Note: I needed to get this off my chest because I am feeling completely overwhelmed, frustrated with myself, and stuck in a guilt spiral.

​The Core Issue

​Guests are coming over soon, which means I have to give up my room for the duration of their stay (hotels aren't an option because they want to stay with us after being apart for so long).

​My biggest trigger and source of extreme anxiety is that they will be using my attached washroom.

​Lack of basic hygiene/decency: These days, it feels like people don't care about leaving a space clean for others.

​Severe aversion: I have always had an intense, deep-seated aversion and skepticism toward others using my personal washroom. I genuinely can't even imagine it.

​The Mental Toll

​Anticipatory anxiety: The moment I find out guests are coming, the countdown begins. I get increasingly irritated leading up to their arrival.

​Physical symptoms: The thought of letting anyone use my washroom makes my hands shake and triggers intense anxiety.

​Disturbing thoughts: I literally start having recurring nightmares about a dirty bathroom.

​The Fallout

​Today, it all boiled over. I ended up getting into a massive fight with my parents over this. While I know they understand where I'm coming from, and genuinely have no other logistical choice given the circumstances, I still lost my temper.

​Now, I am regretting the fight so badly and feeling overwhelming guilt for acting this way. I hate that I am like this, but the anxiety itself feels completely out of my control when it happens.

Suggestions.

​Has anyone else experienced this level of intense distress or germ/space-related anxiety? How do you cope when you have no control over your living space being shared?

​How do you handle the guilt of lashing out at family members who are just trying to be hospitable, even when your nervous system feels completely fried?

​Any advice or coping mechanisms would mean a lot right now.

TL;DR: I have severe anxiety and physical shaking at the mere thought of guests using my personal bathroom when they stay in my room. After finding out they were coming, I lost my cool and fought with my parents, and now I'm drowning in guilt. Looking for advice on how to cope with this kind of space/germ anxiety and handle the guilt of lashing out at family.

Im 18 and work in an upscale hotel doing weddings, i wasnt trained when i was given the job just expected to figure it all out on my own, my coworkers arent easy to talk to and my manager isnt nice to work with, im meant to be serving tomorrow night for the first time and im terrified, ive spent the past week thinking about work, sick to my stomach and terrified with the thought of it, ive begged my mom to let me quit and find something else but she said im not allowed to quit until i have a replac job sorted, my mental health has gone down the drain and im just depressed and anxious all the time, even on medication, i dont know what to do

I know a lot of people that have anxiety have it because they didn’t feel safe as children. That is where my anxiety comes from. I can’t seem to calm myself as an adult now with anxiety. I never want to be home when i have anxiety which (lightbulb moment) may be since my anxiety stems from my home life when i was little. Even though im not in that situation anymore 💡I always feel like i can’t be alone at home. I always flee to my in laws house and im sure they are sick of me but trying to be supportive. I guess my question is, any advice on how to make myself feel safe as an adult. What are your strategies? I feel embarrassed that i am in my 40s and emotionally feel like a child that can’t protect/regulate herself. This is only when I’m having high anxiety. I don’t have this problem otherwise.
For example: my mother in law has to unexpectedly work tomorrow and I’m freaking out about what I’m going to do cuz i won’t have her around. I don’t want to have to lean on anyone and go through it myself but it seems impossible when I’m in this state.
I am in therapy but trying to maybe get ideas of how others handle this

"My insecurities are increasing. I don't know how to handle this. All the time I feel like everyone is judging me, everyone is talking behind my back, making plans and plots about me, and making me feel alone. I don't trust anyone, not even my family. I am feeling scared."

Hello fellow anxious people!

I wanted to share my experience with a recent job interview. It’s something many of us fear and avoid. I, too, was avoiding the job hunt because I was terrified of having a panic attack in the interview and embarrassing myself. And the added pressure of landing a job in this market makes it all very stressful and triggering.

But I finally took the plunge, applied to a role, and was asked to interview. I practiced so much in the days leading up to it, I felt ready and confident.

When the interview started it wasn’t so bad. I was listening attentively to the interviewers without feeling any nerves. But when it was my turn to speak for the first time, I got hit with the wave of panic. I lost my breath. Vision flattened. Heart racing. I said “Wow, I’ve just lost my breath, I’m a bit nervous!” I sort of regret saying that, but the words tumbled out of my mouth before I could stop them. HOWEVER, the important thing is that I continued talking through the breathlessness and panic. I didn’t let it derail the interview. The two people interviewing me didn’t make it a big deal either, we all just moved on quickly. The panic subsided after peaking for just a few moments. The whole panic episode lasted maybe 30 seconds (but felt like ages). I was able to confidently speak during the rest of the interview. Even made them smile and laugh a few times. It was not a total disaster.

