struggling with anxiety

[judaft]

i've been fighting with my own brain for a long time now and its getting so exhausting. i recently dropped out of school because it was making me miserable and i thought i would be happier but my overthinking and stress has gotten the best of me. i've been feeling like such a failure, and i have this serious issue where i compare myself to everyone my age. i turned 17 a few days ago and i feel like i've wasted all of 14-16. i did bad in school, i was lazy and i regret it all so bad i wish i could go back and redo everything. being 17 makes me feel old, i always thought i'd be so cool as a teenager but i dont have any friends and i just feel like such a loser. then i look online and i see all these successful teenagers and kids and i don't understand how they're my age and even younger than me and they already have fame, success, and they already found their purpose and what to do with their lives. i get so obsessed and jealous and wish it was me, i wish so bad that i could go back to being 13-14 and focused on what i would love to do instead of being lazy and glued to my phone. i get so obsessed over these thoughts and they never leave my mind and i get so angry with my past self ugh. and now i feel like its all too late for me, especially because i feel like 17 is so old now. i know im still young but my brain just convinces me that im too old and its too late for me to pursue anything, and i wish i could have found what i love to do earlier on and been good at it ugh. it just makes me so upset and angry and i feel stupid. i just wanna reverse time and try again. no matter what anybody says i just keep going back to these thoughts and its the worst. it causes me so much stress and i dont know how to just be normal. i regret so much and i know im gonna regret worrying so much about all of this in the future but i dont know how to make it stop.

[Sophie_M]

Dear judaft,

Thank you for finding the courage to post about your confusion and distress. Finding the internal strength to write your message is an excellent step toward figuring out some possible ways you might proceed. Hopefully, our helpful and supportive community members will provide some support once they spot your post.

We understand that you found school to be a real struggle throughout your teenage years, so you made the decision to find a different path for yourself. Unfortunately, you are now comparing yourself with teens on the internet who have found their way, become successful, and make it look easy. So, we invite you to consider a couple thoughts.

1) How many teens on the internet are actually really successful, compared with how many teens are around who have access to the internet? We would be surprised if the number is as high as 0.1%, or 1 out of 1000 teens, and we would be very interested to learn the answer.

2) How much work, time, and effort did each of the successful teens on the internet need to put in with practice, failing, making mistakes, and not doing other fun things, in order to become successful on the internet?

What we think you might be asking is, how can you get past all the blaming of yourself so you can start successfully finding your way down your chosen different path? We know that it is easy to blame ourselves. So, we need to teach ourselves to shift our thinking. One way to do this is by asking ourselves the following questions.

1) What do I dream of doing in my life?

2) What do I need to do to be able to do what I dream of doing in my life?

3) Am I willing to do the things I need to do to be able to do the things I dream of doing in my life?

If the answer to question 3 is no, I need to look at a different option for question 1.

We are here for you, and we will help you discuss any options you come up with so you can figure out which direction to go.

Warm regards,

Sophie M
 

[Petal22]

Hi judaft,

Wellcome to our forums.

Im sorry you are feeling this way.

I understand anxiety can be hard to deal with…. I understand the feeling of fighting with our own brains…… it’s exhausting!

I understand that you have finished school and thought that this would make you happier.

Sometimes we believe to find true happiness this can be obtained outside of us by doing certain things that we think will lead to happiness.

BUT true happiness is found within…….. it’s inside ourselves.

You may look at all of these people online who seem to have it together but all of these online people sometimes aren’t who they seem to be.

I see people on social media sometimes I always notice the ones that have put filters on their pictures ……. these images aren’t the people they are in real life……….

I think if more people can just accept themselves for themselves then their life would be so much more carefree.

Please try to accept your self for your self ……. Forgive yourself for the parts your not happy about and then move forward with that and create yourself to be the person you want to be……….. “ you have the power to do this”.

I understand that it’s hard to feel like we are fighting ourselves………. our minds job is to think…… our minds do this on their own.

What you can do is feed your mind with positive things about yourself…….. build yourself a positive mindset.

Sometimes when we worry obsessively this can effect our every day life……

Anxiety can make us worry excessively…. This isn’t your fault.

How would you feel about making an appointment with your gp? You could do a mental health plan together this will enable you to a psychologist who can give you strategies for anxiety.

