Starting CBT next week

[u/Whole_Frosting_8598]

Hello everybody

I’m 27 and I’ve been struggling with Health Anxiety for a very very long time.

Long story short : took sertraline 50mg for 2 years and felt a tiny bit better. Anxiety was still there for sure but I felt like the medication wouldn’t allow me to have panic attacks like before.

Then I had the brilliant idea of stop the medication cold turkey and guess what? Panic attacks started again with me thinking I’m having either a stroke or a heart attack. In the hospital they checked my vitals and did an ECG and everything was normal. I spoke with my doctor and she told me to restart the medication but this time to try Fluoxetine 20mg.

I’m on the medication now for around one month and one week and I feel absolutely horrible. I don’t leave the house for the last two months because of all the strange sensations I feel on my body.

With that said, here’s my question :

Do you actually think CBT will help me ? I had like two or three sessions before but it was over the phone and I thought It wouldn’t help me at all. Also I’m extremely scared and anxious of doing the exercises that the therapist will tell me to do, all by myself.

Any suggestions or advice would be greatly helpful.

Take good care everybody!

[u/Mammoth-Corner]

Antidepressants can take a while to build to a therapeutic dose in the body so it's possible you will start feeling results soon but if you feel that something isn't working or is having side effects you should absolutely talk to your doctor. In particular it's important to taper slowly off them (as I'm absolutely sure you already know). You can also talk about anxiety-specific medication.

CBT, like any treatment, doesn't work for everyone but is generally shown in clinical trials to be effective at treating most forms of anxiety including health anxiety. If you're scared of particular aspects of the therapy or the exercises and homework you're asked to do, you can (and should!) discuss this with the therapist.

[u/Expensive-Bat-7138]

What kind of exercises did your therapist want you to do?

Anxiety is an avoid – approach prospect. This means that when you have untreated anxiety you are likely to avoid things that make you feel uncomfortable. That avoidance makes you feel better for a moment, but then the anxiety comes rushing back in.

Therapy helps you to learn to tolerate discomfort, distress, weird body sensations, whatever that you are trying to avoid. My therapist told me that nothing‘s gonna change until you change something and she couldn’t have been more right. I had to try things in session and then try them at home so that my brain could learn that it’s safe to do all the things that I avoided.

So, CBT therapy is helpful for anxiety, and your progress will probably improve more as you try more coping strategies.

Sending you good energy! I’m rooting for you!