New experiences and anxiety

[Sal2645]

Hey everyone, I posted for the first time a few months ago and kinda wanted to track my progress. I’ve recently gone through a lot of new experiences with starting uni and a new job which have been quite challenging. New things bring up a lot of anxiety and it is often super hard to deal with. I honestly I didn’t think I would be able to do it as I often cut experiences short due to overthinking and panic.

However I’ve taken the time to reflect on the past few months and realised that I am indeed still surviving. Though it’s not easy and I feel like shit most of the time - like I’m too stupid for uni or I’m doing my job completely wrong, which led to a bit of a breakdown in front of my boss. And that no one likes me and all my friends want to leave me; I’ve realised that I’m actually sticking with it all. This is the longest I’ve held a job for (the last one I quit cause the thought of doing things wrong was too overwhelming), I’ve been getting good grades at school and I’ve even managed to make new friends at uni whilst still being in contact with old ones. 

it’s so hard to recognise my achievements when it seems like other people do all those things so easily and I’m drowning. But I’m proud of the fact that I now am able to take a step back and recognise that I am doing the things that I thought would ruin me everyday. Maybe this means I’m getting better at dealing with my troubling thoughts? I just wish I knew how to deal with things better in the moment. 

Hope everyone is well, just wanted to vocalise my thoughts. 

[Flowergirl97]

Hi Sal,

Although I haven’t read your earlier post I can relate a lot to what you are dealing with. I started a uni degree after graduating senior/high school and found it very overwhelming. Although I did well at school I really struggled with adjusting my lifestyle to studying at uni and had a lot of negative thoughts and anxiety about not making friends and not hearing from the friends I thought I had made at school. On top of that was high expectations from my parents about how I would make all these new friends at university and how I would have the time of my life, but I was so anxious and tired and really struggling to feel ok. My boyfriend was also very judgemental and (tmi) I was going through a pregnancy scare and he blamed me for ‘trapping’ him in the relationship. It turned out I wasn’t pregnant and I still stayed in the relationship because I was afraid to lose him when I felt like I had no friends. On top of that, only a month or so before starting uni I had quit my first ever ‘proper’ job. I had been anxious whenever at work because the manager didn’t like that I was shy and I was always unsure and making mistakes because I was new and so young and inexperienced. I overheard other staff talking about me when they thought I couldn’t hear them and felt uncomfortable in general when at work. I was even told over the phone that it wasn’t working out only to be given another chance, so I was extra anxious after that. 
So I had a horrible first job experience, had started uni feeling like I had no friends, and had an unsupportive un-empathetic boyfriend. 
Unfortunately it was too much to handle at the time and I left just before the exam period of my first semester because I was so anxious about failing my exams after a semester of a lot of negative thoughts and feeling so alone. But my anxiety has continued to get better since then and I do believe a lot of my problems were due to poor choices, lack of experience, and lack of coping skills. Anyway, I hope you find this somewhat relatable or interesting and not too long to read lol 

[Sal2645]

Hi flowergirl, 

I really appreciate you sharing your experiences, knowing I’m not alone in feeling this way is helpful. I find it so overwhelming that there is so much emphasis on uni being the best time of your life and when you’ll make life long friends etc. it makes me feel like I’m constantly missing out on something and that I’m never experiencing things how I’m ’meant’ to at my age. so yeah I definitely relate to pressure from parents saying those things lol. 
I’m sorry to hear you were in such an unsupportive relationship, that definitely would have made things so much harder on you, I hope you eventually found the courage to be around people more empathetic. 

I also think people forget that when you’re new it’s gonna take some time to learn things and they kinda just expect you know everything immediately. Then that atmosphere makes it even harder to ask for help, so yeah I can relate to your frustration with your job. Also I feel like many people are like straight up annoyed when people are shy, Like what is up with that? Yeah if you’re gonna make me uncomfortable I’m not going to be super bubbly and outspoken duh. 
Im glad to hear that your anxiety has better since then, and I hope it continues that way! 

Thankyou again for your reply.