anxiety and youth - please share your experiences?

[madfinn]

Hi everyone,

I'm 23 and I am currently trying to overcome my anxiety, but even typing this is difficult. I am currently in college and trying to figure out my life while simultaneously trying not to let anxiety get in the way of the goals i want to achieve, but at times I feel utterly defeated and won't ever get out of the anxiety that rules many aspects of my life. There was a time when i did not have anxiety, and everything seemed possible, but due to family issues and being in a constant state of heavy stress, i had developed severe anxiety where i would be perpetually trembling and was in a state of constant fear. Now, the things that spur the trembling could be something as little as hearing my own voice. I have a paper due and a verbal presentation next week, which has me absolutely paralyzed and which lead me to find this site. I know that getting a low grade will not destroy my life, and i feel silly for feeling so completely terrified - but it is in fact how i feel. I do not have any parents and I only have 2 other family members, both of which are far away. My only support system has been myself, and i had worked hard to get out of detrimental situations when i was younger. But now i am finding it so difficult to rely on myself when i am my own source of fear.

I just wanted to hear your experiences, what you are currently going through/have already gone through in dealing with your anxiety while going through college, being in your 20s, or being in the stages of trying to prioritize your life.

[Goomba]

http://anxietyforum.net/forum/showthread.php?30789-My-Hypochondria-Was-The-Best-Thing-To-Ever-Happen-To-Me

[gypsylee]

I just wanted to hear your experiences, what you are currently going through/have already gone through in dealing with your anxiety while going through college, being in your 20s, or being in the stages of trying to prioritize your life.

Hi and welcome :)

I had pretty bad anxiety all through my teens but it hit me full-on at 19. I was in second year university and I was having severe anxiety/panic pretty much all the time. I had to tell my parents I couldn't keep going. I'd always been a really high achiever so it was incredibly scary. I deferred and my parents took me to a psychiatrist who put me on a cocktail of anti-depressants, anti-anxiety and anti-psychotic meds. I ended up as a complete zombie for about nine months and thought I was headed straight for a mental institution.

Mum ended up finding me a new shrink because of how bad I was and he took me off everything except the Xanax and started again. I saw him every week for months and eventually Prozac worked and I was able to function somewhat normally again.

I ended up finishing my degree and getting a job but I still had problems with anxiety - I used alcohol and benzos to cope, which certainly doesn't help in the long run. My boss was also a nightmare so I had another nervous breakdown and left.

Soon after that I met the guy I ended up marrying and having a child with. So I never had any career using my degree. The anxiety, alcoholism and sedative addiction continued until I ended up hospitalised with pancreatitis and had to face up to my alcohol abuse.

So that's a brief summary of my life with anxiety lol. I'm in my early 40s now and I deal with things a lot better (because I HAD to) but I still struggle with anxiety and depression. I'm still on SSRIs (Lexapro) and benzos occasionally.

I pretty much consider my story one of how NOT to deal with anxiety ;)

Cheers,
Gypsy x

P.S. I'm now looking after my mum who is in her 70s and very unwell and I can see where ALL that anxiety comes from.

[madfinn]

thank you so much for sharing, gypsy! i can relate to being a high achiever and am going through similar feelings of just wanting to defect, especially in my current state. but i am glad that you have overcome so much and that there are others here who have dealt with similar issues. it makes me hopeful that i can surpass my own anxiety one day, although it feels like such a struggle right now.

[sae]

I am sorry this is so horridly long, but this is also a selfish response for me. I have never actually taken the time to compile a history of my anxiety and examine it from start to present. Hopefully this helps someone else as much as it helps me to write it all down.

