personality changes from anxiety

Can a period of severe anxiety (or a nervous breakdown, emotional collapse, whatever you want to call it) change who you are forever?

This is a question that has plagued me over the past few years. After my anxiety spiraled out of control in 2010, I felt like I changed almost overnight into a very different person. Other people didn't seem to agree with that assessment, which was comforting, but I was obsessed with the idea that I was different, that it had destroyed/ruined me, that I would never recover, never be "the same" again. And I kept focusing on every change I noticed and claiming it was proof or at least cause for concern, from completely minor changes that didn't even matter to the really big ones.

I expected these alterations in my personality / behavior to go away almost immediately. I definitely expected them to go away after weeks and months of anxiety-fighting work. What's funny is that most of them have gone away by now, but it happened gradually over about 3 years, and during that time it seemed like I was throwing my hands up every month and saying "it's been six months! It's never going to happen!" or "I've done everything I'm supposed to do and I'm still not myself again!"

Some examples (I do so love to make lists):

•  My entire life (for as long as I can remember) I have slept curled up on my side. After my breakdown (and even in the weeks leading up to it), I couldn't anymore. I started feeling like I could only sleep on my back. Whenever I lay on my side, I felt convinced I was hurting myself in some way, crushing my organs, or squishing some part of my body to the point that I would end up cutting off circulation, and this would cause me to die in the middle of the night. Even lying on my back, I had trouble falling asleep because I didn't know what to do with my arms. I didn't want them lying next to my body because when they pressed against me, I felt that same 'being squished' sensation. It seemed at the time that I could even feel the pain of this imaginary crushing.
  
  This went on for a very long time. I think it's only been within the past few months that I've finally started to go back to my old sleeping position. Also, I think it was one of the changes that freaked me out the most, even though it had no real significance. Maybe because it had no real significance. I couldn't understand why it had happened and just saw it as evidence that I wasn't me anymore, not even in the most relaxed scenario possible.
  
  
• When I was younger, I had problems eating in restaurants and usually would refuse. When I went out to meals with my friends, they all knew this and didn't expect me to eat, and even some of their parents knew and didn't push the matter. But from around the last year of high school up until the breakdown, I had made serious progress in this area. For example in 2009 (1 year, 2 months before breakdown) I went out to lunch with my boss. Ate normally, small-talked, no panic. After the breakdown, I lost my ability to handle restaurants again and frequently complained about this and how I thought I would never be able to eat normally in one again. I know I've mentioned this issue in a lot of my posts. I would say I'm still not fully back to where I was, but I was absolutely wrong about it being a permanent setback. It's obvious to me by now that I'm continuously improving in this area.
  
  
• Same for long car rides and vacations. When I took that vacation to VA in 2011, I was a mess. I wrote about it here and tried to put a positive spin on it, as I always do, but I was barely functional for most of the trip. I haven't taken another trip to someplace that far away since then, but I feel certain it would go better if I did. I've taken smaller trips since then. Stayed in hotels. Went to Warped Tour. I got through all of that while still feeling like a sane human being - even, I would say, feeling like myself.
  
  
• I had terrifying intrusive thoughts. It was very OCD-like, but I didn't have any compulsions. It may have been something I read about called pure-O, or just my brain's total meltdown. At first I was afraid I was going to kill my cat, and I was afraid to go near him. That only lasted about a week or so. Then that switched to being afraid I was going to kill myself, which lasted much longer. Several months. I didn't want to kill myself, but I thought I would anyway, that my body would just go on auto-pilot and do it, out of my control. I think it was because I was so anxious / unhappy all the time, and I worried it would never get any better. That caused a nightmare chain reaction in my brain. "Not happy --> things will not get better --> you will kill yourself --> oh my god, but I don't want to --> too bad, you won't have any control over it - after all you didn't have any control over this happening in the first place --> no I can't let this happen! must tell someone and/or have them watch me to make sure I don't do anything" etc. I got so panicked over this one day I called my wife and made her come home from work to keep an eye on me.
  
  This has gone away completely. It went on for about a year. I think the last time I had that thought was the end of 2012.
  
  
• I couldn't handle sad/dark books or movies or shows. This was a big adjustment for me, and I was incredibly frustrated by it, because most of what I liked to read was dark in some way. I couldn't read anything that referenced death or suicide. I couldn't read anything that was gross or gory (including things that aren't even that bad, like accounts of childbirth) or surreal or that caused any intense emotion (so that was basically everything). I even remember freaking out while reading a young adult book because of a part where one of the characters fused with a chair. The simple (but surreal) idea of someone becoming half-chair was too much for me.
  
