Hello. I'm new here so I wanted to say hello and briefly introduce myself.

My name is Liz, 30-something, married, no kids.

I have had a variety of anxiety disorders for pretty much my entire life. My first panic attack happened at age 4, and it was so severe that I hyperventilated until I passed out. Because I passed out the doctors assumed I had a seizure, and the next time it happened (a few months later) they diagnosed me with Epilepsy and put me on anti-seizure meds.

after that, everytime I had another episode of passing out they thought I was 'outgrowing' my dose of anti-epilepsy medications, so they raised the dose over and over again.

It wasn't until I was in my teens that they finally figured out that I never had seizures or epilepsy, but anxiety and panic instead, and by then because the anxiety and panic went for so long without treatment either the treatments (meds/therapy) didn't work, or when they did work I felt like a different person.

There is a lot more to the story of my past and my childhood and anxiety, but I'll stick with the brief version for my introduction.

Because I grew up anxiuos and panicked pretty much all the time without even knowing that it was a problem, it became part of my personality, so now when the doctors try new meds I feel as if they are taking one of my senses away.

I consider anxiety to be my sixth sense. Not in a psychic sort of way, but in a "I've had it for so long it is now a part of me and I don't want to lose it" sort of way. I don't know how to be me without being anxious.

I do take klonopin every night to turn down the racing thoughts so that I can fall asleep, and I also take it if I am having a major hyperventilation panic attack.

I also have some physical health issues to deal with, but I won't go into detail about that now since I don't want to write the whole story of my life all at once

I just wanted to say hello, and also say that I am glad to be a part of this great community.

Liz

PS - could someone point me to where I should go to read about marking posts for triggers? I am familiar with marking posts for triggers as that was done in another community I was involved with, but I wanted to make sure I read the specifics on this communities trigger marking system in case it is different than what I am familiar with.

So if someone could point me to a post or area that explains the specifics for marking trigger posts here at psychcentral I would apreciate it.