overcome anxiety

The past year has given me levels of anxiety unlike anything I’d experienced previously and so seemed utterly terrifying. I had to attend interviews, give presentations, meet new people, make new friends, be sociable, take the most difficult exams of my life and rent a home for the next 9 months. All of which are way out of my comfort zone and are things I wouldn’t have dreamt of doing this time last year. But now, although I still feel anxiety about most things, it doesn’t seem to paralyse me as much as it used to, allowing me to function despite it. Like last weekend when I found 4 roommates I’d never met before, secured a housed with them, made new friends and went out for a few beers with them. The scariest bit was meeting my first roommate, then after that my worries seemed to almost melt away which was rather unnerving to say the least. But it seems to be getting easier.

A few years ago, someone at school noticed that I was falling asleep in a few of my classes and insisted that I was attention seeking. I tried to tell him that I just wasn’t getting a lot of sleep at the time but he’d stopped listening. Since then I’ve been paranoid about that idea. I try not to act in any way that could be potentially described as attention seeking. I wasn’t even freinds with him so why do I acknowledge his opinion? Why am I so worried about something that most people don’t seem to pick up on (in my case anyway)? The violent part of me hopes his drug habits will kill him slowly and painfully which I know is a horrible thing to say but still. How do I move on from that argument? How do I forget the past when the image is still so vivid?

I’ve finally acknowledged that I’ll always be this way. Spending more time worrying about the exams than the time I’ve spent preparing for them, walking quickly past people I know in the street, not answering the phone in case it’s awkward. I’ve isolated myself into this and I can’t see a way out so I guess I’ll be here for a while. It’s not like I’m not used to it and I’m always too lazy to look for further escape routes.

It’s exam time again and although I only have 9 exams over the next three weeks, I’ve already been panicking about them for about a month now. On top of that, I can’t just talk to people which means I can’t ask for help. There are a million different questions in my mind when I think about talking to someone I’m not 100% comfortable with. Here are just a few: What kind of impression am I giving off? Does it seem like I’m attention seeking (that’s a major one)? What if I say something stupid accidentally? How horrible do I look? How should I talk to this person? What are all the potential embarrassing things that could happen and how can I stop them? If I might embarrass myself is it really worth talking to this person?

It’s driving me insane but I feel so trapped that I don’t know what to do.

I’m just sooooo sick of school being the centre of my life and not doing anything besides that. Of wanting to do all these different things but being so worried about the possible repercussions that I never do anything about them. I really want to meet new people, go to new places and not just do things because they’ll ‘improve my future’. I just don’t know how. I mean where should I go to start fresh? How will I get over the anxiety of dealing with the new situations? Will things be different or will they end up as failures like my current situation? I can’t wait until I leave home but at the same time I begin to panic about all of the things that could go wrong. How can I deal with it?

I had all my revision for the christmas break planned out but on boxing day I was really ill and even now, four days later, I still have no energy. It’s really worrying me because now I have a backlog of revision to do I don’t know where to even start. The exams are in a fortnight. How do I deal with them?

This week, as I was walking between my home and school I noticed these two girls I know from the scout type group I rarely go to anymore. They were just hanging around on the high street. I would really love to be better freinds with them as they’re nice people and I might be able to begin to develop some sort of social life. However, me being me, I spotted them when it was too late to go to auto-pilot and avoid them so I just hurried past without even saying hi. Fortunately (or unfortunately) they had their backs turned as I walked past both times. Even a few months ago I might have stopped and had a conversation with them but now I just pray that they haven’t seen me. What the hell is wrong with me?

Also, with christmas coming up, I’m in a panic as to how my family will react to the present ideas I’ve got for them and whether I’ll be able to get the presents I’m planning on getting. I won’t even be able to enjoy the holidays as I have a tonne of revision for these two vital january exams as well as a 2-5000 word piece of coursework to do. Why can’t I just enjoy christmas like everyone else?

This probably seems like quite a lame goal but this would be amazing for me to achieve. I am sixteen and have been growing more and more anxious over the past four or five years. I know it sounds sad and everything but I really struggle at participating in any kind of social event or activity. One example is when ever I realise I have made a mistake of some sort. I am literally paralysed for anywhere between 2 and 10 minutes as my mind sees images of the worst possible outcome. I then go through a phase of trying to rationalise the situation and peoples’ reactions to it.(At this point I am still completely in a panic). I then reach a stage of almost depression about it where I just give up trying to put it right. Then I finally reach a time of judgement effectively where I have to admit the mistake to the person it involves and normally it all works out fine. And yet I always go through these stages whenever anything of this sort happens. What can I do to stop panicking and calm my mind?