Extreme Anxiety
Dear Fatima,
I’m a 17 year old girl going through a period of extreme anxiety. I have been taking medication for 2-3 years because I have ADD and it is supposed to make me concentrate better. My parents don’t force me to take it but they always give it to me every morning and when I tell them it isn’t helping me, they don’t understand what I am saying. Whenever I am on this medicine, I get super sensitive to every sound, every noise, everything around me. I expect perfection from myself and everyone else. I start getting severe panic attacks and I can’t tolerate anything or anyone. If someone is talking for example and I try studying in another room, if I hear even a small bit of noise I get extremely paranoid. I also get intense periods of depression. I spend hours thinking about all the problems I have and get nothing done. I don’t know if all of these problems are a result of the medication that I take but I can’t handle myself anymore and I’m constantly feeling anxious and stressed. No one seems to understand what I am going through. What do I do?
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As salaamu alaykum,
I imagine it would be scary to feel all of these things going on inside you and not feeling like anyone is understanding what your experiencing or being sensitive to it. I think the first thing you need to do is to find someone who can be sensitive to your experience so that they can help you navigate a way out of it.
From my experience and understanding of ADD medication, it sounds like you need to explain what you’re feeling to a psychiatrist who can either adjust the dosage of your medication or take you off of it and evaluate the possibility of a different medication. There are different kinds and some work better for certain people than others. It is important to stay in close communication with a psychiatrist when taking medication so that they can know what is going on and make adjustments. It’s called “Medication Management” because medication need to be managed as you take it. It’s not something that works consistently on its own overtime. We change all the time; our body chemistry reacts to our own development and it may be that your body changes in the way it responds to the medication. Only a professional Psychiatrist can help you with this, and it is very important to describe your experience to one so they can help.
From that point you can help figure out what is the real problem. It may not be you at all and just the medication. Once you have that straightened out then you can begin dealing with the anxiety if it is still there. That would involve working with a therapist to help devise strategies for controlling thoughts and managing anxiety. Many people suffer from anxiety and there are any tools at your disposal to manage it and move toward more balance in your mental state and your daily life. Please utilize this website as a resource for finding the right help for you.
I pray that you find a place of peace and balance soon and I send you strength and resilience in passing through this time until you find more ease. Insha’allah this is a just a temporary situation and it will pass shortly once you follow the steps to get it under control.
Sincerely,
Your Brother in Islam
“Fatima Y”
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Assalamu ‘alaykum,
What you are describing sounds extremely uncomfortable. I’m so sorry that the feelings are coming at you so intensely and that you feel so overwhelmed and alone in trying to figure this out.
From what you describe, it sounds like that you might need to talk to a psychiatrist about the side effects you are experiencing and see if any adjustment in your medication is possible.It is very common for medications to need adjusting periodically. It’s hard for people to understand this sometimes because they expect medications to behave sort of like Tylenol. You have pain, you take the medication, it’s gone. So that might be why your parents are having trouble understanding what you are going through. What the research is showing is that things like depression, anxiety, trauma, and other mental and emotional symptoms are very complicated, so some medications work for some people and not for others. Also, medications are often tested on adults and have been found to have different effects on children. So it’s quite likely what was working for you as a 14 or 15 year old might need to be adjusted somewhat as you are now 17. So I am sure that the psychiatrist will have a bunch of ideas about what could be causing your symptoms.
Once you figure out the medication piece, it might be worth it to take a look at ways for you to reduce anxiety and manage stress in your life. I say this because having a lot of stressful things going on in your life and not having skills to manage it (like exercise, breathing, meditation, self-talk, etc.) can sometimes aggravate underlying biological imbalances. So it might make your symptoms worse, or bring up ones that you’ve never had before.
Sincerely,
Your Sister in Islam
“Fatima Z”
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Anonymous
Salaam sweetie,
I’m soooo sorry you’re dealing with all this anxiety and different symptoms to your medication. I actually went through major anxiety and depression these past couple years so I think I can relate. I don’t know about you, but at points of extreme anxiety, my heart would be racing so fast, and my mind felt like it was going 100mph and I was so scared; even at the times when I didn’t feel anxious at all, I couldn’t pay attention to anyone or even keep my mind in one direction for more than like 30sec; if I did try to focus, I’d feel so drained and exhausted afterwards like I’d worked non-stop for hours or days.
What was the worst of it all was that before all this, I used to be really sharp and did extremely well in school, and at work was known to be more focused yet able to see the big picture at the same time. So going from feeling so blessed where I excelled at school and work, to 10% mental capacity where I couldn’t even describe 1 card when I played Taboo with my little cousins was such a scary and debilitating and depressing feeling.
Alhamdulillah, the good news is, you can become free of it. Alhamdulillah, after committing to myself to do whatever it took this past year to break free and at the same time making lots of dua to Allah to help me heal, alhamdulillah, I feel so at peace and secure now. But I will tell you what my counselor told me…”It’s a process”…there will be ups and downs, but if you get the right help, the points of anxiety will become much less intense and less frequent, until eventually, you will be more calm, relaxed, focused, sharp, aware and at peace than probably anyone you know, inshaAllah!! And I am sincerely saying this from experience, alhamdulillah.
If you are interested in pointers, some things that worked for me, just reply to this post and inshaAllah I’ll reply back with things that helped me come to this point of freedom, alhamdulillah!
In the meantime, just know that you will get better, in all aspects inshAllah, and you won’t have to compromise calmness and peace for focus and excellence in school or anything else.
Lots of love and duas sweet sister!
