I need some advice please :/

[AnxiousDaily]

I don't know if this happens to anyone else, but I'm quite curious, cause I'm in desperate need of some answers.

Ill get to the point now, I have these moments in the day where I become hyper aware of my toes touching each other and also my fingers. Okay, okay I know this may sound weird but let me explain. When I'm writing I will suddenly think of only my fingers and how it feels for the skin on each side of my finger to touch the other and how the creases in my skin feel and it becomes so overwhelming that I get that awful, anxious feeling in the pit of my stomach and I have to separate my fingers, making sure skin is no longer touching anything or else I begin to feel a panic attack coming on. And with my toes I just become aware of how they feel in my shoes and not being able to separate them gives me intense anxiety. This will usually happen maybe 1-3 times a day, sometimes more depending on my anxiety levels of that day. Although the anxious feeling often goes away after a few seconds it is really interfering with my study. Currently I'm completing my HSC (Australia) which is equivalent to the SAT's or A levels I think. So anyways, doing the HSC is very stressful and this hyper sensitivity is happen more and more often each day and I'm scared that while I'm in my HSC exams that it will cause me panic attacks and I wont get the best marks that I know I can achieve.

Please if anyone has any thoughts or is going through the same thing (which I highly doubt for some reason. Maybe I'm just a weirdo) but please I need advice. Out of the friends I've told about this, they say it could be a form of OCD or just weird form of anxiety. Please I know its weird but any advice will be well taken :)

Thank you all xx

[Oosh]

Hiya

You're self monitoring. It's just something we can do. Imagine your in a log cabin surrounded by forest on a trip at night. You pop outside to get some wood and hear something in the forest quite close. All your senses will focus on that specific thing. It will probably draw on other resources, lessen other senses and increase those to your ears. You'll become even more sensitive.

Or, imagine you're half asleep in bed, you feel an odd sensation on your foot. It could be a spider ? Adrenalin pumps around your body and you immediately become hyper aware of your foot, vigilant for anymore odd sensations, a solitary hairs movements (I'm not saying you have hairy feet :] ).

Self monitoring , hyper vigilance.

You could home it in on anything if you put your mind to it.
Recent posters on here have spoken about sensations of hands and legs.
So it's not the body part that significant, it's the self monitoring of the body parts. So you can rest assured there is nothing unusual about these body parts.

You're self monitoring, but that implies it's YOU doing it, which means YOU are in control. Prove this to yourself by turning your focus to what you choose.

Focus on outside noises with your eyes closed.
Focus on something in the room you've not noticed much before.
Focus on your study material ! :-)
It's YOUR focus. You choose what you put it on.
Too much focusing on something starts to make it look unnatural.
Like a word you look at for too long, suddenly seems strange.
Stop focusing on these insignificant things and they become natural and automatic again.

Good luck with your exams. :-)