Hi everyone

I've suffered with anxiety for years and even had the worst "nervous breakdown" of my life about ten years ago in which I was totally helpless and incapacitated for over a month. It was all I could do just to even feed myself and I truly thought I was going mad. I had always believed that when people used the term "anxiety", they simply meant that they were a little nervous about something but I never dreamed that anxiety could actually be THIS bad. Let me tell you, it is a hellish NIGHTMARE!!.

My "bat incident" the other day (please see my posts in the 'general' thread) acted as a trigger and caused my anxiety to return in full force. For days now I have been sleeping in very late and waking up in a gloomy, hungover, surrealistic fog. Most mornings, I wake up and my mind is so filled with anxiety, panic, gloom and doom that I just roll over and go back to sleep rather than face the day. It's just too much to bare. I feel like I am going to die and have literally been ticking down the days and trying to take care of my final affairs. All this because a bat flew 20-25 feet over my head about 4 days ago and in my mind bats=rabies=automatic death sentence. No, it did'nt attack me. No it did'nt bite me. Yes, I went to the ER - as silly as I felt. But still I was in the same area so in my mind, this equals "exposure" so again, I have been ticking down the days and you can't imagine (or maybe you can) what it's like to be sitting around here each day just WAITING TO DIE.

The other thing is that I have read, heard (and experienced for myself) that allergies can make your anxiety/panic worse and right now the pollen is unbelievably high in my area. I also suffer from chronic sinusitis, allergic rhinitis and a deviated septum (which I've mentioned before). Now to put this all into context, the other day I watched a movie about a man who had rabies (of all things!) and this man was having problems with blurred vision (caused by the rabies) and now I'm starting to have blurred vision from time to time and it is scaring me to death.

Now, I'm pretty sure I've had blurred vision in the past due to my high blood pressure or because my eyes were a bit misty because of my allergies but my anxiety is telling me that it is due to rabies that my eyes get a bit blurry every now and then. That's what's so horrible about anxiety. Your mind always leaves room for doubt and focuses on the possibility that some horrible disease is causing your symptoms. You also become hyper-aware of every sensation going on in your body and tend to attribute each sensation to a "warning sign".

Let me ask you all something if I may. Do allergies affect your vision in any way and how?. I'm really freaking out right now so I'll have to either post again later or edit this thread and continue.

EDIT: The other thing I wanted to mention is that about 45 minutes after dinner last night, I got some pretty severe stomach cramps followed by loose bowels (sorry, gross I know). Both my mother and myself suffer from IBS (Irritable Blowel Syndrome) and Lactose Intolerance and I've had bouts like this before but because I read that "stomach pains" can be a symptom of rabies, I was really freaked out last night. Gosh, I hate this )-:

EDIT AGAIN: I thought I should mention that I have also been taking Atenolol, Lorazepam, Xanax and last night I was so freaked out that I took 25mg of Atenolol, 0.50mg of Xanax and a tablespoon of NyQuil.

Thank's for all your help!!