my university anxiety

I have a little thing called anxiety. I used to be the type of person who had no problem talking to people or making friends. However, these past few months have been so hard for me. I’ve been struggling to be able to talk to people and it leaves me agitated and anxious for pretty much the entire day. I’m always so alert and hostile to my surroundings. I feel like I’m dragging my body around because I just do not want to be in a social situation. I begin to feel the most anxious at night which sometimes stops me from getting any sleep. I’ve accepted that my social anxiety is just a part of me, I don’t know what to do sometimes. I’m unable to talk to people without stuttering or wondering what they think of me.

Let me tell you how I found out I have anxiety. Back in August last summer, on the train to see my friend, I realised that I felt really panicked. My chest just felt really heavy like someone was pressing down on it really hard. I was struggling to breathe properly because there was just so many people. I couldnt handle this feeling and I really wanted it to stop. As I was walking to the train, I felt like the person behind me was going to attack me. When I finally sat down, I felt so worried. I felt anxious. There were a group of girls the same age as me sat opposite me and I was so concerned about what they were thinking of me. What they were saying. Why was I so bothered about them? I felt like I was losing my mind. My heart stopped. It was crazy how I just felt so alone. I felt so isolated from everyone and like I was in my own world. Every time I was in a social situation I would begin to panic. Whenever someone sat next to me on the train my hands would start shaking. My throat would feel dry and it would be hard for me to breathe. I’d have to rub my hand on my thigh and take deep breaths to calm myself down. Sometimes i get so scared that my whole body feels cold and I’m shaking. I feel so trapped and suffocated. So one day I decided to go see the doctor and the doctor made me fill out some questionnaire and she told me that I have anxiety. She recommended me some general sedatives to calm myself down, nothing of high dosage or anything. She said if it gets really bad I’ll have to see the therapist and go as far as taking antidepressants.

Nights before uni were the worst. I would be so anxious about going to uni the next day that I wouldn’t be able to sleep all night. I would think to myself, look, you’re gonna have to socialise, you’re gonna have to talk to people, youre gonna have to socialise, youre gonna have to go there and there’s gonna be so many people around you. I’m not strong enough to make friends. I dont understand why im like this. I want to make friends but I just cant. I wouldn’t feel refreshed whenever I woke up and I was trying to wake up early for my classes but I couldn’t even do that. I would wake up like I was hungover and felt like I was hit by a truck. I thought okay I can’t do this, I can’t live like this, it just doesn’t feel right to me. I would be going back and forth to the doctors almost every two weeks telling them about my anxiety and how the medications wouldnt work. at this point i was so desperate to overcome it. Then I was like okay its fine it’ll pass but it just wouldn’t pass it kept happening day after day night after night. I wouldnt even know what was going around me through the day because I was just so tired and isolated due to my lack of sleep the night before. I keep on cancelling on my friends whenever they offer to go out and even they became concerned. I told them everything about how its hard for me to talk to people and they told me not to worry and that it’ll pass. I usually feel numb and out of it. Making friends is hard for me. whenever my friends introduce me to someone I feel like they don’t like me because of my awkward communication skills. I find it hard to make a conversation or keep it going incase i say something stupid or begin to stutter and embarrass myself.  I can not talk to new people and there is only a selective number of people am I able to have conversations with. I’m constantly scared of saying something that will upset people or make them hate me, afraid I’m annoying or I complain too much. my room is the safest place for me. i hate leaving my house i’d rather be in my room, in solitude.

i stay away from people in classrooms, i sit alone at lectures or seminars or when im hanging out on campus and sometimes eat lunch alone because i would rather be in solitude since i need to get so much work done. the campus is quite overwhelming because theres so many people and i just want to do my work alone. it’s made my life a living hell. it’s like i go through circles and can’t pull myself out of it. you wanna make uni friends but you dont. its all like a spiral you cant help it. you know you dont wanna be anxious. you know you wanna make friends and all that stuff but you cannot.

Sometimes I would run into the toilets to have a panic attack. Those are the worst. i would struggle to breathe and not see anything. i would feel like I’m drowning. i feel like im dying. like something is pushing down on me. at this point i can’t breathe and i begin to cry because i just feel so anxious and scared and my chest feels so tight. it’s made my life a living hell.

I didnt know what was going on because I couldnt handle what was happening inside of my body and it wasnt hapening to anybody else. I just wanted to get rid of his feeling and I wanted to understand what was going on with me for so long, I didnt. I was so sick and tired of it. You cant help it. You know you dont wanna be anxious you know you wanna have a good day but you physically cannot because the workload is just pulling you back. My anxiety had just gone so bad and I hadn’t experienced this before. My anxiety was so bad that I don’t see a life without it and because of that I trapped myself into this sort of shell.

I have to perform well in my assignments I have to do well I cannot so bad. I dont want to go down a different route. I study hard, but because of the amount of anxiety I have to perform well I’m basically scared of everything, I’m going through university in utter fear. This anxiety monster has literally taken over my life and I’m so sick and tired of it. On top of it all, I have this heavy workload from uni which I find really hard to manage. I’m constantly comparing myself to others. I’ll never be as smart as them. I want to be smart like them. I want to be a smart student. I have to be intelligent I want good grades but the fact that I know theres people out there who have higher grades than me makes me feel like the effort I Put into achiee those higher grades are worthless, because no mayter what I do and how much work I put in, there will always be someone better than me. I get annoyed at myself for not doing as well as other students. I’ll never be smart like them.

dude, why am I like this? Why do I care so much about them? I try not but just I can’t stop myself. it’s so annoying.

It’s like I have to do well in my assignment otherwise I get so scared and anxious about my future. If I don’t do well, I’ll have no future. What will I do if I failed? I’ll probably have no job. I have to study hard, I have to do well because if I don’t I won’t get a job. I spend nights completing assignments or studying topics for my exams. I get given assignment after assignment and sometimes theres 2 assignments in for one day, I have this constant pressure to achieve highly because I’m just so scared about my future. Not only that, I’m scared to fail. I can’t fail. I get annoyed at myself for spending time sleeping when I could’ve spent that time studying, I could’ve gotten so much work done. I wouldn’t have to worry

do u ever feel so unwanted and alone and u just sorta want to cry

to my followers who lay awake at 2am feeling sad and alone: we are all sad and alone with you. i hope you all get some good sleep and have some sweet dreams.

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It is currently 3:50 am and all I want to do is sleep and forget about this reality for a while. I can’t believe that 7 year old me dreamed of being able to stay up this late.

My insomnia has gotten really freakin bad. My whole sleep schedule is fucked up and it’s messing with my everyday life. Ha. Yay.

I hate that I get paranoid at night, I’m tired I just wanna sleeppp

and I wanna sleep well without nightmares pleasssse

I can’t find no peace

— ZAYN „Insomnia“

I need about 100 of these today.

I said to my mom. I’m going to bed, that was at 11:50 PM. The time is now 2:30 AM…where does the time go?

Me: Wow im really tired. What should I do about that.

My brain and entire body: please. we’re begging you. go the fuck to sleep.

Me: interesting. acknowledged. any other suggestions?