Getting help

[ivyandroses]

So I have no idea if I actually have an anxiety disorder but I figured this would be something that you guys could relate to.

I've been struggling with something or other for a long time now and I don't really have a name for it. I don't know if it's a mental illness, a phase, hormones, whatever. I tried to talk to a psychiatrist once, at school. Actually, I went in to see her twice. I cried straight through both sessions so that I could barely think or speak clearly enough to answer her questions. I found myself feeling intensely anxious about going in to see her - for days, I was constantly afraid that she would call me down to her office, and the second time when I decided to take the plunge and go in to see her myself, I spent all day unsuccessfully trying to calm myself down. I decided that I couldn't do it anymore and haven't gone to see her since.

I keep seeing people everywhere say "If you think you have xyz disorder, see a professional!!". I literally can't see a professional. I've already decided that. So now I don't know what to do. I am very strongly against self-diagnosis so I've just been floating in a weird state of "clearly something is wrong but I don't know how to describe or treat it". How on earth do I resolve this situation? I have been trying to see if I can just resolve the anxiety as it comes, but it's not really working. I don't know how abnormal any of what I'm feeling is, so I'm having a lot of difficulty figuring out when and how I should deal with what. I don't know what to do.

[casstar01]

Well first of all welcome :). I'm wondering what exactly your symptoms are. If you can describe them myself and many others here will most likely be able to help give you some much needed feedback and possibly an answer as to what you may be dealing with. So what are your symptoms? Always here, casstar :)

[ivyandroses]

Well first of all welcome :). I'm wondering what exactly your symptoms are. If you can describe them myself and many others here will most likely be able to help give you some much needed feedback and possibly an answer as to what you may be dealing with. So what are your symptoms? Always here, casstar :)

It's hard to explain, that's one of the problems I kept running into. My worries seem to be circumstantial, which makes me think maybe it's not a disorder at all, just - stress. For example, I'm Catholic, and I'll go crazy over the smallest moral dilemmas - for example, it's "illegal" to walk on the right side of the road, and I've been worrying for months about my daily walk to to the bus stop which requires me to walk for about twenty feet on the right side of the road (I don't even know if it's illegal because the vehicle code is written really weirdly and I? don't know what to do???). I was commissioned to work on a cosplay about a month ago, but before I could get started I spent weeks obsessively researching copyright law and worrying constantly that I would break a law by sewing a cosplay. It affects my religious life horribly and makes it close to impossible to pray some days, which of course only makes me even more anxious about the state of my soul. I get a lot of anxiety over health - I worry a lot about concussions, dry drowning, and poisoning, specifically. Once when i was really sick I took a little over the recommended dosage of Advil on my doctor's orders, and at one point I could feel my heart beating faster than usual and I couldn't sleep at all because I was convinced I was dying of an overdose. Once I did a hair dye allergy test, washed my hands, and then ate some food, but then I felt a bit nauseous and I started freaking out thinking that I hadn't actually washed my hands and I just ingested hair dye and was dying of hair dye poisoning. Every single time I bump my head I have to analyze myself every few hours to make sure I don't have a concussion - any sort of headache, dizzyness, fatigue will set me off into convincing myself I could die in my sleep. I once went to the hospital because I thought I has inhaled water and was dry drowning, turned out the difficulty breathing and dizzyness was 100% panic attack. I know I don't have social anxiety because I do well in crowds and large groups (I actually feel most comfortable around lots and lots of people, I get anxiety mostly in one-on-one situations or very small groups), but I do have a tendency to obsess over what people will think of me. Every time I write an essay, give an oral performance, anything that involves more than fill-in-the-blank tests and quizzes, I start imagining all the worst criticism and feedback they can possible give me until I slowly convince myself that nothing I've come up with is within the parameters of the assignment or makes sense at all. I turn in a lot of homework and projects late or not at all because of this, and I never, ever proofread my essays because I know it will set me off. I've always been kind of weird and socially deprived, and even though I've made a lot of progress socially, thanks be to God, still every single day I keep flashing back to another conversation or event from a year or two ago that I suddenly realize was way more weird and awkward than it seemed at the time and I worry that I'm still that way and I just can't see it, and all the social progress that I've made is just a bunch of pity. I've had irrational phobias since I was a little kid; I always loved to read as a kid, but the downside to that was that I would stumble across books that would scare the crap out of me, and once I latched onto an idea I would be terrified of it for years. I used to be afraid of aliens that crawled inside your head at night - I used to do crazy things to ward them away, like putting tape over my ears at night. I still have fears like that, as embarrassed as I am to admit it - I'm terrified of people coming into my house at night and literally just kidnapping me and killing me in a torturous way. I'm afraid of looking in my mirror and seeing things behind me. I can't look in my mirror past a certain point at night and I can't sleep without the window latched and a cellphone nearby. It used to affect my life a lot more before I became religious, I thought that I could trigger those things happening by thinking certain words, walking through doors a certain way, eating at certain places, walking into certain stores, using certain objects (I still can't paint my nails with a particular nail polish for fear, even though I know it's superstitious and sinful to think that way)

