Anxiety and Panic Attacks

I’m 14, and for the past 8 mos. to year or so, I have been experiencing debilatating anxiety. I sort of diagnosed myself with General Anxiety Disorder, but I also experience panic attacks occasionally. I have an appointment next week at my family doctor, so my basic question is whether or not I will be prescribed any medication for my anxiety. I’m actually very well-versed in the treatment of anxiety, but I’ve heard it’s best to act clueless so as to not have anyone treating you with suspicion, or doctors thinking you are some type of druggie. I think it also might be heriditary. That taken into consideration, will I be prescribed any drugs? If any, what kind?

Thanks.

All people have their little quirks, but some more than others. My boyfriend has a (not so short) list of eccentricities. For example, he absolutely refuses to let his feet touch a floor that he perceives to be ‘dirty’. For him, if a floor has been walked on with ‘street shoes’ then it is dirty, so we remove our shoes before walking into his apartment. But the weird thing is that if I am coming from a place with a ‘dirty’ floor, then I have to remove my socks before I can walk on his floor (or wash my feet if its summer and I’m not wearing socks). He’s so concerned about contamination that he’ll throw away his socks after renting bowling shoes (not wash them, they literally go into the waist bin on the way out the door).

Other examples: I have a friend flying in from out of town. I was forced to buy new sheets, pillows and towels for my guest because my boyfriend is freaked out about using the same towel or pillow my friend will use. Washing the towels/sheets is not sufficient in his mind (that said, his friends have stayed with us on a few occasions and this wasn’t an issue. My boyfriend has never met this particular friend before, so he must be ‘unclean’ or something. Quite frankly, I’m a bit insulted over this one).

All of the plates in our kitchen have to be perfectly squared (we have square plates at his insistence as well), all products facing forward in perfect rows, everything at 90° angles.

There are more examples but this is already quite long. I’m at my wits end with this guy. I love him, but I cannot continue to live this way. Any suggestions on how to handle this? He really freaks out (yells, becomes irrational, I’ve seen him have 2 anxiety attacks…).
Not that anxiety attacks are not impacting his life, but the o.c.d. diagnosis, I think, usually requires something like an hour or more of obsessive-compulsive behavior per day that causes a decrease in happiness, quality of life or productivity.
I’ve thought of o.c.d. before, but I’m not sure it really fits. If I understand correctly, people with o.c.d. tend to know their obsessions and cumpulsions are irrational.

My boyfriend has convinced himself that his behavior is normal, and even superior to others’.

Every time he sees a movie that suggests similar behaviors are a little abnormal, he says things like ‘I don’t understand why these people are portrayed as crazy when they clearly just like for things to be orderly’ (refering to the dentist from Ghost Town) or ‘I can kind of relate to this guy (Leonardo DiCaprio’s character in The Aviator).

Also, before someone is diagnosed with o.c.d. they have to be affected in such a way that their life is significantly impacted. As far as I can tell, my bf is not bothered by his behavior nearly as much as I am. I have accomodate him by washing my feet, cleaning all the floors if someone’s ‘dirty’ foot touches the first tile inside our flat, etc. If not, he’s freaked out.
Not that anxiety attacks don’t significantly impact his life, but I think the diagnosis of o.c.d. requires that an hour or more per day is devoted to relieving the anxiety associated with the victims obsessions.

I have been of all benzodiazapines/ anti-anxiety medications for about 1 year now. I had been taking them for my severe anxiety/panic attack disorder. The main reason I decided to come off these medications is because I became extremely dependent on them. For about the past 6 months I have been completely miserable. I cant sleep, I cant eat, and am having really bad panic attacks several times a day. I finally gave in the other day and went to the doctor. I told her my previous problems i’ve had while taking xanax and other benzodiazapines, and asked for a non-addictive medication. She prescribed me Celexa. I have never heard of this medication before, but have not had very much success with the medications in the paxil/zoloft family.

So I guess what im saying is im in quite a rut. I dont want to become dependent on benzo’s again, but on the other hand they are the only drugs that have worked for me.

Are there other treatment options available, and what should I do?

I didn’t get a lot of answers before so….I had a lot of kidney stones in 2004 and went through Hell. I had blood transfusion because I lost blood during a procedure where they put a tube in my back to drain out infected urine, long hours in the ER, all kinds of tests, not knowing what was wrong, then more tests after finding out I had kidney stones, put on a lot of antibiotics by mouth and IV, hospital stay twice in one summer then again in December. Since then I”ve been scared to death to go to the doc for a follow up every time since ’04. Since ’04, I’ve had very small stones I could pass, nothing large so no surgery since ’04 but I still get terrified. I’m so terrified I get to the point when I’m having anxiety attacks at the doc’s office, putting off tests and appts avoiding the results. Everytime things go ok I still get scared about having treatments or surgery. I might feel fine, no pain or fever or anything but I still get scared. I’ve been drinking lemonade and lemon juice and passing the stones.
Today I had a lot of lemon juice with water and haven’t passed anything like I did before so I dont know if I passed them all or not. I have a follow up after some yearly tests in three days and I know it’s too late now that I had tests done already but I just wanted to see if I passed all the stones. I think maybe I did but I don’t know. But my point is, I get very terrified every single time I go to the doctor and I don’t want another surgery in any way at all nor do I want treatments. Do I have a right to refuse if I wanted to? He can’t legally operate on me if I refuse, right? I do want to be well but I just cannot go through all of this again. It’s been 4 years but I am still severely emotionally traumatized. Maybe I’m worried about nothing again but I can’t deal with the anxiety anymore and I can’t just not worry that I could be wrong, that I could have the stones that I still haven’t passed. I don’t know what to do.
Sorry, one last time, I promise! And my parents give me a really hard time if I do have the stones because I just hate drinking water til recently when I added lemon juice. Couldn’t I replace lemonade with water? I get so upset and traumatized by the whole thing that I can get to the point when I consider killing myself because I don’t want to face this ever again!

I would really appreciate some helpful answers since last time I asked this, only two people answered and didn’t do much.

I am 16 years old and always nervous. This weeks I have not gone to school and now I am so worried about that, and at the same time relieved because I just feel I can’t go. I have been abused, bulimic, had anxiety attacks, depression. I am not on medication, should I be? I see a therapist once a week, can she help me with this or should I go to my family doctor? When I feel nervous I have a big ball of pain in the centre of my abdomine (stomach?) and then I feel my heart being pulled at almost like being pinched by chains. I don’t know how to describe how I feel to my family, they are just really angry I haven’t done anything in the past week(s). How can I make them realize I am trapped in a mindset I don’t understand? I am so scared and I don’t know why. Help me.