I can't exact pinpoint when true anxiety kicked in for me. I was sarcastically referred to as "the brave one" in my family. I couldn't enjoy the stuff most kids liked, like fireworks, or balloons (because they might pop), cap guns, scary movies, or pop tarts (due to the fact that toasters scare me). To startle me created a reaction so strong, usually unwarranted, that I would have a meltdown. For hours after being startled when I was kid I would cry, hide, lock down, fight, whatever was on the menu that day.
From about age 12 my life became consumed with the idea of controlling my reactions. I made myself go to fireworks shows, make toast, watch horror flicks. I was in agony for at least a year during my attempts to rework my reactions. Maybe this was what bred the real anxiety.
I was about 15 when I started trying to plan ahead for startle triggers. I would then start to worry about them. It still wasn't full on panic, just a general sense of constant unease. At least my reactions were fairly under control and I was able to go through my day almost normal.
From 16-18 I had a hiatus from my neuroses. I discovered pot, booze, the joys of socialization. I worked as a set designer (ironically enough) for a company that built haunted house attractions those years. I still wouldn't walk through the houses, but I used what had frightened me over the years to frighten others. Staying busy, being active in a social circle, staying relatively inebriated I felt the most normal I would feel for a very long time.
The pot and booze, the social butterfly mentality came to a crashing halt when I simultaneously lost my job and became pregnant. The anxiety returned at times, often aggravated by the abusive marriage I was in, the way I was kept secluded from the rest of the world, silenced, subdued.
The funniest part of it all was that real panic, the attacks, all of the clinical anxiety symptoms didn't start for me until the ass hat died. I had grown comfortable with seclusion, silence, living under strict direction. Suddenly there was no one to ask when I wanted to check the mail or go to the store, no one to hand my paychecks to, no one to line up my day and I was so lost.
The 4th month after he died I flipped shit. The world was just too much for me. I was only 31 and already I felt I had lived a whole lifetime. Now I had to start another one. I didn't feel free at all.
I was back to being easily startled, I felt under constant pressure not to screw up this new single mother role I was now dropped into. All this without a home, or a dime to my name (thanks to my former inlaws... such sweet little cockroaches), and still in recovery from a massive heart attack.
Life was hell for a while. I would work somewhere, find myself hospitalized after having a heart event (usually panic induced), and completely move to another town simply because I was too embarrassed to quit the job and too afraid to have a confrontation with my employer, or run into people that might ask me questions about my health or well being.
That brings me to where I am now. I have been here a little over two years, a real record for us. I lost my job here just as I had lost the other ones, going into a panic attack at work that turned into a heart event. This time I didn't pack up and move somewhere different. I went into seclusion. Honestly this was the smartest decision I had made since going into the women's shelter right before my husband disappeared.
Money is tight. We live off a very strict budget funded by survivors benefits. As much as I hate living for a government check this time has allowed me to heal, gain my footing, go back to school and work towards a career that doesn't require me to pass a state physical.
I eliminated as many stressors as I possibly could and slowly I reintroduce myself to them a little bit at a time. I find myself coming full circle, back to do the same thing I did as a younger teenager, paying attention to my reactions, my surroundings, thinking before I react and using my head and not my emotions to lead me.
I celebrated my 34th birthday a couple weeks ago and already I feel like I have lived a lifetime with anxiety. There will come a day, if this past year year is any indicator, that I will once again find myself social and functional, not worry free but at least panic free. These days I very rarely panic. Things that would shut me down in the past are now enjoyable challenges each with lessons I carry with me to the next one.

I am a patient sort. I know i am not going to wake up and magically be panic free. It's going to take some real inner work, a good support system, and even faith that God will carry me through things I don't believe I can do alone. I might have my bad days but nothing in anxiety is ever permanent. Another day will come. I will pick myself up and try again.

[BrookeLynnnn]

I was once so confident in everything I did. I was supervisor of a pizza place when I was in high school. I loved being in charge & feeling empowered. Now, the thought of me taking on a leader role frightens me. As a kid, my dad always took us camping. Away from all civilization. Sometimes our phones didn't even work. Those were the best days of my life. I had no idea what anxiety or panic attacks were. I absolutely lived life to the fullest & I loved it. Now, I can't be 10 minutes away from a damn hospital. It's crazy, you sit & wonder all the time about how things went so wrong.. Is this my karma for the hell I put my parents through in my teen years?

When I was 18 years old, I started seeing someone. I had heard he use to be a drug addict. I was young & dumb. I thought, okay so he did heroin a couple times & now he doesn't. Thinking it was so easy to just give up. Well things got serious between us. But I started noticing little things.. Can you imagine the anxiety it would cause to look over & see your boyfriend "nodded out?" I seriously think I drove myself crazy. I stayed around to be lied to when I knew it wasn't the truth. That can really fuck someone up mentally. A year & a half of me accusing him & him making me feel crazy until I caught him red handed. Long story short, I stuck by his side through him getting clean. Staying up all night because he was sick. Going crazy because I couldn't trust him alone. Well this year he will be 3 years clean & it's been a year since love left us. Maybe my sanity had to be taken so I could save his life. I would like to think that this agony I live in is because he needed saving.

