Anxiety

[Mac05]

Things were starting to look up for me, but I still have moments of extreme anxiety. Take today for example, I had off of work after a week of working 6 8-hour days in an attempt to pay a ridiculously high student loan. However, I had nothing to do with myself all day, no real friends at home away from college, my boyfriend was busy, and my sister was doing her own thing. I found my thoughts drifting to a lot of self-hate, wondering why I'm not good enough, how I never have any fun in my life and only work myself to the bone. It actually got so bad that I considered hurting myself again after a month of being completely clean. I just wonder if anyone else is going through what I'm going through. Even when things are going well even a moment of time alone to think leads to an anxiety attack.

[Hidden]

Hello, am concerned that you stated you are hurting yourself and only stopped for a month before this day of not knowing what to do with yourself when no one else was available to distract you. Are you in therapy to help you stop this behavior and help you learn how to direct your energy into something productive even if you are by yourself? If not, think it would be a wise move to check into that. When you are busy, it seems as though you are using the energy that anxiety needs to feed on, and you handle the anxiety well. The sudden change on your day off work you hadn't planned anything to keep yourself busy and anxiety grabbed the energy, fed on it and hit you with a vengence. Sometimes we can out run anxiety by keeping super busy, but without learning other ways to deal with it, anxiety will find a way to take over when we finally have to rest.

Am very glad you did not harm yourself today, and you'll make it through the night. Please hang in there, and try to plan ways to be occupied on days when you are alone so anxiety doesn't have the energy it needs. Meditation, walking, computer games that you enjoy, breathing exercises, renting a movie are just some suggestions. We'll always be here, so you're not alone. Please keep us posted on how you are doing, ok?

[howard327]

Hi, If you are not seeing a therapist now, you definitely should. I received much help from a psychiatrist who helped me to better understand myself. He also prescribed two meds, one a benzodiazepine for short term help, and the other an anti depressive SSRI for long term.The SSRI helps with anxiety as well as depression. The longer you wait to try and get by by yourself, the harder it will be to be cured and you definitely can be cured, I was. Best of luck to you. I would be happy to try to answer any other questions you may have.