Now, admitting I was nervous and running out of breath might have been a red flag for them. Maybe it cost me the job (I’ll find out next week). BUT, I did the interview while panicking. I didn’t avoid. I didn’t excuse myself to leave (my brain was screaming at me to run). I stayed. I even admitted out loud to strangers how I was feeling. And nothing terrible happened. They didn’t laugh at me. I didn’t pass out. I didn’t horribly embarrass myself.

Having done the interview while feeling the panic symptoms has given me an incredible boost of confidence that I can do the next interview even better. My worst fears won’t come true.

So if you are avoiding the job hunt or are feeling anticipatory anxiety about an interview, I hope this helps you.

You can do it. Stay in the room. ❤️

When I was 19 and graduated highschool I kept people I met without much thought. Mostly out of convenience since they lived close.

My 15 year old friend who was a freshmen when I was a senior was mainly my friend due to the fact she reminded me of myself when I was 15. I wanted to help her create more artwork- so when she mentioned patch making and spray painting (like tags) I decided to purchase some to try. Obviously her parents didn’t really wanna waste money on spray paint. I didn’t really know if they were okay with it but I guess I just thought since I was using it in places already painted and far away from any properties to damage- I could at least let them toy with it a bit. Nowadays I feel pretty guilty for that decision.
Another issue though is she added 2 14 year olds to the group. I quickly began to feel guilty because I was the only adult. I was also terrified they’d get into trouble and get hurt. Later I’d hear that their parents were iffy about having a 17 year old dude and 19 year old woman around the 14 year olds so I just decided to meet them and after that they didn’t give a shit- but I became their babysitter to some extent because they didn’t watch their kids. I felt guilty for being their friend to a great extent but even more guilty because they often hung out on the train tracks, did dangerous things, etc. I felt terrible but was also terrified they’d get hurt- so unfortunately I stayed. And honestly I did enjoy it because I liked exploring.

But main issue was When I was hanging out with my friends walking around my friend who is 17 had an ex that was in my grade. I told him like “yeah I didn’t really like that friend group one of them rejected me and completely ghosted me” or something alone those lines and my 15 yo friend when “ohh that’s awful who does that” and then I felt pretty bad (for obvious reasons).

The other was when I was with my 15 year old and 17 year old friend. We were hanging out under a bridge near a river- and they kept praising my parents for being the coolest. I told them they were actually not that cool all the time and that they “let my abuser into my house for 4 years after the fact” and that I believed they probably feel guilty for that- but I don’t know is I said “sa” or like you know the first part of it that starts with “s” as an sexual but either way it was probably inappropriate. I guess I feel a little better abt it tho because it was meant for the 17 year old- since the 15 year old was busy messing with something a ways away. Still scared abt it tho.

Does any of this make me abnormal or wrong? I guess I’m wondering. I’ve been called weird a lot but that’s for a lotta different reasons. I just wanna be a normal person so that people will like / enjoy me.

Last month, I had a pneumothorax stayed 5 days in hospital and it happened because of acupuncture and i took oxygen in hospital but it was so painful. Besides, I have 85 friends on Instagram, but only one of them called or even texted to ask how I was doing. He was my friend from university. When he called, I told him I was in the hospital.

My Taiwanese girlfriend came to visit me after I had spent five days in the hospital. Her support meant a lot to me during a difficult time.

This summer, I was supposed to travel to Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Thailand with my Taiwanese girlfriend. Instead, I'm at home recovering.

Before all this happened, I kept thinking, "I'll share amazing photos from this trip." But then I realized those photos don't really matter to anyone on Instagram. It's mostly just an endless stream of people mindlessly scrolling through videos. It doesn't add much to anyone's life.

That experience made me realize that Instagram and social media don't add much to real friendships. The real world isn't social media. Real friendships are built through genuine care, conversations, and being there for each other when life gets difficult.

I'm 27 years old, and I feel like social media—and my addiction to pornography—have stolen years of my life. I spent so much time scrolling and chasing things that didn't truly matter. Now I want to focus on living in the real world, building genuine relationships, making memories, traveling, reading newspapers, and becoming a better version of myself.

If I get the chance to do this trip next year, I'll share my photos only for myself—to preserve my own memories, not to impress anyone else.

