Zenabi
06-27-2012, 10:47 AM
Hello everyone!
I think i've found the right place to tell my story. I hope you will listen
Im a 19 year old boy who lives in Denmark. I finished high-school (something similiar to high-school we call "gymnaisium" in Denmark) about a year ago. I am now living at home but soon going to the capital city to study at a university.
For a long time i regarded myself as a completely normal young boy with nothing particular to worry about. I come from a good and strong family and i have never been the victim of anything bad or experienced anything horrible.
Now, it all began when i started in high-school. Because i skipped a year in elementary school i've always been 1-2 years younger than everyone else but that had never seemed to affect anything at all.
I started feeling inadequate and i had low self-esteem especially when it came to my physical appearance. I was never satisfied with the way i looked and the cloth i was wearing. But then again, something that many other teenagers go through too. But i seemed to get worse and my self esteem kept descending. I started feeling this strange anxiety coming; crawling into me and starting to affect me. I started to feel nervous when i entered the high-school in the morning. I was nervous about meeting some people in the corridors for no particular reason. I started to become afraid of ending up in situations where i could become anxious. and then the panic attacks came... sometimes i would suddenly be sucked into this abyss of extreme anxiety, the world would just close around me and social situations while being in this condition were like experiencing the purgatory. just suffering... class presentation would make me so nervous i was about to sh*t my pants. but for some strange strange reason examns didn't make me nervous at all LOL...
After these attacks i would become sad and depressed feeling like sh*t. Like i was nothing worth at all.
the thing is (which i thing differs me from other people suffering from something similiar) that i kept pushing myself into situations where i knew i could experience anxiety. I thought that if i just kept confronting it it would go away. But i was wrong and the older i grew i just seemed to get worse. I mean, the more intelligent and aware i became the more aware i became of all the things i could get anxious about. It's like my brain often starts imagining all the things that could go wrong in a social situation even though im not in that situation at all!!
Often I go around with a feeling that my heart is pumping hard constantly. Just a feeling of mild anxiety all the time. Then at other times i feel relaxed without a constant feeling of anxiety. f*cking strange...
I've always had lots of friends and people look strangely at me when i tell them i suffer from social anxiety. I seem to be good at hiding it even though im sometimes going through hell inside.. Most people even regard me as a social person and definetly not as nervous person!
And it's true that i can feel glad and very grounded and relaxed in social situations. But thats only in places and with people i feel totally comfortable and safe around. people i KNOW won't hurt me at all.
I've started speaking about my problem half a year ago. With parents and friends etc. It has helped a bit and i've become more aware of my limits and my challenges. But it still seems like there is so far to go. I want to able to walk down the street, meet random people i know, go shopping without constantly having to fear my anxiety and the things it does to me. Only at this point i realized there are techniques to cope with panic attacks. To let it go through you, to accept it, to laugh at it. MY problem concerning this is just that my panic attacks seem to occur in social situations and not just randomly. F.ex. when i was a substitute teacher and had a major panic attack standing in front of a class. I can't just sit down or go away while teaching a class, so i have to live through it. At another point i got a major panic attack because i thought i saw someone i knew in a public place and just couldnt manage to say hello. It was after a long stressful day with a lot of social interaction and I thought to myself "i dont want to meet someone right know please". and then ofc i happens and i just completely melt down and starts to run away.
Why? i mean why why why? it makes no sense? if i can be afraid of anything, even my own friends and eight-graders how can i ever feel safe? I try to give it all the middle finger and laught at it, but that can be very hard to. Everytime i've had a panic attack my self-esteem drops to zero and i start crying.
I regard myself as a fairly intelligent person and maybe that is a weakness. I am so aware of everything that my brain is able to send massive ammounts of thoughts relating to anxiety through my head at any given moment.
I am going to study political/economical science after this summer holiday but then i ask myself: How am i ever going to have a job in this field if i can get a panic attack at any given moment while standing in front of people?
Even though i go to parties and similiar social gathering. But very often it's hard for me to decide whether to go or not because i'm not much of a party person. I spend so much mental energy, i get depressed from drinking and i would much rather ride my road bike through the night feeling the cold air with a good friend. But then i tell myself that if i dont go to parties how can i ever meet girls? i have never had a girlfriend. I have dated a some girls for a while but it has never ended up in a serious relationship! I miss the comfort of a girlfriend but i just can't seem so suceed in finding a proper one -.-
I try to live as healthy as possible. i do A LOT of cardio excersicing, mainly running and cycling, i eat only organic food and i eat very healthy, i avoid candy and fast food. I live in the country side and go for long walks with my dog to be relaxed.
