# New Member seeking urgent help. Pardon the long intro*



## Faisal157 (Oct 11, 2017)

Hi new member here, joined here now after what seems like my worst bout of dp/dr+panic ever and am really shaken up and am juggling between being confident and worried as to seeing my way out of this one. A month ago I was feeling arguably at my most optimistic about moving forward from my condition and I made a conscious decision that instead of employing exhaustive mental effort to keep proving myself out of dp/dr that I was just going to learn to ignore my impulse to respond to the anxiety and doubt and let it fade slowly into nothingness. What transpired was an endless loop of panic attacks where I was questioning everything, questioning what is knowing, believing, what is anything, if that makes any sense. Then I had all kinds of disassociation symptoms where sounds and sights seemed foreign to me, felt like I was phasing through time, I had panic attacks that lasted longer than usual it felt like I was stuck in a endless one, my face and body hot, my chest tight, breathing labored. My anxiety had ramped up, all my fears and negative thoughts amplified and my confidence and self defence mechanisms shattered. This lasted for about a week, and out of desperation I called my doc and she gave me clonazepam .5x1 and citalopram 20mgx1. I also take quetiapine for sleep as I have terrible insomnia. One month and it hasn't gotten better and I feel like the klonie makes things worse. Whats so frustrating is reading everything on whats troubling me makes me seem like it I should just be able to move forward and not get hung up but I get panic attacks whenever I try to move forward. Even when I know how this thing is going to affect me and how it works it's still able to trick me and keep me stuck, it's agonizing mentally and the physical symptoms of the panic are making this so unbearable.

So a little background into my situation; I can recall being anxious, having panic like symptoms as a young child and being a hypochondriac. From a young age I would overthink and struggle with getting bad or scary thoughts out of my head and also feeling guilt and shame over my mistakes. My parents are amazing and well meaning but with the pressures of uncertain residence here in US (immigrants from Bangladesh) and taking care of my older brother who has cerbral palsy, my household and upbringing was at times chaotic and something I wanted to escape from in my youth.

I come from a practicing Muslim family and in my childhood recall believing in God and having some sort of spiritual connection to a higher power but I was not very observant of the religious practices. My family would partake in the greater Muslim community events throughout the state over the years and I naturally grew a liking and a zeal for the religion myself. I became engrossed in Islam, it became my passion, I experieneced euphoria by learning and putting it into practice. However, family strife got worse and I started to develop depression and anxiety got worse. Then 9/11 and the "war on terror" had started and my crisis with faith started. I thought about the countless innoncent lives lost and affected in Iraq and Afghanistan and started to say where is God? What if He's not there, What if I don't believe? I can remember vividly at that moment I felt knot in my chest form, a partial depersonalization where I felt what am I saying where is this coming from and why can't I stop these thoughts and panic attacks ensued.

I was 14 or so then and I spent what seemed like every breathing moment trying to prove to myself that I was a believer but everytime I did I would feel a knot, my head would hurt and I would feel like I couldn't. So I embarked on research on evidence proving existence of God and truth of Islam, and despite looking through copious amounts of information that strengthenned my faith my anxiety would make me think I forgot everything and that it didn't make sense. Then I ran into situation of having all this information in my head that I learned that I would recite to myself all the time to prove to myself that I am a believer and God exists whenever an ocean of doubt would rush into my head to combat the panic attacks. My anxiety then started to question myself and everything that I know, and I developed a cloud like feeling where I struggle with deciphering my rational self, my voice, and reality. A second voice constantly challenges almost everything I say and read and I try to argue with it.I battled with this all through out highschool silently and in my first semester in college I had a terrible panic attack and from that point on I developed severe insomnia ever since.

I'm 28 now and still have terrible insomnia for which I take quetiapine(tried virtually everything else to no avail) and have battled with this condition on a daily basis with the sleeplessness and fatigue making things only worse. However few weeks ago after years of work I was feeling better and ready to take control of my life again and ironically got bombarded with the worst episode of dp/dr/panic attacks. I feel like I'm at peace with the underlying causes of the anxiety and understand its mechanisms but where I get hung up the most is moving past it without/through the panic attacks because thats when I lose my control and hope and feel like I go backwards.


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## Wendy (Aug 7, 2013)

Welcome to the site, Faisal.

I'm sorry that you're going through all of this. Especially with the troubles that you have been having with your faith, I am sure that has caused you massive amounts of heartache and anxiety. We have several sub-forums here that can help with both spiritual support and medication. Unfortunately, these are two things that I don't have much experience in, but many have gone through the same things that you wrote above. Here are some resources that you could check out:


Spirituality Discussion Sub-Forum.
Treatment Options Sub-Forum.

Have you considered seeing a psychologist for your panic attacks? Also, if you are having troubles with your faith, is there anyone that you could speak with through congregation that could put your heart at ease? In any case, you're more than welcome to post around the site. Keep your chin up, though. Many, many people have gone through this very same thing and recovered.


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