Yup, startle response is a legit thing. I linked to an abstract on PubMed about startle response in folks with GAD. Apparently it's worse when you're experiencing negative emotions.

I've got the depression diagnosis as well. Fun times! I think depression was the most difficult one to work with, or at least the episodes are more obvious. I've made sure to stay on a prophylactic dose of antidepressants (hence my happiness that Paxil, which is good for anti-anxiety too, has worked so well for me for…

Thanks! I had too much trouble with PTSD for a while, thankfully. I still really should look into finally doing EMDR, as I'm a great candidate and have been stuck in the 'angry' phase of grief for at least 6 or 7 years now and when I really try to think about stuff from then I feel the beginnings of an anxiety attack…

I completely understand what you mean with the 'if I squint and turn my head sideways'. In the US I'd keep pepper spray/mace on me at all times. So I can kind of see that elevating to guns for self defense.

Oh I've done that too. A friend of mine is lucky I had to presence of mind to merely push him away instead of going straight for my pepper spray when he snuck up behind me in a mall. If you didn't already know, what you've described is called an elevated startle response. So you can go all clinical on their butts and…

Great point! I've donated chemo beanies before and obviously never charged for them. What's different this time is that I'm knitting stuff to sell to raise money for the charity (the charity's not really set up for me to give the items directly to them to sell on).

I say good for him. Any modelling gigs and even paid appearances on reality TV will help him support himself and his family and help him keep on his path of rehabilitation. If he was legitimately turning his life around before his arrest, set backs like this can make it so much harder to keep on track. Maybe he can be…

Fortunately, Paxil has been my friend for over a decade now. My joyful experience was long term emotional abuse as a teen from my father and step-mother (I scoffed at the therapist the first time she mentioned PTSD, as I hadn't had a near-death experience, but she assured me that what I went through would also do it).…

I wish I had a peep hole. But thinking of the most recent time a couple of months ago when a friend dropped by unexpectedly, I didn't even manage to leave my room to get to a window or peep hole. I just sat frozen in my bedroom for a bit. The only reason I even knew it was my friend because he got in touch with me…

I suffer from anxiety problems (diagnoses of PTSD and GAD) and in the US I would carry pepper spray/mace with me. I never used it, but having that defensive weapon made me feel a little better. It probably was more like a talisman than anything (when feeling anxious when walking around, holding the cannister on my…

Exactly! My friends know that I tend to freak out if someone knocks on the door to get in and so they handle opening the door ('OMG It's someone who's coming to kill all of us!' '[Taking slow breaths and applying what I learned from CBT] No UKMel, remember that last time it wasn't someone coming to kill all of us,…

For any other psych/medical folks on here, did the Generalized Anxiety Disorder seem to be a weird disorder to go to for the defense? I would think most of the symptoms were internally focused, so would result in someone having an anxiety attack and curling up into a ball (from my own personal experience with GAD)…

I have had perfect strangers ask if I can make them something, for which I usually say no. Well, this happened once, and I was working on some costuming while on a 2 hour light rail train journey. I said no mostly because I was up to my neck in the costumes I was working on and couldn't take on anything else in order…

The laboratory gave me strict instructions to issue no comment

Yeah, I'm pretty sure my mailman might have complained about being able to see me changing, as his delivery schedule and my daily schedule seemed to be unfortunately coordinated. My curtains kept falling down whenever I moved the curtains (because it was broken because the landlords installed cheap fixtures) and I'd…

I shared my 'friend saw me naked' story above that came into being precisely because I kept my door open about 3 inches for the convenience of my cat! I've now gotten a bit better at standing so the rest of my door obstructs any view.

In college, I shared a 4-bedroom apartment and kept my door open about 3 inches so my cat could get in and out of my room as he desired. I figured it would never be a problem changing in my room because someone would have to be sitting in an exact spot on the couch and looking into my room. This didn't happen until a…

I loved the bit about how she tried to set up a hair braiding business as an undergrad (making a poster and everything), but in the end couldn't charge her friends for braiding their hair and so making no money. This sounds like what I end up doing when I knit stuff for my friends - I ask them just to purchase the…

People tend to feel a bit uncomfortable after I explain my tattoo. I have a tattoo on my right shoulder blade that is in memory of my mother that I got at the 15th anniversary of her passing. It's a tree design with the memorial prayer for the mother written in Hebrew around the top (so I have to explain that bit) and…

I have a tattoo on my right shoulder blade. It's a memorial for my mother that I got on the 15th anniversary of her death. So it's primarily there for me, as the vast majority of my clothing covers it. Although it was a bit of a b*tch to put the gloopy stuff on for the few weeks after I got it done (and I think some…