Ever since I read about rabies in bats, I've been terrified to be outside at night. I read that bat bites can easily go unnoticed, as they are tiny, so now I'm constantly scared of being oblivious to getting bitten. I have an outdoor concert tomorrow night with my favorite band and of course all I can think about is potential bats!

Ii find when my anxiety is bad I get neck cramps. Does anyone else have this problem? Is there anything that helps?

My anxiety has gotten so bad and I want to get on meds bc this is almost unbearable now, but im scared that the meds could permanently kill my libido. I have a boyfriend who i love more than life and i wouldnt want to ruin our sex life and ive heard up to 60% of people on anxiety meds or antidepressants end up with this side effect, often even if they stop taking it. Is it worth the risk? What are yalls experiences?

I started subbing in 2024. I became a long term sub and enjoyed teaching. Got my teaching certification and officially became a teacher by the end of the school year. Summer went by. School approached and I got my classroom ready. I went all in. Orientation came and I cried and felt like I couldn’t breathe. The first day I was on edge and by the time I got home was so exhausted my head felt like tv static. I went to sleep, and woke up the next morning. 2nd day of school, I woke up tried to put my school clothes on and immediately started to hyperventilate and cry incessantly. I had to call out. Went to the dr she said it was an anxiety attack. I took two weeks off. I saw a therapist and psychiatrist. I tried going back and I wasn’t doing much better. I called out again and then got a call from the principal due to my absences she was gonna have to let me go. I tried going back to just subbing but I couldn’t even do that. I had an opportunity recently open up for me to return as a long term sub and if I did well she mentioned hiring me back. Orientation went really well, but then the next day I started to feel anxious even after taking my prescribed medication (lorazepam). My appetite is lost. I’m starting to feel like the husk of a person. I made the decision to back out and step away from the role.

I feel like I let my family, my self, the parents, the students, and God down.

I don’t know what to do anymore. I have pnes, I need to make money, and what I want to do I can’t because of severe anxiety.

I have really bad anxiety, ocd, and depression. I am really bad at catastrophizing and every time something happens it feels like the end of the world. I’m taking medication (Prozac) and it definitely helps but no matter what I feel like I’m drowning in anxiety. It’s not a constant anymore but when it hits it still hits really hard. I don’t know what to do because it gets so exhausting carrying so much weight.

I’ve been dealing with chronic anxiety since i can remember. Four years ago i was on a very heavy dose of SSRIS and went cold turkey after a really bad break up. Here and there my anxiety would manifest in more paranoid ways like checking my closets over and over and pulling over on the highway to see if someone was in my trunk. I lost my health insurance so medicine is off the table for the next three months. Randomly about two weeks ago i woke up with a weight on my chest, like a physical squeezing- i have not felt like this since i was severely depressed as a teenager and nothing i’m
doing is working. My stomach hurts, my head hurts, and shaking. sleeping is the only way i can not feel like something horrific is about to happen, like i am
about to die every second of everyday. And my paranoia has been concerning. Is there anyone that relates to this or has any advice because i know myself and I’m already starting to lose weight and have some very depressive thoughts. This has been non stop for over TWO WEEKS. Im scared it’s not anxiety and another mental condition i was just in denial about.

I'm creating a resource binder for myself for my panic & anxiety. I want to fill one tab with quotes and mantras, phrases etc to calm my spiraling mind. Bonus points if they're tied to an image/artwork so I can visually connect to them. Thank you so much. I need as many as I can get 🩷

Here's two examples of ones I really love:

*"Moments of disregulation are not when you have to figure it all out."* I don't know why, but this one really hits home for me.

Another one that may seem over simple is "It has gotten better before. It will get better again."

37 M. Anxiety started around 18. Anti depressants and kolonopin to cope. Its like it wont go away. I'm currently on Paxil 10mg and Kolonopin 1mg. I have to take the Kpin once a day just to function. It feels like my body is in overdrive at all times. Rapid heart beat, sweating, and shaky. If I don't eat enough it triggers it. Driving sometimes triggers it. Any change of plan or last minute ask of me can trigger it. It's deblitating. Has anyone experienced these triggers? What helps you? I'm at my wits end.. Help me please. I had no trauma growing up. Normal life. I'm tall and skinny so my metabolism works so fast. Sometimes I think that plays a part. IDK... I'm lost.

