I'm new to the site and to Anxiety!

[Olive Yew]

Hello world. My name is Kaylin. I've been dealing with Anxiety for about a month and a half. It sucks. If you go to Web MD and look through the list of symptoms that's a mile long.... I've been there done that with near about all of them. I think the only one I'm missing is the vomiting portion. My anxiety has even caused me to develop IBS (NOT FUN!!!).
Before anxiety, I was easy going, happy go lucky, laid back, fun loving. I was like the sweet innocent comic relief character you see in a lot of movies. Now I feel like I'm a storm cloud, crying all the time, scared of everything, my mood is either not-unhappy, Anxious, terrified, or grumpy. It's been hard on my friends and family and I feel like such a burden (even though they assure me I'm not and have been very supportive). I just want the old me back. I LIKED who I was... Even at the time, I was never one to have low self esteem and hate on myself. I was just generally content... And then I went through the "scared of everything, i feel like i'm dying of a horrible disease stage". I debunked those. But I still have the anxiety. It's better than it was. One or two attacks every 3-4 days. They aren't nearly as bad as they were because I dont jump to the worst conclusion anymore. But I'm still struggling to get back to happy go lucky me.

I'd like to make some friends and get some advice about killing off the rest of my anxiety that I haven't heard yet. Anything new helps! I really dont want to medicate. I know it's necessary for some people but i feel like it's not for me... I'm also scared of trying medication so... Tips for managing would be terrific :)

[NeverToo...Fear]

Hey Kaylin, welcome to the site! :)

I'm kinda like you in respect, not wanting to medicate..I'm also scared to try it..
The biggest thing I do to try and manage my anxiety is listen to music. Often it will distract me from whatever fears and irrational thoughts that live inside my head and help calm me down..another thing I've tried recently is to fidget, like taking a coin and trying to flip it through each finger..basically concentrating on something else helps me.

[Olive Yew]

Thank you! :)

I'm glad I'm not the only one who's anti meds. :P my dad has said similar: focus on something small to distract. Maybe now is a good time to try and learn how to do that pencil flip all the debate kids used to do in High School :P

Have you (or anyone else) had stress/anxiety headaches? Right now that's like a constant for me. It feels like I'm standing on my head all day except there's no head rush (at least not until I start panicking! Lol). Just this... Aching... Top-of-the-head-and-down-to-my-neck pain.... How do you get rid of it?!? It makes homework nigh impossible!

[NeverToo...Fear]

I do get stress headaches, but not very often..but when they are here they are pretty bad and I really can't concentrate on anything until it's gone..I haven't found a good way to get rid of them except to just lay down and try to relax--which makes it hard if you have stuff to do....sorry about your headaches, but hopefully someone else with a similar problem as yours will have a better idea than mine.