Im here to chat

[Croix]

Dear Judaft~

I'd like to join Sophie and Petal in welcoming you here. I'm glad you have met them as they give good advice

Thinking about you fighting your brain, all that overthinking and stress, blaming yourself and wishing things had been different. All that reminds me of me when my anxiety condition got the better of me

I'd not wish you to keep on like that, I'd like you to feel more contented and happier, as I am now

I too wished I'd done things differently and felt it was all pretty hopeless. I'm not the same now and can look back and see myself a bit more clearly (distance helps🙂

I did not realise how I behaved and the decisions I made were the result of my condition, which basically ruled my life. In fact they were not really decisions but a natural progression of the illness taking hold

Leaving school might have seemed to be a way out of your unhappiness, and spending all your time on the phone may well have been another result of wanting things better. I would think it hard for you to judge just at the moment. I was not able to be logical, or accept logic, from others back then. Just blamed myself

Those couple of years are not wasted, they are part of you which you can use to help things improve. My improvement started when I explained everything to a doctor, and was diagnosed and treatment started. I needed to get better

That time you think is wasted can help. It can give you strength to get treatment and see it through to a better time, as well as to let you know what to watch out for in the future

Do you think you could go to a doctor and explain it all?

Is there anyone -a family member perhaps - you can talk with when you are very preoccupied with horrible thoughts ? They only have to listen and care. It can make a difference

A couple of things I found helpful you can do yourself - I apologize if you are already doing them

The first is talking or web-chatting to the Kids Help Line

https://kidshelpline.com.au/get-help/webchat-counselling
& 1800 55 1800

You can contact them more than once, they are friendly and understanding -and are used to problems such as you have

The other thing is a free smartphone app called Smiling Mind.

https://www.smilingmind.com.au/smiling-mind-app/

Now this took me a while to learn, but works surprisingly well. I use it to break the chain of bad thoughts and leave me calmer. It has tons of exercises for different people, even ones with short attention spans like me

I hope we talk some more

Croix

[judaft]

Hello, im sorry for my late reply. Thank you so much for your reply. I recently got back into drawing and found that im quite passionate for it. I drew pictures as a kid, but it wasnt anything i took too seriously which i regret. And what i regret more is not drawing at all from 12-15. I get really mad at myself. But that was when everything started to get a little hard for me, i was dealing with ongoing family issues at home and was diagnosed with depression and anxiety while failing school. And i find myself wishing that i could go back in time to work harder and not fail school, and also continuing to draw and read so i could be more experienced today. I see 14-17 year olds on social media who are so much better than me at creating art and feel so envious, i cant even believe how good they are. I dont know how to get over it. Its not only with drawing, i only recently found myself to love films, drawing, and i want to take up writing. I would read and write a lot as a child but again, i lost it when i fell into a pit in my early teens and was too lazy to do anything, which i really regret. And now that ive only recently taken these interests back up, i feel its too late. I always think about writing but im too scared to actually do it because i wont be as good as people my age that ive seen online. And comparing myself to people younger than me and people my age doesnt help with that. its hard to get rid of these thoughts, they sort of consume my mind. As ridiculous as it all is though, i have thought about careers in animation/art, or anything film related. Ive imagined writing scripts for movies, or directing. But i always change my mind so nothings set lol. Thank you again for your reply!

[judaft]

Thank you so much for your reply. I did have an appointment with my gp a year or two ago and i’ve been taking medication for my anxiety for a few months. But its not like the medication helps consistently. Its a little complicated, because my mum doesnt really understand how anxiety works and tells me to take it only when i “need it” so i guess i take it once in a while. So its nothing consistent and feels kind of hopeless. I hope one day I can stop blaming myself and build a positive mindset. Thank you again

[geoff]

Hello Judaft, if I can just say that taking your medication for anxiety when you feel you need it, is not going to help you.

They aren't like headache tablets where you take them when needed, AD's are taken with the advice from your doctor to try and readjust your thinking if you are suffering from any type of depression, so one tablet here and there is not going to be of any help.

Speak to your doctor and if you want you can take your mum with you.

Geoff.

[Sophie_M]

Dear judaft,

We would like to thank you for posting about your confusion in our forums. We are a very supportive community.

We are pleased to hear that you are under the care of medical professionals. We would like you to strongly consider that the medical professionals probably have more knowledge about medications than your mum.

We understand that your anxiety meds can only work if they are taken precisely on the schedle that the medical specialists prescribed.

Please take your meds as the doctors say you should. Also, please talk to the doctors about your mum's suggestions and concerns.

Warm Regards,

Sophie M.
 

[Sophie_M]

Dear judaft,

Isn't it interesting how many people our age look like they have everything together?

We find that it is often so easy to compare ourselves with those who are better than us. This can be quite helpful when it gives us the internal strength to push ourselves to get better. Unfortunately, when we use these comparisons to tell ourselves how terrible we are, the comparisons don't seem to help us at all.

One thing we know is, everybody had to learn the skills at some point in their lives. Having certain natural talent might help starting the skill, but for almost everybody, there is the embarrassment and discomfort when we first try to learn. It is just like how sore we get after we do a lot of physical activity that we normally do not do. Our bodies really start hurting the next day.

What do you need to tell yourself in order to encourage yourself to start trying to push through that most uncomfortable starting point?

Warm regards,

Sophie M.