This is great input, friends. I will revise and annotate, have another revision up tomorrow.

That study:http://metro.co.uk/2018/01/06/sleeping- ... s-7208955/

That is great, Ringo.The big thing missing in my opinion is to try to talk to someone who you trust or who knows what you are experiencing, as soon as you can. It helps to blow your own cover as quickly as possible with someone who will just know, who will share the knowledge with you. They don't have to do anything at all. Saying it out loud is a decent way to defang it a bit, and of course to admit what is happening to yourself and try to observe what is going on. I found outing myself pre-emptively to employers and friends I trusted helped me to first off maybe have fewer attacks and secondly to have a point of reference to quickly communicate that I needed a break. Again, you will probably know who to trust, but it's worth taking a risk, you might be surprised at what you hear. It's different for everybody, so your mileage may vary, but for me the first thing if possible is to speak up and say "I feel like I'm going to have a panic attack". It doesn't happen that often now, I don't have any full-blown ones these days, but it helps to alert my partner for instance that I am feeling off, on the edge of one, in particular on the way to social things.Also, not trying to nitpick, but that long list would make me anxious!

dontfeartheringo wrote:This is a first draft. Your input is sought.To wit:The Fast 15 (Give or Take)0. Don't try to adhere to everything on this list all at once, that would be the mental equivalent of a crash diet. Remember: "baby steps", "easy does it", [insert other similar cliche here]. Just cherry-pick the easier ones first, and work from there.[...]5.1 [corollary] Do not use your bed for activities other than sleep and erm ... well, you know.7.1 [corollary] Limit yourself to around four cups a day. Nowadays caffeine-free coffee tastes as good as the real thing.7.2 [corollary] Do not drink coffee after 3 PM or so. Feel free to adjust this bound if you're a night owl or morning person, or if work imposes night shifts or weird hours.16. No screen time (TV, laptop, tablet, smartphone) at least one hour before bedtime.17. Take up a "low-level" sport. E.g., running, cycling, swimming, walking your (neighbor's) dog.18. Journal/write. Even the dumbest braindumps and doodles can feel cathartic at times.19. Volunteer if you can spare the energy and time. While it may be a selfish reason, helping other people feels great.

Just adding some individual-level endorsements.Fun fact: Journalling never worked for me, as I would just end up ranting/feeding the beast. rappard wrote:dontfeartheringo wrote:This is a first draft. Your input is sought....7.1 [corollary] Limit yourself to around four cups a day. Nowadays caffeine-free coffee tastes as good as the real thing.7.2 [corollary] Do not drink coffee after 3 PM or so. Feel free to adjust this bound if you're a night owl or morning person, or if work imposes night shifts or weird hours.16. No screen time (TV, laptop, tablet, smartphone) at least one hour before bedtime.+1. These things are like religion to me so that I can get to sleep. 17. Take up a low-level sport. E.g., running, cycling, swimming, walking your (neighbor's) dog.+1.19. Volunteer if you can spare the energy and time. While it may be a selfish reason, helping other people feels great.+ 10. Getting outside of your own head is the very best thing.

I don t even know the difference between depression and anxiety anymore. I just can t get myself to even try. I know I m gonna have an anxiety attack at my new job as a delivery driver sooner than later and I know that I m going to panic and quit on the spot or something and I know I m going to disappoint all my friends and family yet again. I just can t make it in this world. I have exactly two friends that I share taste in music with (one of the couple interests left that I still get a little happiness from) and one of them never wants to hang out anymore and the other lives 50 miles away. I know this is weird to ask here but if anyone here lives in/near Akron or Cleveland and wants to listen to/talk music I d love to make more friends.

That makes me feel better than anything my therapists have said to me over the years (I don t want to talk shit to anyone though). I don t really know where to begin though. I ve completely repressed my grade school memories, I only made a couple friends in high school, and it wasn t until after I went to college (and dropped out a couple years later) that I really became aware that there were other people like me that didn t fit in (I was a closet queer that simultaneously didn t believe in any of the religious doctrine I was taught in Catholic school yet was still ashamed of myself and was afraid of being excluded from the little social life I had). So I had an incredibly late start in building up any meaningful support system. Lately I ve built enough courage to sing Pere Ubu covers at open mics with my friend on guitar (and apparently I m pretty good, as a few people have told me afterwards [of course, I don t know if that s a good metric considering that people who think I suck probably wouldn t actually tell me]), but I want to do my own stuff and I m extremely limited both financially and ability-wise in making music. I guess what I m trying to say with all this rambling is that trying to express myself is extremely hard considering my late start, my past scars, my poverty, my lack of instrumental skill, being an outsider to the music scene, and my medical issues (ADHD, ASD, Major Depressive Disorder). That s a pretty overwhelming list

Reading some of your guys' stories brings me to tears. From 11 to 25 I was in an absolute hell from panic anxiety and severe OCD. The last 5 certainly haven't been easy, but they've definitely been the best years of my life due to my medication. I was never very enthusiastic about going on meds, but suffering badly enough for long enough I stopped caring about that and would have done anything for relief, just pure desperation. Better meds than opiates or something, and I got lucky with my meds as I don't notice much at all side-effect wise. A few of my closest friends are currently suffering from anxiety and even OCD to some degree, and I'm really grateful now for my experiences cause it allows me to talk them through things and understand what they are going through. In the OCD cases it can feel like you must be the biggest freak in history. OCD and chronic anxiety is not something you can truly understand unless you've gone through it yourself. What always helped me the most was finding something to focus on that was productive and forced my diverted attention for an extended period of time. Its easier said than done, but your subconscious needs to be tricked out of anxiety the same way it is, largely, tricked into it, via conscious behavior. It does a lot for your psyche and your depleted sense of self if you can find an upbuilding outlet of some kind. Also helped me, with the intrusive thoughts and spikes, to tell myself that I'd set aside time later to respond to them, and keep prolonging the "later". Gives time to build up strength, and also restores your sense of self somewhat because you have more and more aspects of daily life where you are not your OCD, intrusive thoughts, or anxiety. Eventually I would extend my "later" longer and longer until it faded more and more into the background, and I could cling more and more to the aspects of myself that were not my OCD, where I could feel like I was more than that awful thing. The more the anxiety subsides, the less power the thoughts will have over you when they are addressed. The terrible shame and humiliation was really hard for me, as it often seemed like my every waking moment was consumed by this ugly beast that was often completely absurd and irrational. Was a huge relief in my later teen years when I discovered that "OCD" is a thing, and that other people go through it. I was especially ashamed of my existence up til that discovery. Thinking of you all.

I started doing a breathing exercise close to two months ago. It was some doctor guy on youtube and I don't remember the name, it was supposed to make you sleep better or something. It consists of breathing in a 4-7-8 pattern: Breathe in while counting 4, hold breath while counting 7, then while counting 8 let your breath escape like you're blowing out candles (gently).Do this 4 times in a row, twice a day. The guy specifically said not to do more than that.Comparing my mood then to now I have much more energy, I get more shit done, jolt up at 7 in the morning and generally have way less of that heavy, tiring feeling that seems to accompany me everywhere.Now who knows - A lot of things have been shifting in my psyche the past fall, and some of my state of mind right now is probably accumulated effects passing some threshold. I recall though that some of the times doing this exercise there was an immediate sense of relaxation the moment I began.It certainly can't hurt to give it a try.EDIT: Found it.

Started taking piano lessons again and had a breakthrough where I thought I was gonna be stuck forever. That really helped my mood a ton.