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Hi All, this is my first ever post on a forum and I don't really know how it works so sorry if I don't do it right... I have suffered with anxiety since January which is specifically linked to being away from home. While I am at Uni I live a couple of hours away from home, I share a house with 4 other girls and we get along fine but we aren't as close as before. Since Jan whenever I was alone I would have panic attacks so bad that I would be sick, I told my family and close friends immediately and they have supported me throughout. But I still have to go to uni so there is no way to get around having to be alone and away from them sometimes. I go home every weekend which has been helping me to cope but last week the anxiety came back (after a summer without it, thank goodness) and this evening I have had a pretty bad episode and thought I would reach out and share my experiences on here. I was wondering if anyone else suffered with anxiety, especially when away from home, or even just when isolated? And if they could advise me on how to cope a bit better so it doesn't start interfering with daily life too much? Thank-You

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 ^-^

Hi. I'm jemray. I've suffered from anxiety my entire life. It's mostly a social thing. I get panic attacks (almost always) in uncontrolled group converstaions, especially when things get loud. I am very self-cousious. I hardly ever approach poeple to start conversations, and sometimes I don't even realize how anxious I am. I am in university, although I have not made many friends as I tend to keep to myself so I can avoid situations that cause anxiety. This practice, surprisingly enough, is quite conducive to depression. I also get panic attacks for seemingly no reason at all, and I have since I was a child. This is different from that panic I get in social situations which makes it difficult for me to breathe, impossible for me to think, gives me the trembles and heart palpitations and generally makes things awkward all around. This kind of panic sometimes comes on suddenly and is an intense feeling of dread that, once I'm in it completely, can be difficult to shake. I have been treated badly in the past, so I have difficulty opening up to people. It takes me a great deal of time to warm up to people, and I always worry about what they are thinking about me. This does nothing to lessen my anxiety. These days, I can make a great impression if talking to a person one-to-one, but rarely do well in group situations. In high school, I had panic attacks on a daily basis, barely made it through some days, found any excuse to skip class or school gatherings, did not socialize with anyone, and almost dropped out. So high school was a mess of pain, loneliness, and depression, which was lovely. University was not awesome, but was much better. Or is. Becuase I am still in university, for the next couple of months at least. I think something that was really helpful in getting me out of my shell was the program that I am in now; it requires a lot of talking to strangers, which I am now much better at. So I think that social anxiety can be improved, even though it is painful and stressful and seems impossible at times. I have never been on medication to treat anxiety, and have not had any therapy. I have recently started to infrequently see a counsellor which was somewhat beneficial. At the very least, it gives me someone to talk about my anxiety to, as I have no one in my life that I can talk these things over with. One positive thing that has come of my horrible experiences in high school was that I learned that life can get better. When you are going through a crisis--especially when you have not experienced anything similar before, and you know no one else who is going through a similar situation, and you have absolutely no one to talk to about your feelings--you may not know that life can get better. You tend to catastrohpize everything, which makes rational sense becuase your whole world is in pieces and you have lost all control. But no matter how bad you think your life is, and no matter how much it seems like you have no future, you should keep hanging on to whatever little piece of hope you have left, because life does, eventually (and sometimes really slowly) get better. I joined this forum becuase I had an awful day today, and I really need to let it out of my system. But when I think about where I was three years ago, and where I am today, I realize that all I need is a little more exposure to the situations that flood me with anxiety, and I will get better, and anxiety will have to loosen its grip on me. (Please God, let this be true). Anyways. That's all I have to say about me.