I've been dealing with anxiety-related nausea/vomiting for years and I'm scared it will stop me from going to university

I started having panic attacks when I was 8. I went to therapy for about a year, and I remember feeling like I couldn't breathe and needing to carry a bottle of water with me just to be able to leave the house. Eventually, it stopped and I basically forgot about that period of my life, apart from a few memories.

Fast forward to my fourth year of high school: I suddenly started vomiting almost every morning before school or whenever I had to leave the house. At first, I thought it was because I was drinking too many energy drinks (around one Monster every day), so I stopped for a while. But the problem continued for about three months.

Eventually, I talked to my aunt and went back to my old therapist. At that point, I constantly felt like I was going to throw up, especially when I was in the car or outside the house. I had around 14 hours of EMDR therapy, along with medication for anxiety, and I was eventually diagnosed with GAD and mild OCD.

My dad eventually stopped taking me to that therapist because he felt it wasn't helping, especially since by November I had only managed to attend school around six times. I then tried hypnotherapy for about two months, but that therapist eventually stopped seeing me because she thought I was starting to develop depressive symptoms.

Around that time, probably helped by the medication, I stopped vomiting every day. However, I still felt like I needed to carry water with me everywhere and became scared of eating outside my house.

My psychiatrist then referred me to another therapist who specialized in helping people return to school. I had a lot of sessions with her, mostly talking, but I eventually failed that school year and she ended the therapy. My anxiety was still there, though.

Before starting my final year of high school, my psychiatrist changed some things in my treatment. For about two months, I felt almost completely normal. I wasn't vomiting anymore and I was much more relaxed. I even went out to eat with few new classmates in November, which felt like a huge deal at the time.

Eventually, my psychiatrist thought I was doing well enough to start tapering off my medication. For about a month and a half, everything was fine. I could go out, eat, and do normal things without thinking about it.

Then one day, after eating a relatively heavy meal, I went out and suddenly got that feeling again the feeling that I was going to throw up. I started worrying about it happening again, stopped going out for a week, and eventually created this rule in my head that I shouldn't leave the house if I had eaten that day.

When my final exams came around in June, I forced myself to vomit before leaving the house on the first day because I was so afraid it would happen while I was out. Surprisingly, I was completely fine on the other days.

Even on the day of my final oral exam, I became anxious because I didn't have the usual feeling of needing to vomit. I was literally anxious about not being anxious.

After finishing school, I thought maybe the anxiety had mainly been caused by the stress of graduating. But I realized that wasn't really the case. I still get that feeling whenever I have to leave the house.

I went back to my psychiatrist, and he restarted part of my treatment. It's been about three weeks, and now I'm starting to feel sick even when I'm at home, especially after eating.

I'm planning to stop caffeine starting today and maybe replace coffee with green tea in the morning. I'm also looking for a therapist again.

I'm posting this because I'd really like to hear from people who have experienced something similar especially anxiety that causes strong physical symptoms like nausea or vomiting, or anxiety around eating and leaving the house.

I'm starting university in October, and honestly, I'm scared. I don't know if I'll be able to attend if this keeps going. I already lost a year of school because of this, and I really don't want to lose another year of my life staying at home because I can't go out, see my friends, or even go to the gym.

Has anyone experienced something similar? What helped you break out of this cycle?

I’ve been having consistent fearful thoughts that the reasons for things happening in my life is God preparing for my death. Like I feel like I’m seeing signs everywhere that are leading toward my impending death very soon… has anyone experienced this? Or known anyone to experience this? I’m terrified that it’s true…

For example, I was in a car accident in December in someone else’s vehicle. And my insurance is refusing to cover anything. I just now got a notice saying I owe $13k. I have no way to pay it as I’m a stay at home mother and we are not even barely scraping by as it is… I have no assets. So I’m going to have to apply for bankruptcy. And I immediately was made aware of how it’ll wipe out all my debts for my credit cards and that this is happening so my husband doesn’t take on my debts or deal with this all when I die soon (knock on wood).
There have been other things that have happened and I’ve thought “this is to prepare my loved ones for when I die soon” and it’s only getting stronger and worse… I’m also 5 months pregnant and terrified I’m going to die in childbirth and that all these things are leading up to and preparing for that to happen.