Like I said I'm 16 years old and I really, really don't want to jump to the conclusion that this is an anxiety disorder, because that's what every single 16 year old does and I'll die before I jump on THAT bandwagon. It could be anything. I've considered that it could be hormones - my mom has depression/anxiety associated with her menstrual cycle so there's the very real possibility that I have the same thing. It could be caused by a bad diet, it could be caused by lack of exercise (I'll admit it right now, i eat terribly and I'm sedentary, although I try really hard to go for walks and eat enough protein and stuff), i drink way too much caffeine, my sleep habits are horribly screwed up, and the truth is I've always just been emotional and crap like that probably affects me more than the average person. I've gotten both better and worse since becoming religious - I used to have crippling superstitions, but once I got rid of those it just transferred to other crap. So I don't know.

[casstar01]

It's hard to explain, that's one of the problems I kept running into. My worries seem to be circumstantial, which makes me think maybe it's not a disorder at all, just - stress. For example, I'm Catholic, and I'll go crazy over the smallest moral dilemmas - for example, it's "illegal" to walk on the right side of the road, and I've been worrying for months about my daily walk to to the bus stop which requires me to walk for about twenty feet on the right side of the road (I don't even know if it's illegal because the vehicle code is written really weirdly and I? don't know what to do???). I was commissioned to work on a cosplay about a month ago, but before I could get started I spent weeks obsessively researching copyright law and worrying constantly that I would break a law by sewing a cosplay. It affects my religious life horribly and makes it close to impossible to pray some days, which of course only makes me even more anxious about the state of my soul. I get a lot of anxiety over health - I worry a lot about concussions, dry drowning, and poisoning, specifically. Once when i was really sick I took a little over the recommended dosage of Advil on my doctor's orders, and at one point I could feel my heart beating faster than usual and I couldn't sleep at all because I was convinced I was dying of an overdose. Once I did a hair dye allergy test, washed my hands, and then ate some food, but then I felt a bit nauseous and I started freaking out thinking that I hadn't actually washed my hands and I just ingested hair dye and was dying of hair dye poisoning. Every single time I bump my head I have to analyze myself every few hours to make sure I don't have a concussion - any sort of headache, dizzyness, fatigue will set me off into convincing myself I could die in my sleep. I once went to the hospital because I thought I has inhaled water and was dry drowning, turned out the difficulty breathing and dizzyness was 100% panic attack. I know I don't have social anxiety because I do well in crowds and large groups (I actually feel most comfortable around lots and lots of people, I get anxiety mostly in one-on-one situations or very small groups), but I do have a tendency to obsess over what people will think of me. Every time I write an essay, give an oral performance, anything that involves more than fill-in-the-blank tests and quizzes, I start imagining all the worst criticism and feedback they can possible give me until I slowly convince myself that nothing I've come up with is within the parameters of the assignment or makes sense at all. I turn in a lot of homework and projects late or not at all because of this, and I never, ever proofread my essays because I know it will set me off. I've always been kind of weird and socially deprived, and even though I've made a lot of progress socially, thanks be to God, still every single day I keep flashing back to another conversation or event from a year or two ago that I suddenly realize was way more weird and awkward than it seemed at the time and I worry that I'm still that way and I just can't see it, and all the social progress that I've made is just a bunch of pity. I've had irrational phobias since I was a little kid; I always loved to read as a kid, but the downside to that was that I would stumble across books that would scare the crap out of me, and once I latched onto an idea I would be terrified of it for years. I used to be afraid of aliens that crawled inside your head at night - I used to do crazy things to ward them away, like putting tape over my ears at night. I still have fears like