I'm new here

[Kimifan]

Hi,
I am a 23 year old female, who was diagnosed with anxiety 4 years ago, I suffered badly with chest pains and palpitations (still do, most days) anyway after trying every painkiller and anti-inflammatory drug available my GP sent me to hospital where they discovered a minor heart murmur (nothing serious) about a year later I was still going to the doctors complaining of my symptoms and after several trips to A and E I was finally referred to a cardiologist, who told me that other than the murmur my heart was fine and healthy.
It was only then that my doctor diagnosed me with anxiety, she recommended a book for me to read and gave me some beta-blockers to stop the palpitations (which I still take)
I have no idea what causes my anxiety, but I feel like it has such a hold over my life that I will never be free from it.
I suppose I'm hoping that by talking about it with people who know what it's like then I might start to feel a bit better about it.

[AnxiousEMT]

My therapist has told me that my anxiety kicks up when there are life changing events happening in my life. As I got back in time, it all makes sense. Every time my anxiety has caused me problems, there was a change in my life at the same time. My personality is strong and I am a very organized person, so when things don't happen the way I vision them, it makes it even harder for me. Look back in your life and try to think of any changes that occured. I was about your age when it happened to me. I won't openly tell what happened, but it was quite drastic to me.

I recently starting feeling the heart palps. They scared me at first and what made it even worse was being in the medical field and running through my head what could be wrong with me (stay away from webmd!). Once I got on here and realized people are having the same symptoms, it made me feel better.

[bigpappasnap]

I know how hard it is to feel like the world is closing in around you!! There are a few things that I can suggest to help.

-Focus your thoughts on other things

-go swimming!!

[Anxious Frank]

When I first started telling my friends and family about my social anxiety they didn't beleive me. By that stage, I had gotten pretty good at hiding how I felt.

The horrible thing about social anxiety is the shame it makes us feel. Like we are bad people because we shouldn't be feeling this way. So we hide it. It's kinda funny though, because so many of us have it. I mean this forum has like 8000 members. That's a good turnout for a forum for agoraphobics and social anxietists.

I think anxiety is far more common than we imagine.