YOU ARE NOT ALONE - A companion online community discussion board for The Mental Illness Happy Hour podcast with Paul Gilmartin

Social anxiety may be a factor here as well, NotMeNotYou. As for the chorus in your head, I think a lot of us here have those. I'm going back into therapy to deal with mine since it decided to make a reappearance after a long absence. And I'm a middle-aged guy too, FWIW. A lot of us tend to think of...

Rose, I know the feelings you are having. I recently had something of a relapse of intrusive thoughts and severe anxiety. I'm still going through it, but it's gradually getting better. That's my mantra: this may be very distressing right now, but it never lasts forever and it always gets better if I...

I know the feeling that the other shoe is always ready to drop. And yet, it rarely does. The thing about anxiety is that our bodies are screaming at us that something bad is about to happen. So we try to find reasons for that. It's our fight or flight response going off in a way that is not appropri...

A couple of other tricks I've learned dealing with the digestive issues related to anxiety. Eat bland easily digestible stuff. Stuff like cream of wheat, oatmeal, applesauce. Do not eat heavy fatty stuff, that will just churn in your stomach. And when it's really bad and I find it hard to eat anythi...

Amanda, nausea is very often a component of anxiety. It's all part of the fight or flight response. Personally, I experience anxiety with a huge digestive component. First, when it's really bad, I wake up with the dry heaves. Even when it's not that bad, it feels like the stomach upset caused by som...

I just posted about needing a hug in another thread, but I realized I was going on and on about my unwanted thoughts. So I thought I'd share them here. I'd like to know if someone else suffers from this particular form. I call it the Demon, or the Monster in my Head. When I am in a serious relations...

I forgot to finish a paragraph.

Add to end of second paragraph: ex-wife did have a secret relationship with someone that she hid from me. This confirmed things for the monster. But after our divorce, it seemed to have gone into hiding. I thought it was gone.

I have been involved with a wonderful woman for about 5 months. And then a very old monster that lives in my head decided to wake from its long sleep. Here's the monster: it decides, against all rational evidence, that my significant other doesn't really love me, that I am not attractive or desirabl...

My wonderful girlfriend wrote this blog post about her experience with depression. I think it's quite enlightening and funny.

http://ievenhatethethingsilike.blogspot ... ikini.html

I agree that patients need to be advocates for their own treatment. I have a friend who was complaining that his meds were no longer working for him and I asked him if he ever told his psychiatrist that. He was flabbergasted by the suggestion that he should question his doctor. But a doctor can't wo...