17 years old and suffering from Generalized Anxiety. What to do?

Question

Hey Everyone! I am 17 years old and recently ive been suffering from generalized anxiety. My worst times are morning and night. With this anxiety I don't have much of an appetite. Which sucks! Im a skinny guy to begin with! Also with this my heart starts racing, I feel like im gonna throw up, sometimes my body will get numb. Plus These come "out of the blue" from no where :( Not fun! What do you guys recommend I do!?

Eliott

Answer 1

Although I'm about 30 yrs older than you I had my first bout of anxiety this year and I do know how you feel. Panic attacks suck too! My best advice would be to see your family doctor and see a counsellor if possible. If not i would suggest a book called the power of now by echart tolle. I think the counsellor helped the most and my doctor put me on anti anxiety pills which I only took for a few months. As a matter of fact my 18 yr old son has just started consoling because of his lack of focus and the fact that he worries about the smallest things. One of the things I learned about myself was that I worried so much that when I wasn't worrying about something I usually had an attack. Go figure. Anyway good luck and I hope you feel better

Answer 2

Hey,

I also suffer generalised anxiety - it can be very debilitating.

The best thing to do is avoid things that either numb out of heighten your anxiety - that might seem obvious but there's a lot of things people do which can make it worse - such as having too much caffeine, or abusing alcohol.

The best treatment for anxiety is to challenge it right away, the feeling sick and heart racing is a natural response to a 'stressor' (fight or flight) but obviously becomes a problem when there isn't a rational stressor, i.e. you are anxious when the average person wouldn't.

The numb feeling is a response to feeling anxious, like a protective mechanism to try and comfort you.

You need to find things that will calm you, it might help to give yourself extra time when you need to be calm, so try planning things better especially for the morning and evening so you have less to worry about (if you are aware of worrying or not).

It might also help to get some psychological input to look at why you are anxious - it may be that there are some subconscious worries you have that a trained professional could help you uncover.

Best of luck.