PixelFool

I haven’t completely overcome my anxiety, but the intensity has definitely been reduced by 95%. I thought maybe my experiences could benefit the people here who still feel scared and uncertain.

My first recommendation is not to take medication unless you think you need it to get a leg up. I took it before I realized what was going on and it helped in some ways and hurt in many others (the withdrawal was not fun – if you go off pills, make sure you do it SLOWLY!!).

My second recommendation is to get checked out by a doctor. Once you know that you’re perfectly healthy, you can stop worry about what every sensation in your body might be. This was (and still is) my biggest problem. I always imagine the worst. The best thing you can do for yourself is be prepared for any and all sensations and feelings and just remind yourself that it’s just the anxiety. I can’t begin to describe just how many weird pains I’ve had all over my body, or weird sensations or emotions from this in the past year. One thing you can do to deal with your reaction to these sensations, or to soften or avoid an oncoming panic attack is to aknowledge the sensation and the fear – and accept it, ride it, and let it pass. For awhile it won’t make it less scary, but it helps over time.

Learn some breathing exercises and practice them every day. Meditation, finding your “happy place” and progressive muscle relaxation can also help greatly.

Consider therapy. I agree that there are a lot of therapists out there who are no good. Like most Western doctors, they just want to give you a pill and be on with it. Find a doctor interested in holistic remedies. I have a therapist right now and I think I’ve figured out the trick. It’s true that by undergoing therapy, you discover a lot of things that are messed up about you that you may not have thought or worried about before. I think a lot of people think this means the therapist is simply piling maladies on you when in reality everyone is a little messed up (does that make sense?). But I think in reality, everyone IS pretty messed up – therapy does make you face it, and it’s a HARD journey with lots of homework, but I think in the end we can benefit from it. I never realized how many unhealthy habits I have that make me socially anxious, or phobic.

Third. Go out and get yourself a copy of the “Anxiety and Phobia Workbook”. This thing was my savior. It told me everything the western doctor and my first therapist didn’t. Now of course I have a NATUROPATHIC doctor and a HOLISTIC therapist, and I think they would have helped a lot in the beginning. The book says you can overcome this, and it’s right.

Other things that can help a lot:
1. Take vitamins! Vitamin D (happy) and B-Complex (Stress) help me.
2. Exercise! If you feel anxiety coming on, go out for a walk, laugh, tire yourself out or get angry. Anxiety is incompatible with these other emotions.
3. Do breathing exercises daily.
4. Talk to people about it. You’ll be surprised how many other people share your experiences.
5. Know that you can get better. You just have to be willing to take the journey (in my case, the hard work looked a lot better than 5 panic attacks a day).

I love to sing, but I have stage fright. Not just stage fright, people fright. In school I could never read an essay in front of the class because my hands would shake the paper so much I couldn’t read the words.

I’ve found myself in situations where I feel comfortable, and I do really well in those cases, but trying out, or asking to sing for someone, are never those cases.

The other thing that worries me is that I can’t write music or play any instruments (I’m trying that, separately). I feel like no one would want a singer who isn’t also a musician (unless you’re doing covers or something, which could be fun I guess).

Any advice for figuring this stuff out?

I’ve found this to be a really hard task. I became interested in learning guitar probably in middle school, and I’ve had various guitars over the years, and here I am, age 24, still can’t play. Actually I can play and sing one song, and play another.

The hardest thing for me is getting over sucking. When I “became an illustrator” at an early age, it was easy because when you’re young, you think everything rocks even if you suck! At this age though, it’s very easy to tell that you suck and that’s just terribly discouraging.