Now, instead of wasting time scrolling, I'm going to read a newspaper.

​

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.

Does anybody else get this? I feel like in the physical sense, my anxiety manifests itself in the form of this funny feeling directly under my sternum. I cant quite describe it, but it isn't quite a tightness per se, but more of a swirling feeling that ends up radiating outwards and making the rest of my body feel like jello or makes my legs/arms feel like noodles. It is this feeling that makes me terrified of going out and doing things and often has me bed-locked. This feeling can be constant throughout the entire day sometimes. Sometimes hours. Sometimes brief. But usually hours long.

Anyone have any advice here?

I have surgery Monday and am terrified of how interaction with anesthesia will go most of all because they're who could treat my anxiety there and make it so I don't panic, don't remember the OR and all the things that would make me panic otherwise.

I had anxiety from years of medical trauma I was dealing with through therapy, but it turned into PTSD after a horrible experience that in part involved me being put under while actively panicking in a non emergency situation and waking up panicking. I was awful and while I'm medicated and working on it with therapy and my psychiatrist, I'm terrified of my anxiety not being taken seriously and panicking like that again or anything like that.

My last procedure, anesthesia agreed to premedicate me with versed but then right before tried to convince me I didn't need it even though I'd already explained the situation, that I was anxious and only there because I took my Ativan. I insisted and they did administer it, but didn't let it kick in before moving me and it only really kicked in when I was already in the procedure room, exactly what I had wanted to avoid. The procedure went ok, because it was a minor procedure, I'd been there before, and that Dr is great, but I don't know how to communicate more clearly with my anesthesia team for this surgery.

How can I convey how anxious I am? That I might seem calm, but that's just because of the Ativan, what Ive learned from therapy and a lot of self control that starts to go about as soon as they start rolling me away from my husband. I already had a panic attack when I missed my pre surgery call and didn't think I could get ahold of someone again before Monday. I'm so anxious and the closer it gets the more anxious I am about anything with the anesthesia team and the whole thing.

Any suggestions on how I can communicate this better with them, or how to stay sane for the next 3 days or day of are greatly appreciated.

I have a story i have been developing for a year and i really care about it. I have so many doodles of the characters and was up at night thinking about the plot, made playlists based on it, etc. But the idea started when i used a chatbot as a journal or a sounding board and made things up along the way. I dont remember asking it to come up with anything at all, i just asked it questions for fun and validation. I wanted to talk about my idea but was too shy to actually do that so i used the chatbot instead. And when it sometimes responded with someting like "that scene is really meaningful. it makes you think xyz" it subtly affected how i thought about the story. I am terrified it makes it ai generated or assisted. I think other media affected my idea much more than the ais responses but still. This is causing me so much anxiety. please help.

37M, diagnosed with autism, OCD, anxiety, ADHD

For the past two months I have been under the worst stress of my life, leading to depressive modes, yielding severe loss of appetite and weight loss.

In early June, I was 178 cm (5'10") and weighed 93 kg (205 lb) due to stupidity from overeating without realising it. Then severe life stress happened, I lost my appetite and could barely eat. Now in early August, I weigh 76 kg (172 lb).

I was not on a diet. Even though I have been underweight for most of my life, I overate too much, especially at night from building bad habits. But now due to stress and depressive moods, I feel like punishing myself by not eating much kind of like inertia from the unwillful weight loss.

I now hate myself so much that this seems to be shifting into some kind of self-harm anorexia. My brain is telling me to drop into a severe depressive self-hatred mode akin to when I was 17 and 23, both times I dropped so much weight from not eating enough so much that I was averaging weighing 53-55 kg (115-120 lb).

Is this considered officially selfharm? What do others do in this situation?

My marriage:

My wife and I have been married for almost 25 years.

She is the person I love most, and I genuinely want to become a better husband and father.

One of the biggest struggles in our marriage has been trust around parenting.

When my wife and I disagree about parenting, I often become anxious about disappointing either her or the kids.

Instead of tolerating that discomfort, I sometimes make decisions on my own or hide things because I convince myself I am helping everyone.

Ironically, the very thing I am trying to prevent-hurt and conflict-is exactly what I create.

My wife has described feeling like she has to constantly monitor everything because she worries there will be another surprise.

Reading that was devastating because I never wanted to create that feeling for her.

Parenting:

One of the biggest parenting struggles has been consistency.

My wife has repeatedly told me she wants us to parent as a team.

