I just experienced something horrible

[Jimmy28]

Okay it might not be THAT horrible but it is to me. I'm all alone in town this weekend, only me and my brother. I'm 18 and as some of you might know, I suffer from terrible anxiety. It is usually about getting weird shooting pains in the back of my head (doctors diagnosed neck problems) and panic attack. So, I was a lot better, I didn't have any pain nor attack for a whole month (I'm dealing with this for an year and a half by the way) and I can honestly say I started feeling like a different person, like I could finally live my life happy and normally, a life without constant physical pain and emotional torture. I went to bed and as soon as I fell asleep, I was woken up by a huge panic attack, tachycardia plus 3 seconds of head pain (and I thought it was finally over). Of course I thought the worse, I mean, I am alone in the house having a panic attack...I'm ashamed of reacting like this because I'm 18 but it is stronger than me. I am jut so pissed because why? Why did it have to happen now, again? I don't know if this has anythong to do with it but I'm having exams the other week and I'm studing pretty hard but I don't know if that was the cause to this. I just lost my whole motovation of the idea of getting better. Last month was perfect, why did all the symptoms have to come back? It 's almost 4am here and I feel terrible all alone

[jared]

First of all bud you're 18, you're still very young and you have a long life ahead of you. Those years will be pleasurable considering that you take the right steps to get over your anxiety. It's hard, we all deal with it - but life is for living. If you want to get checked out, that's fine, but at your age you more than likely have nothing more than just anxiety.

It's hard for me too as I'm 26 and people look at me crazy when I thought I was having a heart attack - but the fact is, 26 is young too, and honestly a person shouldn't have to worry about heart problems until age 35 or so, and even then only with bad habits like smoking and high cholesterol. I've had to force myself to believe this and now I do, and I rarely ever worry about cardiac problems. I saw my dad have a heart attack which he survived but it was still hard on me. I'm taking the right steps to make sure it's not even an issue for me down the road. While I'm in my 20s I don't want to waste them away worrying about what could happen in 10 years. What a waste of life!

You will be just fine and try to make a friend within yourself, just because you're by yourself doesn't mean you have to be alone!

[Andria24]

Jimmy you're under stress. Studying, revising, that's stressful. Your mind is narrowly focused on an outcome that is pretty big - fail your exams then there's a barrier in your path.

What you need to accept is the above. It's ok to feel or be stressed. It's also ok to feel anxious as a result of the stress. Bearing in mind that you're almost alone right now, and I presume not talking this out with anyone?

You need to reach out to someone. What about student support? Some friend, your brother, maybe there's a group in the area that helps with theses things. Hey, even sharing on here is good.

Try and ensure that your anxiety is correctly dealt with, this is an important issue. If you're getting the right help and support you will feel better :hugs:

[jared]

I agree with Andria. One other thing I've learned is that at its simplest form, anxiety is just a fear of what we can't control.

So if the anxiety is a health-related issue that is within our control, the best remedy is to control it! If you're worried about early morbidity, then diet and exercise! You won't worry about it any longer (or at the very least, decrease the worry significantly).

If it's something that's out of our control, i.e. a disease that is not preventable, THEN IT IS NOT WORTH WORRYING ABOUT BECAUSE YOU CANNOT DO A THING TO CHANGE IT. Heart disease runs on my dad's side of the family. They say you can't change heredity. So I'm not going to waste my energy trying. But I will do what I can to prevent it every OTHER way...

Don't waste energy on things you can't do anything about, and redirect that energy to the things you CAN control. It's easier said than done, but you'd do well to learn it at your age and then by the time you're my age you'll be able to hit it head on and conquer anything that comes your way! All the best!

[Jimmy28]

Thank you everybody! I already feel better. :)