Anxiety

I have been living with untreated anxiety pretty much my whole life. Not until fairly recently I realized how bad it really is. My heart rate skyrockets to the lower 120s when I'm anxious about something. Such as waiting for someone who I haven't seen in a really long time. It messes with my stomach too. I get nauseous and I can't eat anything. I don't realize I'm in the middle of an anxiety/panic attack until I'm in the middle of it. I am going to talk to my doctor about this tomorrow. Hopefully, she can give me something I can take every day long term.

Why is it so hard to get out of my own head?

do I have an anxiety disorder, or am I just really super bad at dealing with the normal stresses and strains of life that everyone else goes through?

is that the same thing? am I just not trying hard enough because I'm lazy or because I can't? how do you tell if you're trying hard enough? and what do you do when, however hard it is you seem to be trying, it's just not enough for anything?

I don't even know if these are the right questions to be asking. no answers are forthcoming, anyway.

Correct! I can just think silly romantic anxiety away.

It worried me a bit after my fourth anxiety attack a week ago. Left crying and writhing on my living room floor for no reason other than my brain finally stopped giving a shit about holding all my insecurities, pain, loss, regret and all that other happy horse-shit in and finally released it in one massive lump of guilt-driven tears and pain. By the time the fifth one hit me like a ton of bricks, I was taking a hard look at the sword I keep up on the mantle since I neither own a gun nor have the means of purchasing one...and yet by the time it had passed and there were no more tears to cry and my throat was crackling from the screams and my lungs and heart burned from the struggle of keeping up with it all, I felt relieved. Emptied out of all the mess I had made of my life for the past year and I honestly felt better, in a way. I was able to look towards the next day of my life with new eyes and this feeling of...hope?

That scares me even more than the attacks. The fact that I would have to be driven to that point of hitting the drop-dead bottom that I could see clearly again. What if it builds up again? I can't take any more of those feelings. I really can't.

What the hell is wrong with me.

I am going to visit a friend in a city that has always been less then an hour from my home. But I am utterly terrified, going into near panic attack states because I am so worried about it. The city isn't the safest place, and I have only been there about 10 times in the course of my entire life.

I really want to see her but the prospect of getting there alone is stressing me out so much. I'm 23 I should be able to do things like this without feeling paralyzed with terror. But there are so many factors, what if I read the train schedules wrong, what is she is late as usual, what if I can't get a ride on time and end up getting there late, what if I miss the last train and have to wait in the most shady train station on earth for 45 minutes while I wait for my parents to pick me up.

I want to see my friend I don't want to cancel, but I am so stressed out about this right now.

Like how do you explain to a good friend that you love them and want to see them. But for some reason your anxiety disorder, which is normally so well in check that no one knows about it, is acting up. How do you tell them that the thought of going out to the city alone is making your heart pound so hard that you want to lay on the ground and go in the fetal position. And aside from a fear of the city itself, the amount of violent crimes that happen there, and your fear of having to go on public transportation alone at night, you don't have a good excuse not to go.

I don't want to cancel on one of my best friends, who I may not get to see again for months; but right now I am so upset that I am having trouble breathing.

Oh anxiety why did you have to choose now to rear your ugly head, why after so many years of having this under control do you have to show up now.