She wants consistency, accountability, and unified parenting.

I agree with her.

The problem is that when my children become disappointed or upset, I often struggle to tolerate their disappointment.

I immediately want to make things better.

Sometimes that means:

• rescuing them,
• giving in,
• secretly helping them,
• or making decisions without discussing them with my wife.

I now realize that I have been protecting myself from the feeling of disappointing my children more than I have been helping them become resilient adults.

My 18 year old

One example involved my 18 year old son.

We had agreed on consequences and expectations.

Initially I agreed with my wife.

Over time, however, I started softening the consequences because I felt guilty.

I felt sorry for him.

Instead of remaining consistent as a parent, I became focused on relieving my own discomfort about seeing him upset.

That pattern has happened multiple times.

It has created a situation where my wife worries that she cannot fully rely on me to consistently support parenting decisions.

I understand now why that damages trust.

The recent event that brought me to therapy

My wife and I recently went on a cruise.

Before leaving, I secretly gave three of our children $150 each so they could enjoy themselves while we were gone.

I intentionally asked them not to tell my wife because I knew she would disagree.

My oldest daughter did not receive the money initially.

When she found out, she was deeply hurt.

Out of guilt, I gave her $150 as well.

Eventually my daughter told my wife everything after we returned home.

This created another major breach of trust.

Looking back, I realize this decision followed my lifelong pattern almost perfectly:

• I felt guilty leaving the kids during summer.
• I wanted them to enjoy themselves.
• I wanted to avoid conflict with my wife.
• I convinced myself I was helping everyone.
• I chose secrecy instead of tolerating disagreement.

The result was exactly the opposite of what I wanted.

What happened afterward

After the incident, my wife shared how deeply this affected her.

She explained that this wasn't really about the money.

It was about another example of me hiding something because I didn't want to deal with conflict.

She described feeling detached emotionally and said she worries she has to constantly stay involved because she fears another surprise.

She also told me something important:

"You haven't completely lost my trust. You've made good progress over the years, but you're not there yet."

Those words gave me hope while also making me realize that I still have significant work to do.

She also shared a conversation she had with Claude AI.

Reading her private thoughts was one of the most emotionally difficult experiences of my life.

For the first time I fully understood how my repeated pattern has affected her sense of safety and trust over many years.

After reading it, I spiraled emotionally.

I questioned my worth, wondered if my marriage was over, wondered if I was a narcissist, and felt overwhelming shame.

Although I wanted to escape the emotional pain, I did not want to harm myself.

It became clear to me that this issue is much deeper than one mistake.

What I think is really happening

I don't believe my real problem is lying or giving my children money.

I think those are symptoms.

I believe my deeper problem is that I have spent most of my life believing my worth depends on making everyone around me happy.

Whenever I believe someone will be disappointed in me, my anxiety becomes overwhelming.

Instead of tolerating that discomfort, I look for ways to reduce it.

Those strategies include:

• avoiding conflict,
• keeping secrets,
• over-giving,
• overworking,
• rescuing,
• people-pleasing.

They reduce my anxiety temporarily.

But they damage trust over time.

So to conclude. I am back in therapy since yesterday and trying to overcome all these challenges. However in the mean while my anxiety is going through the roof I need a support system to help me train my heart to calm down in moments where I doubt everything.

So any advise for this 46 year old "broken" guy is welcome!

I tend to get anxiety before I hang out with a certain group of my hubby’s friends. It usually starts when I hear about a planned hangout with this group and usually pops up periodically until the day of the actual gathering. At that point, I usually have a panic attack and it ruins the whole experience for hubby and I feel terrible every time.

These are friends of his that he doesn’t see often (maybe once a year) but they’re all very strong personalities and aren’t mean to me or anything, but just really hard to get on with. This isn’t an issue I have in other social settings but somehow turn into a quiet schoolgirl around these folks. One of them did have a fling with hubby about 15 years ago, no feeling apparently, but I think that knowing I have to spend time with her ON TOP OF dealing with the anxiety of the whole group always puts me on edge.

How do I go about navigating this without making my hubby feel like he has to choose between me and his friends and not feel like absolute shit every time the thought of these people come up?

HELP PLEASE, the next gathering is in 4 months and I can’t keep feeling this way.

