[flyabove]

Hello all!

I've been dealing with my anxiety the past couple years along with some others mental illness diagnoses (ptsd, depression, bipolar). Before my anxiety would peak when I was by myself, stressed out, no social stimuli, etc. Now my anxiety is seeming to hit at all angles. I was recently discharged from outpatient stay at a mental health facility two weeks ago, it was an involuntary commitment, but I made the best of it. When I got released I spent the first week with my aunt as she was off work and I was fine, I couldn't make myself go anywhere very public though. This past second week my cousins were on spring break so I babysat them for my aunt and they kept me occupied. It was beyond refreshing being able to for once not have a racing mind and overwhelming anxiety. I could enjoy the here and now. This is going on the third week being home and during the day I am not having much to occupy my mind with. I'm not working as back in October my symptoms were getting so bad I had to take a leave of absence and then ended up resigning. My anxiety is still off and on, it's manageable but I've not been able yet to go into a large store or social setting as of yet since I have been home. In the evenings I've been going on different walking trails walking a couple miles a few times a week, sometimes taking my brother who is in high school with me. They aren't very crowded and I feel safer there than in a heavily populated store.

So any advice on things I could do to keep myself occupied during the day would be greatly appreciated. I've been doing a lot of writing, coloring (I'm horrid at drawing so a pack of crayons and a cute coloring book is very therapeutic for me), Netflix is a good friend of mine but that's all I really have. Also this forum I am hoping will help me a lot too in passing time. I know that I will have to address my issues and I can't ignore my anxiety when it hits. I am learning to work through it rather than try to bottle it all up inside until it is too late and then start to decline to where I'm no longer to safely maintain.

So any tips or advice would be greatly appreciated!

[kaliope]

this is how i cope with anxiety and panic attacks, hope it helps

a way to stop panic attacks is to relax. it is physically impossible to panic and relax at the same time. you dont even have to really relax. just fool your brain into thinking you are relaxing. imagine as if you just did a meditation or had a massage and all your muscles have turned into limp noodles. just let them all go. this will stop the panic attack. you may have to do it a couple times over your first tries, but when i started doing this it ended the attacks and soon i never had a panic attack again,

i have this thing called an anxiety meter that i visualize in my head. it goes from 0 to 10, 10 being the worst anxiety ever. so when i am anxious, i see where the needle registers on the meter. then i do breathing exercises until i get it down to a four. which is manageable for me. sometimes i see a knob on the meter and i will manually turn down the meter to four so i can calm down faster. practicing this enough, all i have to do now when i am anxious is say dial down, and i can calm myself.

[gayleggg]

Kaliope had some great advice.

I use a couple of apps on my phone to help me relax. One is called Relax and the other is called Buddhify. Both focus on breathing and relaxing. I probably like Relax best because you can choose the background music/sound. I use it to help me quiet my mind and reduce the anxiety.

have you tried mindfulness?