My panic attacks started a few months into us dating. Though I had experienced 1 before from smoking pot when I was like 15. The agoraphobia didnt come on until my 21st birthday.

I got on meds after that. I was able to live a regular life.. But I also turned to alcohol to numb me. It was the only time I could get lost & not think about my anxiety.. I started mixing alcohol with my Xanax. Not very smart. Through all this, I got pregnant. Now here I am, almost 7 months pregnant & I've changed my life.

The anxiety has come back full force since I'm not able to take meds until after the baby. I'm barely hanging on, but here I am.

[madfinn]

sae, i'm so sorry for all that you have gone through. i'm amazed at your strength and your patience. i'm still trying to learn how to be patient with myself. i have been attempting to pay attention to my reactions as you have, and find myself with the same plight of trying to control them but developing more anxiety because of it. but i just want to thank you for sharing your positive outlook, even after having gone through so much. from reading your experience, you look to me like a very solid human being. i know that not being defeated by our experiences will strengthen us, and i will try to share the same outlook and be patient. i wish you the best on your journey, but i can already tell that you will prevail.

[gypsylee]

thank you so much for sharing, gypsy! i can relate to being a high achiever and am going through similar feelings of just wanting to defect, especially in my current state. but i am glad that you have overcome so much and that there are others here who have dealt with similar issues. it makes me hopeful that i can surpass my own anxiety one day, although it feels like such a struggle right now.

Yep and the good thing is you have places like this to come to. I didn't even have the internet when I first suffered bad anxiety and I had no idea what was going on. If I had've had others to talk to about it I probably wouldn't have ended up in such a mess.

[madfinn]

i don't see your experience as a mess at all, in fact quite the opposite. i see complete strength in what you went through. which is strange because when thinking about my own experience, i see it as a mess. i had spent my entire life being afraid of revealing my anxieties. i am glad i found this place. hearing about yours and others' experiences has inspired me so deeply.

[gypsylee]

i don't see your experience as a mess at all, in fact quite the opposite. i see complete strength in what you went through. which is strange because when thinking about my own experience, i see it as a mess. i had spent my entire life being afraid of revealing my anxieties. i am glad i found this place. hearing about yours and others' experiences has inspired me so deeply.

Awesome :)

[sae]

sae, i'm so sorry for all that you have gone through. i'm amazed at your strength and your patience. i'm still trying to learn how to be patient with myself. i have been attempting to pay attention to my reactions as you have, and find myself with the same plight of trying to control them but developing more anxiety because of it. but i just want to thank you for sharing your positive outlook, even after having gone through so much. from reading your experience, you look to me like a very solid human being. i know that not being defeated by our experiences will strengthen us, and i will try to share the same outlook and be patient. i wish you the best on your journey, but i can already tell that you will prevail.

Thank you muchly for your kind words. Sometimes I'm not so solid, some days I feel defeated by my own traitorous lying brain. Sometimes memories boil to the surface and I break down and cry. It's an inevitability at this stage in my growth.
Learn to cut yourself a break, to feel sad from time to time, just don't ever sit on feelings of defeat. Every day you get to wake up again is a new gift just for you, even if it doesn't feel like it at the time. If you start with that notion the rest of your day will follow.

[Two One]

I know how you feel. Believe me, nothing can ruin your life more than thinking you should have your life figured out by the age of 20. When I first started college in 2012 I was plagued by thoughts of existentialism and finding my true purpose. Those thoughts caused so many feelings of inadequacy and a lot of stress. I've had anxiety and OCD since about the age of 3 or 4 when I developed an intense fear of vomiting. I had an anxiety flare up when I was going into eighth grade, but I got over it just as quickly as it happened. But recently, it was a lot different and much more debilitating. I snapped April 2013 from all of the stress and became very ill. I had chronic, daily stomach pain, I couldn't eat, I lost 18 pounds etc. I was wasting away as my doctor was frantically searching for the cause of my problems. After being tested for about every GI disorder known to man he came to the conclusion that it was due to anxiety. This gave me peace of mind... for a while. I was starting to come around when October 2013 I became ill with the wonderful norovirus which set off my emetophobia and constant anxiety. I was worried every day that I was sick. I felt awful all the time, I was exhausted, I became scared to leave my house and I lost everything. My friends, my girlfriend, my life completely stolen from me. All of it. I was broken in early 2014. After two suicidal gestures my parents took me seriously enough to know I needed help. I started going to therapy and it changed my life.

