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Anxiety sickness

This has been one of my most distressing symptoms of my anxiety disorder. For months and months I would wake up and immediately feel sick and actually start dry retching / heaving as the impulse to do so was uncontrollable.

Initially I went to the docs and he said he thought it was acid reflux so prescribed me a load of proton pump inhibitors which I obviously didn't take. My stomach is supposed to produce acid so to me if it is producing too much then I needed to look at my diet and eating habits rather than a short term quick fix that may knacker my stomach up for good.

After a while it became apparent that anxiety was causing this and at first I laughed because I had no idea that severe anxiety could cause such devastating clinical symptoms but how wrong was I?

The worst thing was that some days I would feel ok and others just sick and retchy and there seemed to be no pattern. The unpredictability of it all just made things worse. My kid started primary school and it was my job to take her and pick her up and I was so nervous at having to meet new parents and make small talk. The nausea was every day and at times I had to stick car keys into my skin to distract from the feeling of nausea as I chatted to some parent trying not to chuck up over them.

One day I literally had to just drop my kid off and do a runner ignoring everybody as I was seconds from really heaving. It really was torture and stripped me of my confidence.

I had been aware that if you keep facing the very thing you are nervous about then eventually symptoms would ease and it would get easier. Well it's true, however it's taken me 4 years of basically going to and from school 5 days a week in order to get to the stage i'm at now where it's fairly well controlled. A long time for exposure therapy!

Hey look on the bright side. At least it works.....................eventually.
 
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