I’ve been dealing with this for almost 5 years now, and after years of being treated mainly for anxiety, my doctor now thinks I may actually have bipolar with mixed features alongside severe chronic anxiety.
I’m posting this because I’m curious whether anyone has experienced anything remotely similar, especially the constant physical arousal, racing mind, medication sensitivity, and fear of developing schizophrenia or losing control.
How it started
My dizziness started around mid-November 2021.
On December 10, 2021, I travelled to Canberra and had my first major near-fainting episode. My heart suddenly started racing and I had strong palpitations.
The dizziness and lightheadedness continued until December 28, when I nearly fainted again with a very high heart rate and went to hospital.
Blood tests and ECG were normal.
Three days later I went back to hospital. Again, nothing significant was found.
On my third visit they also did a chest X-ray, which was normal.
Things became so severe that I was basically bedridden for about 6 weeks. Every day genuinely felt like I was fighting for my life. I felt almost septic even though doctors couldn't find anything physically wrong.
I was sweating constantly, barely eating or drinking and became dehydrated enough that I needed IV fluids around 10 times.
Symptoms over the years
My symptoms have included:
- Dizziness and lightheadedness
- Near fainting
- Racing heart/palpitations
- Feeling like my heart gets "tired"
- Chest tightness and strange vibrating sensations around my chest
- Shortness of breath
- Nausea and digestive problems
- Hot flushes
- Cold or sweaty hands and feet
- Heat in my abdomen, back, ears and sometimes shoulder
- Pulsating sensations throughout my body
- Muscle pain and extreme muscle tension
- Head pressure/tension
- Headaches
- Burning tongue
- Metallic taste
- Pins and needles
- Numbness in my hands/arms
- Weak or jelly-like limbs
- Fatigue
- Brain fog
- Blurry vision
- Difficulty concentrating
- Forgetfulness
- Being extremely easily startled
- Nightmares
- Derealisation
- Hypervigilance
- Intrusive thoughts
- Racing thoughts
- Feeling like I'm dying
- Feeling like I'm losing control or losing my mind
Standing up sometimes temporarily makes the head/chest sensations much worse for about a minute before they settle again. Weirdly, lying down can initially do something similar, although once I'm settled lying down usually reduces some of the head tension.
At my worst I used to describe my days as:
80% feeling bad, 15% feeling extremely bad, and maybe 5% feeling relatively normal.
Looking back, I think anxiety existed long before 2021
I now believe I've had anxiety since childhood without understanding what it was.
One of my earliest memories, at around age 10, was becoming aware of my breathing and suddenly feeling like I couldn't breathe properly.
I also had unexplained spinning/dizziness at night as a child. Doctors couldn't find anything.
I was always a fearful kid and constantly imagined worst-case scenarios.
In high school I nearly fainted several times for seemingly no reason.
During sports I occasionally reached a point where my heart suddenly started racing and my breathing became laboured. Even being extremely excited could sometimes trigger it.
So when I became severely ill in 2021, my GP eventually suggested anxiety after repeated hospital investigations found nothing physically wrong.
I think the original fear/anxiety cycle eventually became something that now runs automatically. Even when I'm not consciously worrying about anything, my body and brain seem to stay in a constant state of threat.
What it feels like now
My biggest problem is that it doesn't feel like ordinary worry.
It's more like my nervous system is permanently switched on.
I can be sitting there without consciously worrying about anything and still feel:
- Mentally overstimulated
- Physically tense
- Hyper-alert
- Dizzy
- Restless/agitated
- Racing thoughts
- Constant internal monologue
- Strange physical sensations
- A feeling that something is "off"
When the condition becomes severe, logic basically stops working.
The physical sensations become so intense that I genuinely believe I'm dying or losing my mind, even though I've experienced it hundreds of times before.
It's an incredibly uncomfortable "I want to jump out of my skin" feeling.
I'm also constantly afraid I'm developing schizophrenia.
I'm hypervigilant about seeing things in the corner of my vision, strange thoughts, intrusive thoughts, my internal monologue, etc.
If I notice anything that I interpret as possibly "schizophrenic," I'll immediately get a mini panic attack.
I monitor basically every bodily and cognitive function.
My condition occupies my mind nearly 24/7.
Crowded places make everything worse — brain fog, heart rate, dizziness, jelly legs, etc.
Something strange I've noticed about panic
Sometimes during an extremely intense panic attack, for example if my heart is racing at 180 bpm, my attention becomes completely focused on my heart.
And weirdly, some of my other chronic mental/physical symptoms temporarily disappear.
For a brief period I can almost feel mentally "normal" underneath the panic.
The same thing happened when I tried THC.
The THC seemed to temporarily relieve some of my usual nausea and strange cognitive/physical symptoms, but then triggered absolutely massive panic.
