Hi Bob,
I hope MY posts arent making you feel too anxious!
The thing about visiting a forum like this, is that it can be quite
confrontational. Everyone is talking quite freely with information,
advice and personal experiences (and fears) with regards to anxiety
disorders.
It can be a bit of a reminder in a negative way, but it can also be a
really positive thing if you get out of it advice which helps you.
You must remember that for every persons negative experience there
are literally thousands of people with positive experiences. Adverse
reactions are recorded as being 1 in 10,000 for most major SSRI anti-
depressants or less. And you will always read about the negative
stories, as people usually dont bother to post about positive
experiences.
When I first started visiting this forum, even though I had already made
significant progress in terms of recovery, I would see that word "panic"
in the url and the site title - all over the page in fact, and it would
remind me of panic attacks. That took a bit of time for me to become
desensitized to it.
Then again, a key part of recovering from any anxiety disorder is
becoming desensitized to your fears and internal sensations caused by
anxiety.
Id suggest taking a light hearted approach with everything you read
here. Some things will be factual, some will be exaggerated. Dont let
other peoples stories scare you too much as everyone's experiences
are very different.
Relaxation and meditation can be really good straight after (or simply
thought stopping and moving on to something else you enjoy).
