Severe University Anxiety

Hello, I just went through many many abrupt events in the past few months. If you're willing to just read this, I can't thank you enough.

For starters, I am a 3rd year university student studying business. Or, I was until recently. I just transferred schools to my "dream school" that I couldn't get into as a freshman. After living at home and commuting to a nearby university for my first two years, I felt like I was so ready to get out and move to the more prestigious school further away from home. I was so wrong.
I moved into an apartment by myself, and didn't know anyone in the new town. I was taking 4 classes. That included an accounting class that I had previously withdrawn from in spring semester due to failing tests with a horrible professor. And in the first month of the new class, I started to have panic while studying, and subsequently started doing poorly on the practice problems and homeworks in class. I was even going to one-on-one tutoring 5 hours each week.
At that point, I knew I wanted to change majors, so I withdrew from accounting again, since it wasn't going to count towards anything in the new major, and I wanted to stop struggling. Half of my family was furious about this, calling me a "quitter" and saying that I should've stuck it out as a "life lesson". Telling me that if I quit this class, then I would end up quitting everything difficult in my future. It was very discouraging.

I was having full blown anxiety attacks every day the class let out. I started waking up multiple times a night in a sweat, crying, and terrified. My appetite disappeared. I started having to call my dad and my boyfriend in the middle of the night just to somewhat calm down because I was having thoughts that I didn't want to exist anymore, and I was mad at myself for being this way. Suddenly my nice apartment felt like a prison cell. Eventually one night, I cut myself as a punishment for my failure. Even after withdrawing from the accounting class, the anxiety from being at a new school, alone and unsure of exactly what major path I wanted to pursue just kept getting worse.

I was even joining extracurricular activities, clubs, talking to new people in my classes almost every day, and I was making A's in my other classes, but I was extremely unhappy and ridden with the most anxiety I've ever experienced. Seeing ahead the competitive nature of the school, and the sheer population and attitude of the people at the school made me want to leave. So I did.

Last week I withdrew from ALL my classes, sold my nice apartment, and moved back home. I'm going to start commuting back to my old school this spring, but for now I'm trying to find a part time job and start seeing a therapist weekly again. I find myself having anxiety attacks in the morning still about my future major and whether or not I'll be successful in that. I'm a good student, I've made A's and B's in everything, but I feel like a failure, incapable of getting my degree, because I'm worried about stumbling across another required class or test like accounting that I just can't pass. I never thought something like this would happen to me. It's hard for me not to hate myself right now.

Anyways, that's where I'm at. If you read this, I'm really impressed. I don't know how to condense it more. Has anyone else here experienced this much anxiety when it comes to school? And if so, how have you dealt with it?

Hi penney, I have not experienced that much anxiety when it comes to school but I can feel the frustration of trying to live up to other people's expectations of you. Start to see the results you have been getting as just information, not a judgement about who you are. If the waiter brings you the cake trolley (sorry this might be a UK example!) and you say you don't want any cake, the waiter does not feel bad - it's just information.

When you are seeing information you can start to see what is possible for you to create. The more involved you become creating the life you want and using your strengths and weaknesses as part of your creation process, the less you will lose yourself (for a while) in painful thinking and feeling. Don't get lost in a story about being a failure - especially when it feels real - it's just a story. You can write a better one.