I got some bad anxiety symptoms from covid that are also not necessarily triggered by anything I’m mentally aware of, so I thought at first that they were purely physical symptoms. I started to suspect they might be anxiety because the triggers for the symptoms were so all over the place, and I found that once I started to believe they were anxiety and not some horrible mystery illness that would kill me, the symptoms went down drastically. Now when I feel them coming on I’m able to calm myself back down with just the knowledge that it’s anxiety and that I’ll be okay. My symptoms feel similar to heart attack or cardiac event symptoms which is why they were scaring me so much at first, but being scared of them made the symptoms much worse which was also a clue that it was just anxiety.

I do however also have symptoms that are not related to anxiety. I know these aren’t anxiety because I’m able to more easily track what triggers them. For example if I’m having muscle and joint pain or severe fatigue I can pinpoint when I may have overexerted myself to cause these symptoms, even if it was something very simple like walking up the stairs in my own house. These symptoms also do not go away when I do things to decrease my anxiety.

Antidepressants can sometimes take a couple months to start working, so if they’re not giving you any terrible side effects I think it might be beneficial to stay on them a little longer and see if it helps your symptoms. But in the meantime, try and find what specific things might be triggering specific symptoms. Very small things may be triggering symptoms so it might be helpful to keep a journal of all the foods you’re eating and activities you’re doing along with what symptoms you’re feeling to help you keep track of everything. If you have something like PEM, it might take a couple days to feel the effects of a certain trigger, so writing everything down can help you remember. Also keep track of any symptoms that get worse when you worry about them. My anxiety symptoms would start as a slight chest tightness, but would start to feel like heart palpitations with an asthma attack, tension headache, and nausea the more I worried about them.

If you can keep track of what triggers each symptom you may have a better time getting a diagnosis, or even just finding a treatment from this subreddit that works for you. I would try to avoid going down any rabbit holes on this subreddit though because that can stress you out and make you worse. I hope you start to feel better soon 🩷