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

feel like a bug being squashed by someone's heavy shoe on top of me.
Everything is so heavy. Everything is so hard... everything.
Stress is unmanageable ANXIETY is debilitating (almost)... and I don't know the last time i genuinely laughed. I'd say I am the walking dead - with no feelings of happiness, except i know i love my pets dearly, and they are the only ting that make me feel some happiness
AND ALL OF THIS FALLS UNDER THE UMBRELLA OF MY EATING DISORDER. i have so many rituals/ocd behaviors I use to manage the anxiety... which manifest as eating disorder behaviors. My compulsive exercise is unmanageable. My doctor said I should be in a hospital right now,,,, which I will not do another time.
It's just hard.
Life is so painful and stressful and did I mention, HARD?
I want to escape...

I understand that crushing, heavy feeling in your heart, your gut... Sometimes it's hard to breath because of so much anxiety... I'm sorry you are feeling this way...that a lot of us feel this way going through life...

I'm glad you have your beloved pets, they are truly comforting and love you unconditionally. I get scared that once I get really old, I won't be able to take care of them and that I will be all alone...

Rituals and odc behavior really wear us down...it's a mental head game and it takes a huge toll on our emotional energy. And you have compulsive exercise on top of your eating disorder...that must be draining you dry... I don't have that bad of an exercise compulsion, but when I do, I just get the worst anxiety ever for about a week. I can't focus on anything, I'm just lonely and needing to connect with people on any level, the loneliness just is so debilitating when I'm having my anxiety attack that I feel like I am literally going crazy.

It must be frightening for your doctor to tell you that you need to be in the hospital. Being in there is living hell, even if you are not in there for mental reasons... It feels like a prison, no freedom, just lying there with your miserable thoughts...I am so scared to being hospitalized or having to go to the hospital for any reason.

I'm sorry I can't say anything to make you feel better, but I'm glad you posted your feelings.

Brooke, your words meant a lot actually. It made me feel as if you really do understand a lot of how I am feeling, even though I didn't elaborate a whole lot in my garbled post, I feel like I am plummeting toward the ground, and I am terrified of how i may crash. i cannot afford more time off work. I was off From the end of April through August... then returned part time for a month before I was back to normal full time sched. I had to take the time off to get some more intensive treatment for my problem with anorexia. (still anxiety/OCD and depression seemed to be the comorbid demons making what is normally my favorite time of year - Spring/summer- pretty emotional and miserable. I am on so many meds... I just feel like such a treatment failure. My whole life has been this struggle... this mental torment. I don't mean to whine, because so many people have illnesses so much more painful and horrendous than my mental suffering... but I really do wish my brain were wired differently and I could be stable and free from these struggleds.