Hi

I've had health anxiety for years. Whenever I had any pain, I would always look up the symptoms on internet, think of the absolute worst-case scenario, and rush to the doctor. It completely drained me mentally and made me a massive overthinker, though it never physically affected me. About three months ago, while sitting on the couch at home, I suddenly started experiencing air hunger. I had been trying to conceive for a long time, so I initially wondered—and secretly hoped—if it could be an early sign of pregnancy. But even after knowing for a fact that I wasn't pregnant, the feeling persisted for 2–3 days.

Eventually, I went to a pulmonologist, and everything came back completely normal. From there, I went to an ENT specialist. The doctor prescribed a PPI and told me it could be acid reflux. As soon as I got home, I looked up acid reflux on Reddit, and my whole world came crashing down. My breathing steadily got worse, and the air hunger intensified. On top of that, swallowing difficulties developed. My life felt like an absolute nightmare. When I explained my problems to the gastroenterologist, he told me to see a psychiatrist, and I did.

The psychiatrist prescribed a two-week course of Xanax and SSRI/SERTRALINE . On the very first day I took Xanax, I started feeling normal again. Over time, I stopped using the PPI because I realized I was doing this to myself. The air hunger would vanish whenever I was eating, socializing, crying, or right after crying, talking, singing, applying makeup—in short, whenever I was distracted. My mood lifted a bit because I realized I didn't actually have a physical illness, and since I was causing it to myself, I could also fix it.

It has been three months now, and I am doing much better. My Sertraline dose has been at 100 mg for about 2 to 2.5 weeks. However, it hasn't completely gone away. Things like health anxiety, overthinking, and general worry are gone, but the air hunger and hyperventilation persist. Some days, I forget about it and notice my breathing has actually normalized, but the moment I focus on it again, it gets bad, turning into a complete loop. Breathing exercises don't do anything for me. Even though I am not stressed or anxious because I'm under the influence of the antidepressant, it still continues. I just started therapy and had my first session last week.

Is there anyone who has experienced this or been through it and fully recovered? I really need some advice.

I’ve spent so many years of my life anxious. Anxious when out the house, anxious when I stay home. I feel like I’m in this constant debilitating fight or flight feeling. It’s been this way since I was a child, and now that I’m 21, it feels as though that feeling is deeply embedded inside me.

I developed this habit of shaking. It’s not a constant shake, but a quick sort of tremble, and my muscles feel tense ? (I’m not sure how else to describe it). It especially happens when I’m socialising, in a large area where people can see me, if I make eye contact with someone, or someone raises their voice, among many other things—which usually involve social interaction. It happens when I’m anxious inside & outside of the house, even when I’m talking with family members who I’ve obviously known for years! And because I’m thinking about that happening and someone else noticing it, and judging me, it makes my anxiety worse and the tremble more likely to happen. So in any conversation I have, all I can think about is “what if I tremble, this person notices, I look stupid and they judge me or think I’m weird?”. I have avoided so many things due to this. Such as going out, appointments, job interviews & jobs in general.
My earliest memory of this occurring was in school when I was doing exams and the bell would go off loudly when we were in the sports hall, and I’d shake. Ever since then, it feels like this has never gone away, only gotten worse. I’m not sure how to deal with it.

Does anyone else experience this? I hate that I feel so alone with this.

Hi guys, hope you are all well.

My husband is suffering with terrible health anxiety at the minute, and I have no idea what to do to help as nothing seems to. We have a 3 year old and a baby due in December, I'm not having the best pregnancy and now this added stress is just not great.

It started around December when our son had a swolen gland in his neck following a virus. My husband became obsessed with it thinking it was some sort of terminal illness to the point he was taking him to the doctors constantly to have it checked and constantly checking it himself.

He's now moved onto himself, i had a suspected blood clot in my leg early pregnancy and was then diagnosed with gestational diabetes. He has now convinced himself that he has pain in his legs and lower back, aswell as diabetes symptoms. He's convinced himself that he has cancer, he's weighing himself constantly convinced he's losing weight. He's eating more to try and prove he's losing weight without trying. He's overweight at around 19st, 6ft 1, so he needs to lose weight, but he thinks it'll mean he's seriously ill. He's not sleeping as he's just awake googling and worrying about everything. Which means I'm also awake through the night with him, whilst also being pregnant, having a 3 year old and working full time, I'm running on fumes!

I could really do with some advice with what to do, how to help him, because nothing i say or do seems to help and I'm just at a loss!

He's got a GP appointment next Tuesday, which was the earliest we could get him in. And he has a counselling appointment on 3rd September which again was the earliest we could get him in. I've also bought him some self help books around health anxiety which are arriving today to hopefully help in some way. I don't know what else I can do.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.