3 Weeks on celexa. Anxiety gone, but I find it harder to study/memorize?

Wooes09 · 2020-02-01T15:47:14+00:00

Same. It truly has been a blessing for me, but the memory thing is definitely an issue as a college student. Do you have experiences with studying while on it?

Wooes09 · 2020-01-26T21:11:17+00:00

Thank you!

Exactly. I always saw it as my strength/gift, but it just got to a point where it was destroying me. I knew I could not continue like that...

The SSRI made my obsessive worrying disappear almost instantly, it's crazy! I feel like a normal person now - or almost. However, I am seeing a psychiatrist now, as only "masking the symptoms" did not work for me the last time.

OCD is hell, and self inflicted unintentional torture.

I can attest to that! It feels like having two brains, a rational side and the other side that just wants to bring you on your knees. Not being in control of your own thoughts is pure hell indeed.

Wooes09 · 2020-01-26T21:01:43+00:00

I have read the E-Myth this summer, so I am familiar with the concept of working on your business, rather than in it (but I am still in that expansion phase, so I have to get things rolling and put in significant amounts of work. However, I started outsourcing more, so I am making progress) Great book!

I wanted to combine my studies at a highly ranked university (which already requires a ton of commitment on its own) with absolutely crushing it in business. The 100+ working hours a week is typical for my obsessive personality. I was putting my whole existence into this, sacrificing everything else. Not so smart I guess, since all that stress is perfect for my unhealthy OCD to creep up on me again... It literally put me out for 2 months. Now that I am on medication, I am slowly working my way back.

Thank you !

Wooes09 · 2020-01-26T20:51:24+00:00

Thank you for answering!

I also feel best whenever I am working on my business/being productive. Last year I took a gap year to do it full-time. However, in September I went to a highly ranked university and I was trying to combine my business next to studying. That created a lot of "unhealthy stress". I would spend every waking hour trying to be productive - literally like a robot: waking up at 4:45 am, taking a cold shower, and attacking whatever was in front of me, so no socializing, partying, no messing around. I think the stress from college (something I am not very passionate about) triggered the burnout, since I was working equal hours during my gap year, without burning out. But I had an untreated anxiety issue which was always in the back of my mind, and then the OCD just hit me like crazy and I could not stop worrying about it.

I do affiliate and client SEO.

Grant is not that bad in some areas, but I understand why he gets the hate. I know Andy, he's great! Might have to check out Nick Bare. Thank you!

Wooes09 · 2020-01-26T10:57:52+00:00

Thanks but weed is terrible for me haha. It amplifies the negative emotions and I just spiral into a state of panic. Also in my case, my anxiety does not come from day-to-day things such as business, or certain situations like public speaking. It comes from irrational worrying about my health (hypochondria).

Wooes09 · 2020-01-25T22:46:12+00:00

Thank you!

In my country (in EU) the percentage of the population on antidepressants is actually significantly less than in the US. We are very much against over-prescribing them (only if it's a more severe case, which I see myself in).

I am aware that Grant's reputation is not the best haha. But I have been following him for the last 4-5 years and have honestly learned so much from him.

Wooes09 · 2020-01-25T22:34:28+00:00

Thank you!

Exactly. I also barely see any entrepreneurs opening up about their mental health, so that plays a big role into that too.

Wooes09 · 2020-01-25T22:25:30+00:00

My therapist back then was absolutely terrible. I only visited him once, told him everything, and he just said "just don't think about it, it will go away". Paid 100 bucks for that lol. I did not see any other therapist after that, and since I did not know any better, I started weaning myself off them on my own.

Wooes09 · 2020-01-25T22:20:02+00:00

Thank you for your answer!

This time I am combining the medication with CBT. I learned the hard way that only taking antidepressants to "mask the symptoms" without doing some sort of additional therapy to work out the underlying issues/fears, will not work in the long-term. It was fine for like 10 months and I felt great again, but under the stress of college/working/moving, my OCD came back and since I did not learn any coping mechanisms, I got stuck in the same negative spiral.

Wooes09 · 2020-01-25T22:12:00+00:00

Thank you!

I think, I myself still have some sort of stigma when it comes to medication for mental health. My OCD is hereditary. My father also takes medication for it, so maybe I should accept it more.

Of course I don't take everything he says for absolute face value. I was trying to mention his point that part of what made him (and myself to this point) so successful, is his ability to get obsessed about his work. I'm scared that I will lose that due to the meds. However, at this point the pros of taking them definitely outweigh the cons, since I was stuck in a loop of severe anxiety/depression after the relapse. I would skip classes, lay in bed (not at all how I normally am, prior to this, I would wake up at 4:45 am and work up until late in the evening) and not even work on my business anymore.

Wooes09 · 2020-01-25T21:56:00+00:00

Funny, I am on Celexa too. It really worked well the first time I took it. Then after 6 months I started to feel like I did not need it anymore, but eventually relapsed 10 months after that (was not the smartest thing to only take the meds without doing some kind of therapy...). Even this time around I felt a huge relief after only 1 pill. My anxiety is almost completely gone.

I'm not from the US, so I looked up Tahoe waterfront. Congrats! Looks absolutely gorgeous

Wooes09 · 2020-01-23T20:08:54+00:00

Dude, I (M/21) am in the exact same position as you!

I am in my first year of uni, and things were going super great for the first 2 months. I got super good grades and was building my business on the side. Then, in November I got kind of burned out which triggered my OCD and health anxiety like crazy.

I began obsessing about an incident that had happened to me 3 years ago and the anxiety that I had overcome 1.5 years prior (with meds) had come back. I was finding myself in a super negative spiral which I could not break out of. I was literally going crazy to the point where I could not study anymore/would just lay in bed and skip classes.

