Nov 24, 2016

Hi Mimi : )

Good to see you (or your text lol) again. Hope you're doing well : ).

Anyway, I on and off experience anxiety on some level. It's not crippling or anything but it's enough to make me not want to interact with people at the time. But when you're saying one side of the brain just takes over and you almost have to resign to it... Isn't it just as much a feeling? Like when your stomach drops. I think that's a light example of it considering what I've heard from others though.

I always remember this person describing their anxiety to me and it sounded crazy. Like she'd wake up and sometimes her chest would just be tight in the morning for no apparent reason (she articulated it further than that but memory is foggy). As far as I'm aware I've only ever experienced physical effects because of a specific situation. Like maybe I'm meeting someone new who I deem particularly important and I want them to like me or something.

I mean do the physical effects always have to come after the thoughts? Because the way I've heard it described before... It almost sounds like they don't. Maybe I've had the feeling without even putting two and two together. It actually took me a while to realise that the whole stomach dropping thing was actually something I had felt sometimes too. Like people say it all the time but I never connected the dots. Anxiety seems like one of those things that is difficult to articulate.

 

Nov 24, 2016

I can understand how you feel about the word disorder, but the problem is that the word Anxiety and Depression is so lightly used, it's almost become a common dealing of life and the seriousness of what we go through can become diluted in some peoples opinions.

Thank you for sharing your coping mechanism, I feel fight or flight is probably the best way to deal with it.

 

Nov 24, 2016

I feel that physical effects can be related to worrying thoughts or a situation due to Anxiety affecting hormones which cause that specific pain or discomfort. In some cases I've heard that the physical side can just appear from no negative or anxious thoughts. It's hard to put your finger on why but I feel that fear can be with us whether we are thinking about it or not.

Our brains are ticking more than our consciousness

 

Nov 24, 2016

I would it is very likely they had a social event that day they were very worried about.
Also being very nervous & having a physical effect can be normal also. The key is whether it stops you from doing these things. That is when you have a prroblem.

 

Nov 24, 2016

Well I left out the fact that at the time they were depressed. I've been depressed for periods but never had those feelings. It just made me realise that anxiety can be a very serious problem. To have it when you wake up for no reason is bizarre. I remember her saying that it'd actually be common for her to get it in the morning (not related to any event either).

And yeah you're right some level of it is normal but some people have it to an extreme extent that I don't understand. I think many don't.

Beating anxiety is a great feeling. In some ways anxiety almost pushes me to do things I don't want to... Because I know when I get that feeling I need to drive through it to conquer it. It's actually kinda fun. I also kinda enjoy nightmares for the experience tho so I'm a little weird.

I think the key is understanding that there is a wide spectrum for anxiety. For some it seems much harder to beat than others. I think if you have it consistently it's bound to wear you down and you kind of give in to it. If I do the thing my anxiety is telling me not to do (say talk to a girl) even if I fail I feel really good about it. If the feeling were to continue afterwards (for example... thoughts like 'man I'm a fool... I just embarrassed myself... I bet she's laughing about what an idiot I am") I probably wouldn't try and face it nearly as much. I know it's a shallow example but just the first off the top of the head.

 

Nov 24, 2016

It's really good to see people on here share their stories, coping mechanisms and raise awareness, I'm really surprised that this thread has got this much attention

 

Nov 24, 2016

Good read -

http://www.lifehack.org/articles/co...ple-with-social-anxiety-would-understand.html

 

Nov 24, 2016

Sorry about the spam posting guys but I wanna share this with you

I've just posted something very personal regarding my anxiety on Facebook to outreach to my friends and to my disbelief I've managed to get very positive and thoughtful responses.

I'm not saying try it but definitely consider it, the more understanding the people around you have, the less anxious you will be in their presence. I also have set myself a challenge to talk to my work colleagues this weekend and if I freeze up I will openly say to them why, what's the worst that can happen!

 

Nov 25, 2016

That's true that anxious or obsessive people can be taken over by their irrational thoughts, but think of this, the way to treat someone to for example with an extreme fear of spiders is to slowly expose him to spiders and overtime the brain, irrational or not just becomes accustomed to it. You will s--- yourself and go crazy before you start getting used to it though. This can be applied to the 'typical' social anxiety sufferer. The more parties and clubs he goes to or the more girls he approaches will be an awful experience at first but will eventually just get used to it, if he's strong enough to tough it out in the starting phase.

But the mind is complex and it also depends on any insecurities or negative obsessive thinking you may have. If you're utterly obsessed that you're too short or your nose is too big or your teeth are bad then that's all you'll be able to think of and be re-inforcing in your mind. The more you think of something the more you believe it, so just "going out there" head on won't help much if you're inside your own head all the time

 

Nov 25, 2016

What's bothering you Mimi I'm a board certified psychologist. Step into my office and make yourself comfortable and take your pants off.

 

Nov 26, 2016

Have a great weekend everyone

 

Dec 3, 2016

The only time I really got bad anxiety was after I quit smoking weed every day. I would smoke every day multiple times a day for about a year. Once I stopped, I'd notice I'd have a lot of anxiety around a lot of people sometimes. I think it's just cuz during that time period, I was high all the time no matter where I was at or who I was with but it went away pretty quickly.

 

Dec 23, 2016

Maybe people here can relate to this:

 

Jan 13, 2017

For physical anxiety you can take beta blockers
I think they're prescribed for high blood pressure. But help with physical effects of anxiety
As for mental what helped me is realizing most people aren't paying attention to me as much as I thought they were. For me part of the anxiety was always feeling like I'm being looked at and scrutinized but most people obviously don't do that