Welcome to the anxiety board at DS.

Help her to start doing instead of thinking.

Try an activity such as crocheting and/or knitting. This will help her to find calm with movement which helps to reduce anxiety symptoms and sensations fast naturally.

Anxiety is natural. It is a part of everyone. Learning how to make it work for your better balance is a process.

Practice calming breathing yourself to help you remain calm when you're helping her. The more calm you remain, the easier it will be for her to be calm.

Be in the moment thinking. Keep a private journal to release your feelings, thoughts, and emotions in a safe way.

You've come to the right place to vent, to learn, and to know that people who understand support and encourage each other.

Thank you for reaching out. She deals with intrusive thoughts so being alone by herself scares her. She constantly has horrible intrusive thoughts when she is doing tasks that are not keeping her mind busy. Something like crocheting, painting etc. sparks a lot of anxiety for her because her mind starts going and she cannot stop the bad thoughts from coming.

I wanted to say more, but because of the circumstances, am going to share this.

Help yourself remain calm. Help yourself find ways to provide safe thoughts, safe words, and safe feelings. Share nature time with her.

Hopefully, healing happens for both of you. Best wishes.

Maybe take her to a doctor or to someone she can talk to. Maybe they can help her and find out why she feeling that way. Maybe try to get her to do something fun or something she like to do. Like maybe cooking with you or take a walk with you. Or maybe ride her bike. Maybe have some of her friends over and tbey can hang out together. Maybe she miss her friends or something

Thanks @Mid
I agree. Parent positivity is so important

hey. i’m also a 14 year old and i’ve recently started to feel anxiety and for me i might know the reasons. i’m sometimes stressed out but i’ve never in my life been like this. it often gives me trouble breathing because my heart is going so fast i don’t feel in reality and thinking i’m going to die. but i’m starting to manage. i don’t think i have agoraphobia which is a fear of panic but that’s a thing stressing me out. today we’re the 22nd of august and from the 6th of august to the 13th, i’ve decided to not sleep a lot maybe 3-4 hours a night to see if i could do it or not. that might’ve created anxiety, the fact that i’m bored now because even if i’m doing stuff, not going to school for 6 months is boring, might create anxiety, but also the fact that i’m going to a new school next week after 6 months too. thinking maybe i have a disorder, thinking why can’t i get rid of this anxiety is stressful because i don’t want to live like this. i got a call with a psychologist monday. i felt stressed out a lot more before. i still am stressed but wayyyy less than before. what can help her is getting her mind off of it for now, or getting to understand it. finding out what creates her fears can help her “overcome” it. i said “overcome” because there is nothing to overcome. anxiety is thoughts and fears, nothing else. and what are thoughts? imagination. sometimes she might stress bcuz something is bothering her subcounsciously without her knowing it. tell her to try this. take a warm shower but not too hot. when she’s done just put a towel over yourself and even if you’re done showering sit there doesn’t matter how long. just understand everything is in the mind. you are not the mind and the mind isn’t you but you control it. she has to understand this and me personally what bothers me, is staying like this or what i’m forever bored or what if i won’t get rid of this anxiety or what i’m forever like this. and i avoid going outside too much because im like what if i panic while outside what am i going to do. but yesterday i went biking for like 10 minutes it wasn’t too bad. in a couple minutes i’m going shopping for school stuff i don’t want to, but i will and the whole time i’m outside i’ll know that i’m fine and i have to go to the restaurant tonight and im also a little nervous about it tbh but i’ll do it. i know i’ll be fine and i know your daughter will be fine too. i might not answer here but if you send me a message on instagram @ kayin_pepper i’ll gladly reply :)

Hi kailyn, how sweet of you to offer to support my daughter. I’ll pm you in insta :)

Hi....I'm feel so sad for your daughter. Dealing with anxiety as an adult is bad enough. I can't imagine having this scourge at 14!

I have a couple favorites that I love and believe they would be appropriate for a young lady.

My fave is The Anxiety Guy, Dennis Simsek. Just google him. He has a treasure trove of podcasts and youtube videos. He is very active on social media and does weekly live FB sessions. He did one today where you could ask hiim anything.

My other one is The Tapping Solution with Nick Ortner. He's active on FB and social media as well. They also have an app with all kinds of tapping scripts. Look into that and maybe you could tap along with her. If you don't know what it is, it is tapping on different meridian points of the body while speaking about your negative thoughts, then the positive thoughts to turn everything around. It is quite effective.

And of course, there's physical activity.

There are diversions and distractions from anxiety but they are not a cure. You really have to get to the root of the problem. The Anxiety Guy may help her do that. He will also answer FB posts and emails if you are wanting some particular material of his. He will send you a link.

I've tried different meds for anxiety but they did not work for me. It's a slippery slope treating teens with these meds as oftentimes they end up worse.

Good luck and let us know how these work out for her. Hoping for the best!

TypeC thanks this is so helpful!