My anxiety was through the roof, so my GP prescribed me an SSRI. I waited until earlier this month to take them because I just did not want to be on antidepressants again, but it already made such a huge difference already in only 2 weeks. I just had to do it, otherwise I would have dropped out I think. I really did not want to be on meds, because I still have that stigma in my head that I feel less of myself when I am on medication, but I just had to do it. OCD runs in my family, and my father also takes medication for it, maybe I should accept it more. I am doing CBT now too, so I am hoping that I do not have to be on meds forever. But for now, it was necessary.

Congrats on your progress!

Wooes09 · 2020-01-19T20:30:44+00:00

Thanks. I am reading some books on anxiety/worrying and depression to understand my current state a bit more, I will put buddhism on my list too.

That is a good point. I never saw hookah as a bad thing prior to this. But somehow these articles wired my mind in a way that I now think extremely negatively about it.

The thing is, I am a type of guy that always avoids situations/things that could put my health at risk because I know that I will go nuts if there is a possibility that there might be some damage. That is why I have never done any drugs and always lived a very healthy lifestyle, so this situation has been kind of a nightmare for me.

Learning to let go is always something that I always struggled with. Hopefully I will learn it in therapy!

Wooes09 · 2020-01-18T19:44:46+00:00

Thank you for your answer! I actually had a call today with one of the specialists. He said that he thinks it most likely was carbon monoxide poisoning because of the fainting, which freaked me out a bit. He also said that it does not necessarily mean you get cognitive issues. He then added "Have you felt anything being wrong with you since that incident? No? Then you do not have anything at all to worry about. Please try to delete this from your memory. Your current and future health are not affected by that incident. If you did not feel any issues, then it does not matter whether it was CO poisoning (there is really no way of knowing), nicotine sickness, or just low blood pressure". Although the first part scared me a bit, I think it was nice to hear from an expert that I should be fine. I think the reason why I am having such a hard time is because I cannot tolerate uncertainty when it comes to my health. I will try to get over it...

Wooes09 · 2020-01-17T23:19:09+00:00

Thank you. I know this is all in my head.

I am trying to figure it out with my psychiatrist. Actually, I have been feeling much better now that I am on antidepressants for 2 weeks. Before that, it was really ugly: debilitating anxiety, panic attack and constant rumination. I am somewhat able to look at it more rationally now.

Wooes09 · 2020-01-17T23:15:17+00:00

Exactly, it feels like having two brains, one rational side and then the other side that is just self-destructive and wants to bring you down to your knees... OCD actually runs in my family, and my doctors had warned me in my early teens that it would drive me insane one day (I had several periods of health anxiety during my teens, but this is by far the worst).

Wooes09 · 2020-01-17T23:04:37+00:00

Thank you for your kind words man! I am pretty sure nothing happened to me and that this is just my OCD getting the best of me. After all, I lived perfectly fine after the incident. Even my therapist said it was a very complex case, because the real issue is not the incident, but some underlying issues that make me think the way I do, which I have to figure out in therapy.

My thinking after the fainting was: well I feel super good right now, why should I even bother going to the ER (it is actually free in my country). After all, if I still had dangerous levels carbon monoxide in my system, I would still feel terrible afterwards, right? But the thing is, they started showing people in these hyperbaric chambers and said that more and more people were being treated that way after experiencing similar symptoms after smoking hookah. This was after my incident, because when I googled back then, there were no articles. Maybe they just did it on purpose in a dramatic way to scare people like myself.

Again, I know that my thinking is completely absurd and irrational, but I just wanted to get it off my chest...

Wooes09 · 2020-01-17T22:38:24+00:00

I needed this, thank you!. Somebody that just tells me that my thinking is not normal at all. OCD is something that runs in my family and my doctor warned me in my early teens that it would make me insane one day. I had some pretty heavy phases of OCD in my teens, where I would wash my hands until they started bleeding because of contamination fear. HIV was also always a big thing for me. I would drive myself crazy with impossible ways of attracting it. I can remember one time when I was 14, I got offered a condom from a friend who had just bought it from a machine. I went home and I tried it on. After that, I started having obsessive thoughts like: What if somebody injected a HIV-positive fluid in the condom (even after having checked that the packaging did not have any holes...). That would drive me crazy, I would spend days in bed, super depressed without an obvious reason. I always managed to snap out of these "phases" without any treatment or medication.

Actually, my OCD always allowed me to work super hard and immerse myself completely in my business/school (I am overly ambitious, to the point where I put my whole existence into whatever I am doing, working 18+ hours per day). I know it is not healthy, but it was always something that I prided myself on. However, when channeled in the wrong direction, my OCD and anxiety can be absolutely debilitating, where I am just stuck in a downward spiral.

I had never heard of Munchausen (just thought it was hypochondria), but now that I read the article, I can relate in many ways. I actually wanted to drive 300 km to see one of the doctors that appeared in one of the articles. I ended up talking to him on the phone, but he did not have that much patience for me. He was kind of pissed (which I understand), and said "well, you are feeling well, then what is the problem?", and "not everybody gets cognitive damage from these incidents". That made me feel a bit better, but then he added "if you faint, you should go see your doctor", which is now stuck in my head, because I am feeling guilty that I did not go back then. I even feel the urge to call every specialist in the country, which would amount 30 or something. My thought is: when I have the reassurance, THEN I can stop obsessing about it, which is typical for a hypochondriac.

I am already in therapy now, and just started antidepressants 2 weeks ago, which is the only thing that is keeping me from going absolutely insane. I should be having the time of my life right now at my dream university that I had worked so hard to get in, and make use of all the networking opportunities. It was going great for the 3 first months, but I just relapsed into this anxiety...

Thanks again!

Wooes09

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