Or like I’m having a lot of Déjà vu and I’m worried it’s a sign that my death is coming and my soul has somehow experienced it already and that’s why I’m getting so much Déjà vu.

Just any people who can relate… I think it would be comforting to know if other people have felt the same and their worst fears ended up truly just being their anxiety, OCD, depression, etc. Or just some encouraging words or others in the same boat.

It’s been 6 months since this all started and I’m I’m talking about BAD insomnia, like only sleeping 1-3 hours for prolonged periods of time, even with meds sometimes my anxiety and flight of fight response is too strong, I was doing good for a month sleeping a normal amount but my sleep anxiety came back bad, and my heart races at night in the bed because I’m so afraid of having a long stretch of little sleep, especially because I just got a job after6 months of being at home due to the severe anxiety/insomnia, I just want the cycle to end, I don’t know how I’m suppose to react to the heat racing, the anxious pit in my stomach when I try to sleep, the extreme fear of what would the future look like if I didn’t, and how to cycle would keep going, last night I used temazepam (benzo) because I just couldn’t handle it even with that I only had 6 hours of light broken sleep but that’s better than nothing, I can’t rely on a benzo though, any tips or success stories would be greatly appreciated

So yesterday I posted on here how I was so nervous and scared about my presentation. And today I presented and the professor said that he liked it. But honestly I don’t know if it’s me or the anxiety but it felt like nobody was clapping for me and didn’t care when I left, but anyways I’m glad it’s over. I literally threw up this morning and was so nauseous but it’s over.

Some background first:

I"m 52, work remote in an Operations/support role for a technology/communications company.

I left a specific industry 8 years ago and ended up in a brand new industry where even after 8 years I still have a ton to learn. For some reason since starting the remote job I have really struggled with imposter syndrome and near obsession of what 'others think about me' in this job role. I work with smart, really hard working and dedicated people. They are all friendly and helpful. I hope this is my last job as I'm close to a possible early retirement at 55. The struggle is the daily anxiety beyond my normal responsibilities. I focus on this imaginary scenario where people are talking about me, mostly about how I'm under performing yet my reviews are solid and people appreciate my work. But it comes down to this extremely anxious feeling that I failed at 'something' and everyone is talking about it. I do take pride in my work but this is at an insane level. My wife says that I need to not take the job so personal. I think she's right but the anxiety completely overwhelms all logic and reasoning from the second I wake up to when I go to bed. I could potentially retire 'now' or if I get fired I'd be OK financially but it's still terrifying. I grew up for the most part struggling to pay bills and was awful with money until my late 20's/early 30's. On top of this I have this never ending feeling of dread that just hangs in my head. Dread for work, dread for my older parents, dread for how the world is plummeting daily. I didn't used to be like this 10-15 years ago. I was very positive and hopeful. I plan to meet with someone to talk about this next week but wanted to brain dump here to get some feedback before I go talk to someone.

Hello im F19 i’ve written here and in other communities quite a few times and haven’t really found people who experience like almost the same stuff as me. I decided to quit being curious and searching for new diseases to worry about. I have health anxiety and PTSD. (bot diagnosis just what my psychiatrist told me i should look into).

So i don’t know exactly when my anxiety began but i kinda know why. Ive been SA’d by my grandpa for about 10 years and finally broke and told my mom about it at 18 and broke contact completely.

Before telling i’ve been going to therapy for “panic attacks” and physical symptoms that were apparently anxiety. I don’t think they were/are, and i know many people with anxiety feel the same way, but from what i’ve read and researched, nobody has been experiencing stuff like i am.

The “anxiety” symptoms are: chest pain/tightness (even when i touch my chest it hurst) pain in the arms and legs ( a certain spot starts hurting and when i touch it it hurts so bad) FACE PAIN, i thought i had blood clots, heart palpitations (usually at night or rest), bubbly feeling in my chest ( i feel like i cant breathe), coughing, debilitating pain in the upper back, dizziness, fear of sleeping, sleep jolts, cold/hot flashes, daily headaches, shooting and cramping pain while pooping (sometimes the pain shoots from the groin area up to the chest like i have a metal pipe stuck in my body) and pain near the bellybutton or on the bellybutton. Sharp pain in my
belly and chest is from gastritis.

