The number one piece of advice that I can give is see a doctor. Not a psychologist or psychiatrist—just a medical doctor. Tell them your main symptoms (low energy, difficulty focusing, panic attacks) and have them run some tests. Those types of problems can have physical, medical causes (including conditions involving the thyroid or blood sugar—hyperthyroidism & hypoglycemia). If a medical problem is a big part of what’s happening, you need to get it taken care of.
If you’re having trouble getting yourself to the doctor, then you need to find a way to do it. Can you ask someone for help? Would a family member help you set up a doctor’s appointment and help get you there? A friend? You might even be able to find someone on Less Wrong who lives near you and could help.
My second and third suggestions would be to find a friend or family member who can give you more support and help (talking about your issues, driving you to appointments, etc.) and to start seeing a therapist again (and find a good one—someone who uses cognitive-behavioral therapy).
This is technically a good idea. What counts as “my main symptoms”, though? The ones that make life most difficult? The ones that occur most often? The most visible ones to others? To me?
You’ll want to give the doctor a sense of what’s going on with you (just like you’ve done here), and then to help them find any medical issues that may be causing your problems. So give an overall description of the problem and how serious it is (sort of like in your initial post—your lack of energy, inability to do things, and lots of related problems) - including some examples or specifics (like these) can help make that clearer. And be sure to describe anything that seems like it could be physiological (the three that stuck out to me were lack of energy, difficulty focusing, and anxiety / panic attacks—you might be able to think of some others).
The doctor will have questions which will help guide the conversation, and you can always ask whether they want more details about something. Do you think that figuring out what to say to the doctor could be a barrier for you? If so, let me know—I could say more about it.
The number one piece of advice that I can give is see a doctor. Not a psychologist or psychiatrist—just a medical doctor. Tell them your main symptoms (low energy, difficulty focusing, panic attacks) and have them run some tests. Those types of problems can have physical, medical causes (including conditions involving the thyroid or blood sugar—hyperthyroidism & hypoglycemia). If a medical problem is a big part of what’s happening, you need to get it taken care of.
If you’re having trouble getting yourself to the doctor, then you need to find a way to do it. Can you ask someone for help? Would a family member help you set up a doctor’s appointment and help get you there? A friend? You might even be able to find someone on Less Wrong who lives near you and could help.
My second and third suggestions would be to find a friend or family member who can give you more support and help (talking about your issues, driving you to appointments, etc.) and to start seeing a therapist again (and find a good one—someone who uses cognitive-behavioral therapy).
This is technically a good idea. What counts as “my main symptoms”, though? The ones that make life most difficult? The ones that occur most often? The most visible ones to others? To me?
You’ll want to give the doctor a sense of what’s going on with you (just like you’ve done here), and then to help them find any medical issues that may be causing your problems. So give an overall description of the problem and how serious it is (sort of like in your initial post—your lack of energy, inability to do things, and lots of related problems) - including some examples or specifics (like these) can help make that clearer. And be sure to describe anything that seems like it could be physiological (the three that stuck out to me were lack of energy, difficulty focusing, and anxiety / panic attacks—you might be able to think of some others).
The doctor will have questions which will help guide the conversation, and you can always ask whether they want more details about something. Do you think that figuring out what to say to the doctor could be a barrier for you? If so, let me know—I could say more about it.