dmimima
06-17-2013, 08:12 AM
I decided to join this forum last night as I was feeling really anxious over a social situation I'm going to be in today. I've always been a pretty anxious person, but as I've gotten older I've realized it's gotten worse. I have social anxiety for the most part. I use to wonder why I would constantly get a headache and feel sick when I went to the mall (or other places with large crowds) and then I realized it was my social anxiety. I also get extremely anxious when I'm in a situation where I don't have complete control. I've been able to cope with my panic attacks for the most part (and when I say cope I mean just let them pass) but now they are preventing me from wanting to do things or go places because I know i'll get one. This past weekend, I went on a short weekend vacation to the beach with my boyfriend. My boyfriend and I have been together for 2 years, so I trust him. He's someone I always feel comfortable with, but because I was about 3 hours away from home I had a panic attack. I didn't even recognize it was a panic attack at first. I just felt extremely weird. Like my body was in panic mood, but my head wasn't. It was making me feel very odd and kind of sad too. Then I looked up my symptoms and saw this was a form of a panic attack (I'm use to the ones where my heart starts racing, and I feel like I can't breathe). A couple of months ago, I was flying out to NY to see my favorite singer of all time. It was something I had been looking forward to forever, and I was going with my cousin (who lives with me) and we were going to be staying with my dad. Honestly, I almost didn't go that weekend because I was having such horrible anxiety about leaving. Even though I knew everything would be fine, I just had to force myself to leave because I didn't want my anxiety controlling my life. Now, today I'm going to orientation for a university I've been looking forward to attending for months now, and seriously I feel like I can't breathe. And the worse part is that I've been dreading the fact that I knew I was going to get anxiety the day orientation arrived. The university is LITERALLY 15 minutes away from my house (part of the reason I chose to go there is because of the closeness to my house) but I have to spend the night and the entire day there. I've been planning on living on campus (just to get the full college experience) but now I'm maybe thinking its not a good idea because of my anxiety. Which is awful. Because I hate the idea of allowing anxiety to control every aspect of my life. I only feel comfortable going to places I've been before (numerous times) and that's not okay. Especially since I want to travel when I get older. I'm starting to think it's time for me to go to therapy... I really don't want to go on medication, so I think talk therapy might be a better solution.
Has therapy worked for you? And what ways to you use to cope with your anxiety?
My name is Diana by the way and I'm 18.
Has therapy worked for you? And what ways to you use to cope with your anxiety?
My name is Diana by the way and I'm 18.