I just wanted to share a little about my anxiety and current situation, to vent, and to help you guys out if reading helps, because I know writing about it helps me.
Coming from a very high strung family, I have always have heightened sense of anxiety. My family in general has. We’re the only family high strung enough to get into an argument on Easter! (funny looking back on it, but at the time a tad scary)
As far as I can remember Ive had little anxiety “moments” where my mind couldn’t think clearly and irrational thoughts took over. Thoughts obviously not true, but I couldn’t stop thinking they were. For example, in 8th grade someone told my English class if we did poorly on our English Language Arts assessment, we could be in the 5 year track at our high school. While I’m no English major, I consistently had 80’s and lower 90’s in English, I’d be fine. Except I couldn’t shake the fear of doing poorly and then being in the “5 year track” Looking back there was nothing wrong with 5 years for those who need them, but there was no way I would have any chance of being placed in it.
This leads me to where I am now. I’m a freshman at college and I just returned 2 weeks ago for class. There had been a girl who I sort of liked and occasionally hooked up with and hung out with a few times last semester. I had been looking forward to seeing her, hoping she wanted to continue what we had been doing! In the past, typically the opposite had happened and I was left disappointed, several times. But this time was different, the first weekend she slept over every night. I only go into these details because they are part of the story, one night I struggled a tad and the condom hurt and we had to stop. The next morning on my way to class, a random (more so joke than anything) popped in to my head while thinking about the night before, “what am I gay or something?”
Granted, there is nothing wrong with being gay, I went to school and was friendly with a gay guy before. However, it does make me a little uncomfortable and always has. Anyways, this question suddenly scared me and every textbook anxiety symptom hit. My heart beat was out of control, I felt like fainting, couldn’t think clearly, etc. Eventually, I was able to calm myself because, rationally, sexual orientation wouldn't just appear to switch over night and also by saying to myself “theres nothing wrong with it, however, if you were gay, you wouldn’t be afraid of it, on top of the fact that you don’t and have never had an attraction to men.” However, anxiety targets fear, and not long after I felt scared and afraid I may have OCD or a mental disorder, I also noticed “performance anxiety” after being too drunk to get it up and always wanting her to enjoy it and to not embarrass myself, not to mention I had been lacking sleep (8 hours in 2 days). After talking with a friend, I soon realized that I like this girl a lot. We continue to hangout and since that one incident, there has not been a single issue and it’s been great. We both came to similar conclusions that the anxiety may actually stem from this girl, because I like her a lot, she likes me, and I don’t want to be let down or cause the let down (if that makes sense). The anxiety instead targets my other insecurities and fears.
I write this because it definitely helps me to talk about it. 95% my mind is off it and I’m fine but this is that 5% time. I also hope someone could give me feed back into what they think as well. I know it’s a lot to read at once but thank you