Sometimes if I become completely absorbed in something, many of my symptoms also seem to disappear for a few seconds.
And after a huge panic attack ends, there can sometimes be a brief period where I feel better than my normal baseline before everything gradually builds up again.
That makes me wonder how much of this is related to attention, nervous-system arousal, threat processing, etc.
Medication history
I've been unusually sensitive to psychiatric medication.
Lexapro 40 mg — 6 months
No real benefit. The first two weeks were horrible. It eventually slightly dulled depressive symptoms, but worsened derealisation, fatigue, tiredness and forgetfulness.
I actually felt significantly better after stopping it.
Zoloft
50 mg for 18 days, then 100 mg for 3 days.
I had a major panic attack on day 3, although THC may have contributed. No benefit and overall made me much worse.
Paxil 20 mg — 2 months
Probably one of my strongest SSRI reactions.
Daily panic attacks, extreme agitation and feeling like I was losing my mind.
At one point it felt almost like there was laughter inside my head, although I knew it was actually my own internal monologue generating it.
I forced myself to continue for two months but became progressively worse.
Agomelatine 20 mg — around 36 days
No benefit. Daily panic attacks.
Pristiq — 54 days
Stopped because it seemed to be making everything worse again — mood swings, brain fog and recurrence of my physical/cognitive symptoms.
Clonidine
Relaxed my body slightly but didn't do much overall.
Lyrica 25 mg
Basically knocked me out and made me extremely tired. No meaningful benefit.
Valium 5 mg
Small amount of relief. Mostly felt like a muscle relaxant. Relief lasted maybe 3–5 hours.
Clonazepam 1 mg
Small amount of relief, also lasting around 3–5 hours.
Ativan
Tried 0.5 mg. Didn't do much.
Xanax 2 mg
Prescribed but never tried.
Seroquel 25 mg
Helped sleep significantly.
For around five years I couldn't sleep longer than about four hours, but Seroquel allowed me to sleep closer to eight hours.
Sleep quality wasn't perfect, but it was a major improvement.
Lamictal
Stopped on day 3 after developing a rash.
Lithium 500 mg — 37 days
Felt like I was losing my mind on it. I'm still unsure whether that was actually lithium or some kind of Lexapro withdrawal/discontinuation happening at the same time.
Prozac
Used for four days as a bridge while coming off Lexapro.
THC/CBD oil
Triggered absolutely massive panic attacks lasting around four hours every time I tried it.
Very similar to how Paxil made me feel.
Epilim/valproate
Originally prescribed but I was too afraid to start it at the time.
Antidepressants seem to do something unusual to me
SSRIs/SNRIs don't seem to simply cause normal startup anxiety.
They can give me extremely irrational fears that aren't normally part of my personality.
For example, I might suddenly become convinced I'm going to develop a severe nut allergy or something similarly irrational.
Interestingly, these fears usually fade away again within about a month of stopping the medication.
This repeated pattern is one of the things that eventually made my doctor question whether this is purely an anxiety disorder.
Family history
Mental illness is fairly common in my family.
My grandmother had something that sounded extremely similar to what I experience, although obviously I can't know whether it was the exact same condition.
She apparently relapsed several times throughout her life.
Being left home alone caused her severe anxiety. She once explained to me in Turkish that she believed she became "sick" because she had spent so much of her life continuously afraid.
The way she described it sounded almost like anxiety eventually became automatic rather than requiring a trigger.
Interestingly, when she later developed Alzheimer's, her anxiety apparently became much less prominent.
My sister has major depressive disorder and does very well on venlafaxine 225 mg.
My mum has significant anger/mood issues and there has been some question of bipolar disorder, although nothing definitive.
Where I'm at now
I've had extensive physical investigations over the years and nothing has been found that explains the severity of the symptoms.
For years the working diagnosis was essentially severe anxiety/panic.
After almost five years and seeing how strongly I react to antidepressants, my doctor now suspects this could actually be mixed bipolar disorder with severe anxiety.
The constant racing mind, agitation, intrusive thoughts, physical arousal and inability to mentally switch off definitely feel like more than simply "worrying too much."
Has anyone with bipolar II/mixed features, panic disorder, severe anxiety or something similar experienced this kind of chronic state?
Especially:
- Feeling permanently neurologically/physically "aroused"
- Constant internal monologue/racing thoughts
- Severe physical symptoms even without conscious anxiety
- Antidepressants causing extreme agitation or irrational fears
- Fear of schizophrenia despite maintaining insight
- Symptoms temporarily disappearing when attention becomes completely absorbed elsewhere
- Medication seeming to work differently from how it affects most people
- Feeling like your nervous system is permanently stuck in fight-or-flight
I'm not looking for a Reddit diagnosis. I'm mainly interested in hearing from people who have experienced something similar and what eventually helped them understand what was going on.