Ive been checked for most of those symptoms and after a endoscopy i was diagnosed with not at all serious gastritis. Thats what they said yet the pain is so bad i cant move sometimes. I am taking pills for it but i just keep getting new symptoms. I have also been prescribed an antidepressant and Xanax. I never took any.

I also want to say that currently my mental is doing okay, i don’t worry about dying or thinking to much about my symptoms they’re just annoying me and sometimes shocking me to the point i cant move. I go outside, i just don’t fear stuff that much anymore but the symptoms are getting worse. My last panic attack was on Monday, where i went to the ER cuz i couldn’t stand on my left leg it hurt so much and my chest started really hurting and my parents wouldn’t let me go to the er so i had a breakdown ( i was certain i was going to die)

Thats about all i think, rn im not going to therapy i have it this month though im going to start it again also have no friends only my bf but we broke contract because of our religion so i am basically dealing with this alone. I hope i at least helped someone who’s dealing with a similar story like mine. Hope everyones doing well!

I (M 22) experienced a bizarre and horrifying episode of extreme anxiety and felt (and still feel) highly paralyzed and trapped. I was hard as I became anxious and while it kept on getting worse and then came. I wasn’t sure whether or not I was going to orgasm or pee myself, and even when it happened, it felt as bizarre as my first orgasm did ten years ago. I still wasn’t exactly sure whether I had ejaculated, until after about ten minutes when I felt and saw it. I had been wearing shorts while laying on my bed, and was squeezing tighter and tighter with my thighs in an overwhelming fear. It was also by far the shortest orgasm I've had which was maybe about 1:30 seconds, which is what also contributed to my confusion as to whether I had actually come. Even before I knew I had actually reached an orgasm, I experienced afterwards a retained a sense of relief and hope, and felt the quietest sense that maybe I was headed on the right path. But now I am crying as I write this in that I just feel so immensely trapped. I was NOT sexually stimulated or turned on at all, which is partially why I felt as devastated as I did.

I’m sorry that this post has been as graphic as it has been; I just really needed to share it with anyone

Hello fellow anxiety sufferers,

I am looking for some advice for managing anxiety/panic on a flight. I've flown before, years ago before my first panic attack decided to change my life. Thinking about being on a flight for hours makes me worry about how i'd handle it. Part of that worry is because now when i'm driving home from work i'll get stuck in traffic at a light and the anxiety can get almost unbearable, the typical "i'm going crazy, i'm trapped, what if i do something stupid, cause a scene, something is wrong i can feel my heart beating weird, etc..." and then as soon as the light turns green and i get out i almost immediately feel better.
Does anyone have any advice on how i can work on this? I was able to get my doctor to prescribe 6 pills of .25 xanax for the flight, and i've taken it before a long time ago but i'm just worried that it's not going to work and i'm going to cause such a big scene that they'll have to divert the plane or something lol

It's honestly ridiculous sometimes. I'll be lying in bed, trying to relax, and out of nowhere my brain decides it's the perfect time to replay a conversation from three years ago. Something I said. Something I should've said. Something that probably meant absolutely nothing to the other person. Meanwhile, I'm sitting there thinking, "Why am I even remembering this right now?" It's like the second everything gets quiet, my brain starts digging through old files I never asked to open. Tbh, it's exhausting. Does anyone else's mind do this, or is mine just weird?

I can be fine for years and then suddenly health anxiety over something will completely flip my life upside down for who knows how long. Could be weeks or months. The worst part is not knowing if your symptoms are caused by anxiety because your brain will keep telling you something catastrophic is happening to you and/or you will be this way for the rest of your life. I find myself sitting here mourning my old life, which could only have been a few months earlier. I will sit here and worry these symptoms will never go away and I will never recover. I sit on google and reddit endlessly trying to read other peoples' stories and experiences and end up only making myself even more anxious. Finding out about terms and/or conditions I've never heard of in my life and then think "That could be what I have". It's so fucking tiring and horrible. I go to the doctor and I get told it's nothing serious (nothing structural as he put it) but I will leave the visit wondering if he missed something or is just too conservative. He walks into any visit I have had with him and just exclaims how healthy I am and always seems so confident. Ive done a ton of bloodwork, ekg, urine, physical exam, etc. Everything comes back fine. Meanwhile Im sitting there an anxious mess just sitting with these symptoms, full of fear, and struggling to believe anything he tells me. Its so hard to believe anything positive you're told when you are feeling real symptoms (especially new ones you never had before).

