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Today was a very bad day. Let me preface this by saying I'm having a very unsuccessful time quitting smoking. I've done it before but I picked it up again about six months ago and it's been hard to quit. I did a stupid thing and I fished a pack I'd tossed out of the trash can (gross, I know) and smoked a few. Now I've got a sore throat and I'm convinced I've basically killed my self. Whether that's what kicked off today's panic attack, my first in years, I don't know, but I had a BAD one. Totally convinced I was having a heart attack. Had to drive home from work in a state I can't even describe but I just KNEW I was gonna get in a wreck or just stop in the middle of the highway or do something crazy or something terrible was going to happen. I don't even know. Well, now that my heart attack fears have calmed down I'm now certain I put salmonella in my lungs and throat and will be dead soon. I dont even even know how to chill this one out. Also: long time reader, first time poster. Hi!

I'm 23 years old and have smoked cigars occassionally, smoked cigarettes occassionally (sometimes chain smoking them) and used snuff for a period of 5 years or so. Ive smoked the cigars and cigarettes for maybe 3 of those years. Lastly for maybe the last year or so I've done some mild to moderate drinking once or twice a week. The major part of my tobacco usage was the snuff, with the worst of my habit being in 2014, when I was consuming up to half of a tin a day. Since 2014 i cut back to maybe 2 to 4 dips a day, some days i would not use at all. About 10 days ago I quit cold turkey due to reading some rather frightening material about smokeless tobaccos effects. I'm now having some severe anxiety over what I've potentially done to myself and may even be dealing with some hypocondria type symptoms. I've been to the doctor as of Wednesday with some neck pain, earache and a feeling of one side of my throat, like my tonsil area, feeling swollen when I swallow & told him for the first time about my tobacco use and he claims my mouth tissue looks very healthy. He looked into my throat and felt my neck and did not find anything suspicious but did not scope my throat. My throat isnt sore nor am i hoarse or anything like I'm horrified of what could be as I cannot tell if my symptoms are real or imagined, I've been googling non stop about it and I'd like to ask anyone that could help me with this, what are the odds of cancer of the throat or someplace like that given my past usage tally??

Hello all! I have been needing to go to a safe place like this to honestly share my problems for over a year now. I am hoping that by sharing them for the first time with other people that I may have greater success in overcoming them. First of all, let me give you some context about myself. After one year at a US military service academy, I transferred to a civilian university. While I pretend that this year was one of growth and valuable experience, there is no reason to maintain such a facade here. Honestly, I felt like I lost part of my humanity, personality, identity, and ability to cope with stress here. I felt dehumanized by being barred from talking (without being addressed first by an upperclassmen) outside the privacy of my room. I think the start of my fear of crowds came from the furious "greeting" sessions between classes at the academy, where I was oft stopped by bitter upper class cadets for a quick hazing. Unable to cope with constantly feeling surrounded by hostility and enemies, with every corner i had to "square" being a potential ambush site, I desperately tried to find an outlet for the waves of unreleased emotion i felt. Maybe I just wanted momentarily relief from the hellish existence I worked so hard to achieve. Regardless, my mechanisms for getting by were horrible for my health. Unfortunately, the easiest coping mechanism at the time has cost me thousands of dollars, much of my health and livelihood, and much pain and suffering from addiction - that's right, I started smoking cigarettes. The smoke pits were considered by all classes of cadets to be a rank free area, so it was the one place i could indulge in normal conversations and feel like a normal 18 year old for a few minutes. The other horrible habit i developed was chronic sleep deprivation. My hard and fast rule was this: 3 hours in the minimum amount of sleep you can get - otherwise, do not bother sleeping at all. Looking back ,this was a tragic decision for a young man to make to try to stay in a place he hated so much; however, my own choices there and afterward have sent me hurtling down a path of chronic isolation, depression, difficulty in completing tasks, extreme social anxiety, fear of crowds, panic attacks, and s*****al ideation (spelling?). Fast forward to 2014 - i am on the verge of graduation credit wise, but have been unable to step on campus for the majority of the past two terms. I think this is in part due to my excessive embarrassment of being a super senior, but mostly due to an underlying anxiety condition i have not been professionally diagnosed with. I will most likely be denied financial aid due to my irrational fear, and therefore will most likely be unable to graduate. With only 1 term to go, i feel as though i should have the motivation to go, but i feel paralyzed with fear. I used to think i was quite intelligent, but now i realize just how useless i have become. With all of the debt i have collected in loans, the amount of anxiety i experience and the attractiveness of s****de as escape continues to grow. I am at a loss as of what to do. I know I have to meet with an adviser to have any chance of graduating, but even just thinking about going on campus to talk about it terrifies me to the point of placing me in a catatonic state. Any help, advice, similar experiences, or even just a hello would be greatly appreciated. P.S. I really want to get into the chat room but can't!!! Does an admin have to approve my post before it is counted and i can go into chat? Thanks! Hope to chat with you soon ^-^