Seeking advice on meditation and unpleasant feelings

[TheMichelle]

Hello everyone,

I signed up on this forum in October, after having started to feel anxiety. It happened after an intense summer where I didn't stop to rest, I used to drink and smoke and party everyday and by the end of the summer - August/September - I started to feel something that I had never felt before, at least not like that, anxiety. I didn't know what was it at the time, I suddenly started felt like my brain couldn't stop thinking about random things, mostly about death. I couldn't stop thinking that everyone I know and me are going to die, and I started asking myself what was the point of all of this. I mean, I've always known that and I've always been ok with that my whole life. In fact, I had a really happy childhood and a family and friends that I love, so it didn't make any sense to me that I could be so sad or so anxious about everything. I always considered myself a really happy person and it's like suddenly I stopped feeling like that. And I got so scared just by thinking that all those parties and alcohol abuse could have damaged my brain and I could have some kind of mental disease. I couldn't sleep at night, I couldn't eat. I didn't know what to do. I went to the doctor and they told me to take xanax for 5 weeks and to try to exercise, because it would be good for anxiety. I was decided to get better so I started taking xanax and I promised myself that I would meditate everyday, and I did. I got back to university and to work and in December I was feeling a lot better. In the beginning of December I stopped taking xanax and kept meditating, and I felt like I was cured. But it was like something inside me wasn't the same anymore, I still had those fears that I started having in September, I just had found a way to calm myself down. I stopped meditating in January because I believed I didn't need it anymore.
Then in February I started having 2 jobs and university at night. Everytime I got home at night I always felt really tired and slept like a baby. I quit my second job a week ago because I needed more time for university and to rest more. And this week I was at work and I started feeling really tired, I had been feeling like that for some days but that day I felt like I was going to faint. And because I was scared of what could happen to me, I started feeling anxious and decided to leave.

And now I start to feel anxiety again, I start to feel fear, irrational fear. I started meditating again and felt like I should neve have stopped.

Can anyone give me some advice on how to get rid of fear and negative emotions, and feel love and happiness again?

Thank you so much

[Matthew]

You are right - better never to have stopped. If you are like most people you will spend up to an hour a day on your bodily hygiene - why not spend the same on your mental hygiene? That is what meditation is. You know the answer to your own questions - you would not be here writing them down if you did not!