that, as embarrassed as I am to admit it - I'm terrified of people coming into my house at night and literally just kidnapping me and killing me in a torturous way. I'm afraid of looking in my mirror and seeing things behind me. I can't look in my mirror past a certain point at night and I can't sleep without the window latched and a cellphone nearby. It used to affect my life a lot more before I became religious, I thought that I could trigger those things happening by thinking certain words, walking through doors a certain way, eating at certain places, walking into certain stores, using certain objects (I still can't paint my nails with a particular nail polish for fear, even though I know it's superstitious and sinful to think that way) Like I said I'm 16 years old and I really, really don't want to jump to the conclusion that this is an anxiety disorder, because that's what every single 16 year old does and I'll die before I jump on THAT bandwagon. It could be anything. I've considered that it could be hormones - my mom has depression/anxiety associated with her menstrual cycle so there's the very real possibility that I have the same thing. It could be caused by a bad diet, it could be caused by lack of exercise (I'll admit it right now, i eat terribly and I'm sedentary, although I try really hard to go for walks and eat enough protein and stuff), i drink way too much caffeine, my sleep habits are horribly screwed up, and the truth is I've always just been emotional and crap like that probably affects me more than the average person. I've gotten both better and worse since becoming religious - I used to have crippling superstitions, but once I got rid of those it just transferred to other crap. So I don't know. wow! I'm so sorry to hear you are suffering with all this ivyandroses!! I know you don't want to jump to conclusions but here is my opinion and I will tell you I have suffered with a lot of what you have described my whole life, since my first memory so that is what I'm basing this on first while you don't believe you have social anxiety it could be you have a mild case much if what you described as far as worrying over what others think of you, going over conversations from the past sounds like it. But what I'm possitive you are suffering with is generalized anxiety disorder. The things you are obsessively worrying over is not normal teen stuff honey and you are so young, don't spend your life feeling this way! This is NOT to scare you but these things can tend to worsen as you get older and don't get help for them and being so young you really have a chance at overcoming it easier because the longer your brain assimilates to this line of thinking the more it becomes hard wired in your brain and becomes your only identity- if that makes sence. Also it sounds like you have panic disorder which just means you have panic attacks like thinking you are dying from certain things I used to suffer with that terribly and by the grace of god overcame it fully but it took hard work and medication. My panic disorder went along with o.c.d. Which also went away with the panic. What makes me think this is what you say about warding things off, not going or doing certain things etc.. The only thing I don't have and don't know much about so I'm in no way sure about it but I've heard others speak of something called health anxiety but again I don't know about that. Now it may feel overwhelming to hear about all these disorders but really they can all go hand in hand they are all a form of ANXIETY and all can have a tendancy to go hand in hand- they did and do for me. I truly sympathize with you. These are not easy things to deal with even for adults but you are at a great advantage by being so young, your mind is still growing and maturing and you CAN change!!! But ( and I know you don't want to hear this) it is really really important to get some help and likely some medication- it can be temporary but maybe you won't need meds either. Is this something you can talk to your parents about? Would they be willing to get you to a "professional" instead of the school counsiler for example. But I want to stress to you to try not to feel too overwhelmed or scared by any of this. There is nothing wrong with you, your brain is just trying to help you but it's gone overboard so to speak, it's hard to explain. Also eating healthy and excersizes WILL help, it does make a difference. And if you can STOP with all the caffeine!!!! That is absolutely making all your anxiety worse!! I can't stress that enough!!!!!! I hope this helped!! Always here, casstar :)