Anxiety Support Group
Anxiety is a physical condition marked by intense and persistent feelings of distress, fear, angst or dread. General anxiety caused by routine day-to-day stresses usually passes quickly and is experienced by almost everyone at one time or another. However, such feelings that linger over time and are very difficult to cope with, and which lack a clear cause, may indicate...
My family all thinks that I have depression or anxiety disorder and that I need medication. I don't believe in mental health medication. It seems like bogus placebos to me. Though I really struggle with worry, I think it's just temporary jitters from being a senior in high school and having to make big decisions. I worry practically every minute of every day. I want to make sure that every decision I make is perfect and will set me up for success in the future. Fear of failure paralyzes me. Often, I worry so much that my hands start to sweat and my heart starts racing. I have no close friends that I can share life with, so that doesn't help. I feel like when I talk about my problems, it's just me being weak and I should just suck it up, but I can't seem to do that. I sleep pretty normally though which is good. Do I sound like I have either of those disorders or is it just real life?
I am a fellow sufferer and not a doctor, have to say - but it's like with anxiety you have so many things freaking you out that you can't tell where one stops and another begins. That's when it's got generalised. And medication is really good to reduce it back to manageable, discrete, separate issues that you just have to handle one at a time.
Needing to be perfect is a real anxiety symptom. Especially to the point where you don't get anything done.
It's not weak. It's basically a chemical imbalance that you've developed from high stress. Too much adrenaline, too much cortisone. Not enough seratonin. So they give you medicine that calms your body down, takes it out of panic zone, leaves you relaxed, and then when you have an issue or problem, it's easier to see what to do.
So you solve problems easier, and the stress goes down.
I was on medication for 2 yrs. I totally recommend what I went through, I can't believe I was in my forties before I did it, my life was hell and just got worse over the years. Wish I'd sorted it out much younger.
It's great that you have a family willing to acknowledge that you are in a crisis and show you a way to resolve it. Just remember: you need to be practical. Forget ego. Forget thinking about it being a cop-out. That's what I thought and it's bunkum. You have a job to do, a career to sort out, friendships to make, and you'll do that a heck of a lot more successfully if you just go to the doctor, get a little something to take the extreme noise down a few decibels inside your body.
(PS not having any close friends is another anxiety thing I personally think. I am much more socially capable now, a lot of fears and anxieties are gone. Life is much more enjoyable for me, and for the people who love me.)
But bottom line: you are a biochemical organism. And you need to take it seriously when one of your functions (fight or flight) has jammed itself in the 'on' position. You need to flick that switch back off.
Look at it this way. If the meds don't work, you haven't lost anything if they do you might just gain something either option is worth s try cause what you're doing is un stainable