But the sh*t is still dominating my thoughts and my social abilities. not a day passes where i don't think a lot about it. i want it to go away, but nothing seems to help.
sorry for the long post but just wanted to share and hear if some of you have experienced something similiar.
thank you
-jonathan
I think i've found the right place to tell my story. I hope you will listen
Im a 19 year old boy who lives in Denmark. I finished high-school (something similiar to high-school we call "gymnaisium" in Denmark) about a year ago. I am now living at home but soon going to the capital city to study at a university.
For a long time i regarded myself as a completely normal young boy with nothing particular to worry about. I come from a good and strong family and i have never been the victim of anything bad or experienced anything horrible.
Now, it all began when i started in high-school. Because i skipped a year in elementary school i've always been 1-2 years younger than everyone else but that had never seemed to affect anything at all.
I started feeling inadequate and i had low self-esteem especially when it came to my physical appearance. I was never satisfied with the way i looked and the cloth i was wearing. But then again, something that many other teenagers go through too. But i seemed to get worse and my self esteem kept descending. I started feeling this strange anxiety coming; crawling into me and starting to affect me. I started to feel nervous when i entered the high-school in the morning. I was nervous about meeting some people in the corridors for no particular reason. I started to become afraid of ending up in situations where i could become anxious. and then the panic attacks came... sometimes i would suddenly be sucked into this abyss of extreme anxiety, the world would just close around me and social situations while being in this condition were like experiencing the purgatory. just suffering... class presentation would make me so nervous i was about to sh*t my pants. but for some strange strange reason examns didn't make me nervous at all LOL...
After these attacks i would become sad and depressed feeling like sh*t. Like i was nothing worth at all.
the thing is (which i thing differs me from other people suffering from something similiar) that i kept pushing myself into situations where i knew i could experience anxiety. I thought that if i just kept confronting it it would go away. But i was wrong and the older i grew i just seemed to get worse. I mean, the more intelligent and aware i became the more aware i became of all the things i could get anxious about. It's like my brain often starts imagining all the things that could go wrong in a social situation even though im not in that situation at all!!
Often I go around with a feeling that my heart is pumping hard constantly. Just a feeling of mild anxiety all the time. Then at other times i feel relaxed without a constant feeling of anxiety. f*cking strange...
I've always had lots of friends and people look strangely at me when i tell them i suffer from social anxiety. I seem to be good at hiding it even though im sometimes going through hell inside.. Most people even regard me as a social person and definetly not as nervous person!
And it's true that i can feel glad and very grounded and relaxed in social situations. But thats only in places and with people i feel totally comfortable and safe around. people i KNOW won't hurt me at all.
I've started speaking about my problem half a year ago. With parents and friends etc. It has helped a bit and i've become more aware of my limits and my challenges. But it still seems like there is so far to go. I want to able to walk down the street, meet random people i know, go shopping without constantly having to fear my anxiety and the things it does to me. Only at this point i realized there are techniques to cope with panic attacks. To let it go through you, to accept it, to laugh at it. MY problem concerning this is just that my panic attacks seem to occur in social situations and not just randomly. F.ex. when i was a substitute teacher and had a major panic attack standing in front of a class. I can't just sit down or go away while teaching a class, so i have to live through it. At another point i got a major panic attack because i thought i saw someone i knew in a public place and just couldnt manage to say hello. It was after a long stressful day with a lot of social interaction and I thought to myself "i dont want to meet someone right know please". and then ofc i happens and i just completely melt down and starts to run away.
Why? i mean why why why? it makes no sense? if i can be afraid of anything, even my own friends and eight-graders how can i ever feel safe? I try to give it all the middle finger and laught at it, but that can be very hard to. Everytime i've had a panic attack my self-esteem drops to zero and i start crying.
I regard myself as a fairly intelligent person and maybe that is a weakness. I am so aware of everything that my brain is able to send massive ammounts of thoughts relating to anxiety through my head at any given moment.
I am going to study political/economical science after this summer holiday but then i ask myself: How am i ever going to have a job in this field if i can get a panic attack at any given moment while standing in front of people?
Even though i go to parties and similiar social gathering. But very often it's hard for me to decide whether to go or not because i'm not much of a party person. I spend so much mental energy, i get depressed from drinking and i would much rather ride my road bike through the night feeling the cold air with a good friend. But then i tell myself that if i dont go to parties how can i ever meet girls? i have never had a girlfriend. I have dated a some girls for a while but it has never ended up in a serious relationship! I miss the comfort of a girlfriend but i just can't seem so suceed in finding a proper one -.-
I try to live as healthy as possible. i do A LOT of cardio excersicing, mainly running and cycling, i eat only organic food and i eat very healthy, i avoid candy and fast food. I live in the country side and go for long walks with my dog to be relaxed.
But the sh*t is still dominating my thoughts and my social abilities. not a day passes where i don't think a lot about it. i want it to go away, but nothing seems to help.
sorry for the long post but just wanted to share and hear if some of you have experienced something similiar.
thank you
-jonathan