  This has been gradually going away over the past few years and I think I am finally at the point where I can read/watch anything without having an anxiety attack over it. Except maybe horror movies. I'm still being super cautious with those. I'll probably never go back to watching the extremely scary ones I used to. 

This is getting long, so I'll stop. My purpose in writing all this is just to point out that everything did seem to change drastically, and (especially because the breakdown itself was so traumatic) it was scary to feel like I had lost myself, and I convinced myself I was irreversibly damaged. And that wasn't true. Now I'm seeing that it was all temporary. Of course it was hard to be patient and rational at the time, because everything was so unpleasant, but looking back on it, I can see that it was unreasonable to keep telling myself that because x amount of time had passed, I was clearly going to be this different person forever. As much as I wanted to, I didn't get to dictate how much time it would take to recover.

Maybe it is partially true that the experience forever changed me, but if so, it's in a more positive way than I am used to thinking. Yes, it was intense and horrible, and I'll never forget it completely, and I learned a lot from it. By that I mean I learned how to ensure it never happens again. I learned to take care of myself, both physically and mentally, enough to keep myself from a complete mental collapse. There's still a lot of room for improvement, but I have reached the point where my day to day life is manageable, and I have reached the point where I feel like I have my identity back. Those are both things I used to think I would never be able to say again.

blah

I haven't had that much emetophobic anxiety lately. I even went out to dinner recently and ate until I was overly full and didn't feel the slightest bit worried about it. I can't remember the last time that happened. So there's the good news.

But I've been having tons of anxiety about my health in general. I keep noticing little aches and pains and feeling like there is something wrong with me. Plus I feel low-energy. All of this could, of course, be caused by anxiety and anxiety alone. But how can I know for sure? I can't. I can't know anything for sure, and my refusal to accept this is basically the root of all my problems.

My only option really is to start up an anxiety-fighting regimen again to see if that makes me feel any better physically. I think the main area I need to focus on is exercise. But I also bought a CD player for the bedroom so that I can listen to guided meditation CDs in there, away from distractions (naughty cat, TV, noisy air conditioner).

And I'm trying to work up the courage to make a doctor's appointment. This was one of my New Year's resolutions, to get a check-up this summer, and now it's summer, but I've yet to make the appointment. It'd be nice to be officially told there is nothing wrong with me, and then I'll have that as ammunition against all these irrational thoughts.

anxiety about cat

I love my cat, but I have a hard time dealing with him when he vomits (pretty rare) or has a hairball (less rare). I wouldn't say it causes an anxiety attack, but it's extremely upsetting, especially to listen to while it's happening. And of course, I know I'm supposed to grab him when he first starts hacking and stick him in the bathroom, so he doesn't end up getting sick on our living room carpet, but I can never do it. I have to get as far away from him as possible.

Because of this, I quickly took note of two things. The first, that he would always meow in a low and mournful way right before getting sick. The second, that if he didn't finish his meal (we feed him twice a day, and he is a fanatic about eating it all right at that moment), that usually meant he would be getting sick within the next half hour.

Both of these neurotic observations have done nothing to help me. There is no way to scientifically measure how low his meow is, and I have gotten anxious about a thousand times over what I thought was a low sick meow and locked him up in the bathroom for no reason. And now, for the past week or two, he has developed a new habit of not finishing his "breakfast" meal. I don't know why. Maybe he still hasn't gotten over the stress of being boarded while we were on vacation. But he will leave some, go wander around, and then come back and finish it a little bit later. Other than that, he seems totally fine. It's too bad he has to live with the crazy emetophobe who checks his bowl after every meal, because again, I keep shutting him in the bathroom unnecessarily.

It's frustrating. I hate how easy it is to come up with these little irrational rules related to your fears. As if anything can be identified and controlled so easily. I just need to let this go and realize there is nothing I can do to avoid being exposed occasionally to cat vomit/hairballs. I wanted a cat, it comes with the territory. So does incredible cuteness, to look on the bright side.

One of these days I'm going to write an actual post again. I've just been all swept up in other things lately, like poetry and Judaism and Gloria Steinem, and ignoring anxiety as much as possible. Which is both good and bad. It's nice to be able to "set it aside" temporarily, but I know if I do that for too long, I'll be right back where I started. But I'm sure I'll get back on track with the start of the new year.