to the er and though I was dying, they called my husband to come get me after they did all the blood work xrays and ekgs and such on me. I found out later that I had panic attacks and my husband didn't understand why they were just now showing up and why I had them, why I couldn't just take a medication and get over them like a cold. One day he had an accident and hit his head he just cried for hours becuase he didn't feel right and as he told me how he felt it sounded like he was having a panic attack. He used to pick on me when we went to walmart and I had a panic attack now when I get that look on my face and get really quiet he knows what is going on and just hugs me and try to help. If it hadn't been for that accident I don't know if he ever would have realized what it feels like to have panic attacks.

It was back in 2003 when I almost passed out. After that all sorts of problems came about, I had vertigo, heartburn, muscle twitching in every part of my body, numbness, weakness....etc. My friends thought I was over reacting and being to anxious. Throughout the years I underwent extensive tests and all came out negative. My 1st neurologist thought I was crazy and gave me medications for schizophrenia. I went to seek for a 2nd opinion. My other neurologist said that the 1st neuro was completely out of line when that neuro gave me meds for schizo. If I didn't have schizo, then with that medication I'll definitely have one. The years passed and passed till I did a general check-up last year and they said that I might have MS, multiple sclerosis. But that's still to be confirmed this June for another check-up to see if anything new has been developed. If not, it's simple vertigo and a need for physical rehab for stress. Hope that's just the case.