Anonymous
Salaams, please tell me what worked for you, I would really appreciate the advice <3
Anonymous
Wsalaam sweetie,
I’m so sorry I haven’t been able to write back yet. I haven’t forgotten about you, but I’ve just been really swamped at work, etc so couldn’t write a proper response. You are such a sweetheart, and I love you lots for the sake of Allah. InshaAllah, I’d like to write you a proper response this weekend, but in the meantime, a couple things that helped me are:
1) really making dua to Allah to give me whatever resources that will help me get better
The following are just lil tips that may not seem like much, but over time, I found building a lot of these healthy habits really came together to help as well…
2) trying my best to take slow deep breaths for 5 sec, hold it for 3 sec, then slowly breathing out for 5, and do that breathing exercise for 3-5 min …my counselor used to tell me to do that every single day 3-5 times a days so that eventually my breathing would become normal again…when I had anxiety it was hard for me to remember or care to do it everyday 3-5 times a day so I would just make it a habit to do it after every salaah which helped
3) try to do cardio exercise everyday for 20 min at least, preferably outside…some days I wouldn’t have a lot of energy so if nothing else I would just go outside to walk for 20 min, otherwise if I could, at least for a jog
4) A friend of mine actually recommended me this book called “You are a Badass”…I know it sounds weird, but honestly, I would read it 10 min every morning and whenever I felt low or anxious and it would give me a boost….years ago, I also read the books called “Chicken Soup for the Soul” which I really liked a lot as well.
5) On days where I didn’t have energy to read, I would try to listen to something motivational…there are some very nice Islamic scholars, like Habib Ali or Dr Umar Farooq Abdullah who really reminds us of Allah’s love, etc… sometimes I even listened to Joel Osteen videos on youtube which were pretty motivating…I know he’s not Muslim, but he still reminds us of how Allah loves us, so as long as you’re strong in your deen, you can benefit from it without it confusing you from a deen perspective
6) I would also just lie down and turn on Quran whenever I was feeling anxious or my mind was going in different directions, it would help relax my mind or at least give me a nice sleep (especially Surah Yaseen or Surah Baqarah…Abdul Baasit’s recitation on iQuran app or Quranexplorer.com is really nice)
7) I would go to a loving family member and just cry to them and tell them I feel really anxious and let them hug me and hold me…I know I was an adult but I felt like a baby and needed to just express what I was feeling to someone who cared…and I would also ask them to pray “on” me, ie. ask them to out loud pray salawaat, surah Fatiha, ayatul qursi, and 3 quls all 3 times each, and I would recite it silently in my heart while they said it out loud…it really helped calm me down a lot
8) If my family member wasn’t available, I just found 3 friends who I could call whenever I was having an anxiety attack and would ask whichever one of them was available to pray the same stuff “on” me over the phone while I’d recite it in my heart
InshaAllah this will help in the meantime…and inshaAllah, I’ll write more this weekend.
Again sweetie…I love you for the sake of Allah, and inshaAllah, I promise, you will get better, just like I did, and it’s sooooo freeing and peaceful…but again, like my counselor kept reminding me when I’d get weak and discouraged, it is a process so you just have to keep pushing through it cuz the light at the end of the tunnel is truly so bright and worth it.
InshaAllah we’ll connect again very soon!
Love you!
Sweetie…inshaAllah, I hope this helps in the meantime. InshaAllah I’ll write more soon!
Anonymous
Salaam sweetie,
It’s me again. I think I’ll just send you short messages here and there about different things that helped me with my anxiety. Basically whenever I remember something that helped me, I’ll try to come back and write it to you inshaAllah.
One thing I just remembered was whenever I was having an anxiety or panic attack, I would remind myself, “This is just a panic attack, it’s no big deal, this is not who I am and I won’t be like this forever. I’m finding ways to manage my anxiety so I’ll be healthy again very soon inshaAllah.” As soon as I would remind myself that it was just temporary and it isn’t me, my mind would stop going in huge circles that were telling me I would always be like this. I would remind myself, it’s simply a physiological reaction to something that triggered me, and now I’m going for counseling to identify my triggers and work through them in a healthy way.
The point was that I made sure to remind myself my anxiety is only temporary and I’m taking care of myself to get better and it does not define me and is not a big deal. It’s like someone who has the flu and tells themselves there going to die, as opposed to saying ok I just need to rest up and take care of myself to treat my flu symptoms and I’ll be better soon. I’d remind myself that all I have to do is recognize my body is just having a temporary reaction to something and it’s temporary so I should go back to doing something productive or something I enjoy, instead of making it become a snowball effect.
That reminds me, try to do things that keep you engaged…depends on what you like…exercise, read some good books, rekindle some good hobbies, study for school…basically, the more I would think about my anxiety, the worse it would become, and the more I would keep myself engaged, slowly I got involved in living and loving my life again that the anxiety basically disappeared over time.
Ok hope all these lil things help sweetie! 🙂
Anonymous
My parents have told me that they tried giving me a different medication but it didn’t help me focus better, although it did result in less anxiety. They say there is no perfect medication out there with both reduced anxiety and depression and better concentration. I could stop taking it completely but then my grades might drop at school. :/
sq
I would definitely agree with both of the Fatima responses… It sounds like you may need to speak to a psychiatrist to get your dosage corrected to a level that doesn’t affect you in the ways you mentioned. Your anxiety medication is just like any other medication in that it requires precision to have the intended effects. I hope you are able to connect with a psychiatrist soon! It may also be helpful to look into behavioral therapy in addition to medication. This may be helpful in learning how to manage your paranoia and depression. Granted this should be something you discuss with your psychiatrist to see if it s the correct fit for you. Please keep us updated with how things progress!