You should be very proud of yourself with how well you've handled this. Believe me, if I had no one there for me I would be dead. I hope everything works out for you but one piece of advice I can give you is don't beat yourself up about having your life figured out at such a young age. That will happen as you go. Keep fighting, you've made it this far without much help and to me, that says a lot about your level of strength.

[Im-Suffering]

I know how you feel. Believe me, nothing can ruin your life more than thinking you should have your life figured out by the age of 20. When I first started college in 2012 I was plagued by thoughts of existentialism and finding my true purpose. Those thoughts caused so many feelings of inadequacy and a lot of stress. I've had anxiety and OCD since about the age of 3 or 4 when I developed an intense fear of vomiting. I had an anxiety flare up when I was going into eighth grade, but I got over it just as quickly as it happened. But recently, it was a lot different and much more debilitating. I snapped April 2013 from all of the stress and became very ill. I had chronic, daily stomach pain, I couldn't eat, I lost 18 pounds etc. I was wasting away as my doctor was frantically searching for the cause of my problems. After being tested for about every GI disorder known to man he came to the conclusion that it was due to anxiety. This gave me peace of mind... for a while. I was starting to come around when October 2013 I became ill with the wonderful norovirus which set off my emetophobia and constant anxiety. I was worried every day that I was sick. I felt awful all the time, I was exhausted, I became scared to leave my house and I lost everything. My friends, my girlfriend, my life completely stolen from me. All of it. I was broken in early 2014. After two suicidal gestures my parents took me seriously enough to know I needed help. I started going to therapy and it changed my life.

You should be very proud of yourself with how well you've handled this. Believe me, if I had no one there for me I would be dead. I hope everything works out for you but one piece of advice I can give you is don't beat yourself up about having your life figured out at such a young age. That will happen as you go. Keep fighting, you've made it this far without much help and to me, that says a lot about your level of strength.

Thank you for sharing your story !

[Im-Suffering]

Thank you all for sharing your (courageous) stories !

[superchick22684]

Welcome maddfinn. I'm a bit anxious right now so I'll post to this thread to see if it helps me calm down a bit.

I had my first panic attack the second semester after I transferred colleges. I was 21 at the time and ended up having to go to the ER in an ambulance. I've had depression since my teens but it got much worse after I started having panic attacks. In all honesty if I thought about it I could probably trace some of my anxiety back to when I was a child but I'm trying to keep this post somewhat compact. As what happens with most people once I had tests, x-rays and several other tests taken it was determined that it was just a panic attack. From there I remember being referred to the campus counseling center where I started with group therapy and shortly after individual therapy. I don't remember how much time passed by eventually I saw my first psych. Over I'm guessing around eight months time or so I was prescribed antidepressants to see if anything would work. During that time I was on Paxil, Effexor and Cymbalta, the last of which ended up working the best.

After graduation I wasn't able to stay on antidepressants very long because I didn't have insurance. From 2007 until early last fall I basically managed the best I could without meds. My anxiety has never really gone away but I figured out a way to live with it. The depression is another story though it was a struggle.

Late 2013 my anxiety got worse again. I convinced myself that I could handle it myself (I can be incredibly stubborn at times). Early last year I caved and started investigating to see what I could do to get some help and I went back to therapy last April. Last August after some serious consideration, research and consulting with my therapist I decided to try medication again. My doctor decided to put me on Lexapro which didn't agree with my system at all. After a month he decided to put me on Cymbalta since it worked previously. At the end of last year, Buspirone was added to the meds list because my antidepressant had basically made me emotionless and the anxiety wasn't improving.

Currently I'm taking Cymbalta and Buspirone but still cycle between anxiety and depression. I don't have panic attacks as often though so that's a plus. My doctor prescribed me Vistaril two weeks ago on an as needed basis. Not too thrilled with it so far, I've only used it once and it just makes me sleepy. I work full-time but my anxiety affects every aspect of my day because it makes it hard to concentrate and because of the job field that I'm in. The one thing that bothers me the most about my anxiety and depression is how alone and isolated it makes me feel. This board is basically the only place that I can go and know that people understand what I'm feeling. So to those of you that hang out here and answer questions thank you for helping me and others feel a little less alone in this world :)