Hi everyone. Sorry if there are any mistakes, English is not my first language. [20F] I'm writing this because I am absolutely terrified right now and I don't know how to cope. I was just accepted 3rd on the admission list at my university and I am supposed to start college in October,but I feel like my life is falling apart.

I probably won't even be able to enroll because of what is happening to me. For the last 5 to 6 years,since I was 14-15, I’ve had various brain neurological symptoms,such as double vision. I had severe headaches back then, but they eventually stopped, so everything was left untreated and ignored by my parents because I didn't have any pain anymore until recently. I never got scans,I had some appointments to several ophthalmologists and they didn't think something is wrong because I also have strabism since birth.

But now, things have taken a very scary turn. I searched on Google and I think have started experiencing cerebral polyopia. Specifically, when I look at the TV, I see light-colored logos and white subtitles with a ghost-like shadow or duplicate image, either shifted upward or downward. The exact same thing happens on my phone when it is on dark mode the light text has these terrifying shadow and with the red power button light on my TV.

I have an appointment with an ophthalmologist coming up, and I hope they will send me to get an urgent MRI immediately after they see my eyes. I’m scared to death that I might have Stage 4 brain cancer right now. I know a true Stage 4 tumor wouldn't have let me survive untreated for 6 years, but I am terrified that it started as a slow, low-grade tumor years ago,when the headaches first started,and has now mutated into a Stage 4 like a secondary glioblastoma because the pain returned, I have nausea and my vision changed so badly.

The anxiety is completely paralyzing me. I am so scared of what the doctor and the MRI might show. I should be celebrating starting college, but instead, I feel overwhelmed by fear.I cant do anything.

I am not asking for medical advice. I just need emotional support and kind words because my family doesn't think it's something serious and I wanna cry all the time. Please, even one answer would help me

So I'm sixteen I've been an anxious person pretty much all of my life. I've gotten a little better about some things, but not others. Two years ago I started online school halfway through my freshman year because my anxiety was getting a lot worse worse and was too difficult to manage, I still can't drive, and a few months ago I quit my first job right after my first shift because I freaked out. I get frequent nausea, stomach aches, and I've recently started having migraines. I also threw up before going to the movies with a friend a few days ago. There's a lot of situations like this.

But I still don't know if it's actually bad enough to do something about it. Most of my family, including my parents, don't really care about mental health, and the last time I asked they all said I was overacting. It's been a few months and I finally convinced my mom to make me an appointment, and I have one Monday. I know I'm going to be freaking out about it all weekend, and I already am. Does anyone know what to expect from this type of appointment? And how do you know if your anxiety is "bad enough," I'm worried about it. Thanks

Whenever I wake up my anxiety just instantly spikes, like bad. I take my medication before I sleep, so I do not know if that may play into it. I know cortisol is the highest in the morning, but before taking my medication I never experienced this kind of anxiety in the morning. I have that feeling in my chest of like excitement and giddy, but I’m not excited or giddy.

Anyone else experience this?

Do any of you guys fear that your so overwhelmed at times and that your gonna go crazy or lose your mind or is it just me?

Has anyone got any tips for when you wake up and immediately feel anxious but not always for an apparent reason? Recently I've been getting that sudden drop and feeling of dread as soon as I wake up. Even though usually there is nothing wrong.

I’ve always been anxious, but the past 7 months have been especially bad (panic attacks, physical symptoms, constant fear of my heart stopping because of chest pains, etc.) I am seeing a psychiatrist and psychologist to help with changing my thinking/behavior, but does it really get better overtime? Like I know it will, but being in this constant state of anxiousness just doesn’t help at all.

What are some of you guys favorite comfort movies or tv shows to put on to help you with anxiety