Anxiety... Not.

[ohno]

I've been attending an anxiety clinic for the past year or so. I've been boycotting my appointments lately because I don't feel any improvement, as they just pile drugs on me without further assessment.

When I was first invited to the clinic, because of my family history with anxiety, it was assumed I was anxious. I had trouble with high school, leaving with a semester left (currently in my early twenties, still haven't finished), and it seems like every venture I take leads me to another dead end and cycle.

I don't feel I'm anxious for no reason, I feel I'm anxious because I'm so uncertain of what I'm doing. I feel like I can't stay focused on one thing, even if I'm doing well. It's as if I had two tracks of mind; one thinks one way and vice versa. On one track, it tells me to keep going to school, keep going to work, keep trying hard- but the other track tells me to completely vanish from what I'm doing and never look back. Not only does the general despondency from living my life build, the frustration constantly piles up due to my inability to keep anything productive going.

People always tell me I have to try harder, and I don't pay enough attention, and that I'm so unbelievably irresponsible... I can't see how I became like this after being such a good student for so many years. From elementary school, middle school, and the start of highschool- I found myself with 90%+ grades. I never had a problem and was always the favorite for anything. I never through twice about having problems. Then; nothing got harder, I could still do the work, but I could never finish it. I started all assignments and never completed one after grade 11. No matter how hard I tried to keep a one track mind, I found that the other track continues to switch out- leaving the original track to return to nothing, making me start from scratch over and over.

I've been told this is anxiety, but even from tests that I had to take initially when I entered the clinic- after close study, I found out the number codes and interpretation key and noticed that I posses hardly any hardwired anxiety at all. I believe I have just general anxiety, rooted from my lack of attention to anything important.

In addition to this, I have nervous ticks (clenching my chest muscles, cracking my jaw, checking my pulse, biting my finger nails) that will not let down unless I follow through with them, as they will create more anxiety if stopped. I hardly ever leave my house to do anything, even if I'm interested in doing it. I can't hold relationships soundly, as I've got people who are interested in me- yet, I can't find it in me to actually share any information with them (extreme lack of trust, paranoid behavior) or tell them the entire truth about anything (which results in an extreme lack of trust and paranoid behavior for both parties). I believe all these things are symptoms of an underlying problem.

I'm just grasping for answers, as I feel like the professionals have failed me, trying to cure symptoms. If it were up to me, I'd pick up a dictionary of symptoms and hash it out myself- but I'm no expert. It doesn't matter how many conclusions I come up with; they can't be accredited to any degree. Heck, I haven't even finished high school.

[Jennifer]

Yes, there comes a time when you have all the knowledge in the world from therapy and its time to start applying that knowledge in your own life. Do you also suffer from ADHD? Lack of attention is more adhd than anxiety. anxiety stems from the depression category and it is just constant worry about things. you can have anxiety and sitll function in this world, heck you can have anything and still function in this world that is up to you how you want to live, nobody can make that decison for you.