I've narrowed down my main issues.
School, and whether to do online schooling this semester or 3 online and one in class. I don't want to lose social connection but honestly I can't even go because of the bottom two issues destroying my ability (anxious 24/7 no matter what), and my self-esteem.
Anxiety, and how I am out of breath, anxious, scared, and constantly feeling anxiety and having attacks.
And my appearance, and how I am scared of dying my hair, and refuse to do anything unnatural to alter my appearance (hair dying, make up, etc), yet I am so unhappy with my washed out long bland hair and I hate how I look.
Anyone have any ideas? I am so done with this sh*t.
Hi Morpheus, sorry to hear about your problems.
Tell me, how old are you, and what does your physician have to say about the way you are at the moment?
I think you would really benefit from seeing a counsellor or psychiatrist about your anxiety as they will be able to help you identify your actual anxiety issues and combat them.
Regarding your appearance though, and dying your hair; if you don't mind me asking (it does relate to answering your question), what worries you about dying your hair? Is it to do with the safety of the chemicals, or is it whether it will go wrong?
I'm 17. I saw my doctor today. She says I need to be on medication, and doing CBT on my own (the other option is group work which she says a lot of people don't like, and I know I would feel uncomfortable during). She suggested to do online schooling since I don't seem ready for at-school and we don't want to push me too hard, but I have no friends, zero social interaction, I am basically sitting at home rotting away. I talk to one person occasionally through Facebook and that's it. Other than that I sleep, cry, and occasionally play video games. I'm falling behind in school (when I actually had two courses online last semester (should be doing 4), I finished with a 97% in each, out of 100%. (I'm Canadian and here we do percentages). I have no problem understanding but I have zero motivation to continue because of various difficulties from my school board, and my indecisiveness about doing full online school (I would get permission and be excused from normal school in order to do this, so no more crap with my school board, but also it fuels my anxiety to stay home and give in to my fears). Having no friends and no reason to get up and go to classes is really impacting me. What's the point of going? In order to panic and sit there scared? At least if I had a reason to show up and people I felt calm around, it would help me. My doctor checked my lungs and heart for any issues, but nothing, so it's got to be anxiety she said, not asthma or any of the other things that she said could cause lack of ability to breathe. I guess I am feeling like my whole life has gone down the drain. Everything came on from a panic attack I had after smoking marijuana a year ago. I always had very minor anxiety. But this set it off so bad that now I am dreading waking up, crying, and just hiding away. I would take the medications but I have an eating disorder that was induced by weight gain from Zoloft (Gained 50lbs somehow magically and started starving myself after that and lost 30lbs of it in less than a month, now I have panic attacks over food and eating). My whole life feels wasted. I am so down. The one friend I have is an online friend I talk to, but he can only do so much to support me. He can't be here to help me along, and he's only one person, he can't fix my issues. I have no one to talk to anymore. I try talking to my mum but that's anxiety inducing and makes me cry even harder. I just want to give up, honestly. I feel hopeless in this. Like I screwed up and now I'm paying the consequences. Not to mention all my friends before were drug users. It's basically taunting me because I feel like if I got back into drugs, I'd have tons and tons of people to hang with. I had some really good friends from that crowd, even if it wasn't a good thing for me, I did have close friendships that have broken apart because I cannot even go out with friends anymore even just to hang out. Also, I did drugs other than weed, but with weed too, I had addiction issues. Now, I cannot even take medicine to help my anxiety, and I have the stress of being an addict who literally cannot use (if I do, I have insanely bad panic attacks, so i just sleep to forget drugs), plus the stress of anxiety, stress of losing all my friends, stress of school, stress of my weight gain/eating disorder, stress over my appearance. Sorry, this is probably incredibly long, but I just got home and started typing and vented it all out.Getting it down kind of helped. But yeah, I hope that answers your question and sorry for length.
I saw a counsellor once. I'm hoping that it'll help though. I see her again on Wednesday. Once my other comment is accepted, read through that if you can, as it sort of explains some stuff a bit better. I realise I was very vague in this question. The safety of the chemicals is what bothers me, to answer your question. I dyed my hair and many others since I was 10. I've bleached, done all kinds of treatments using salon products, and have never had very damaged hair or any thinning or problems. Since developing my anxiety disorder, I did not dye my hair, until last fall, when I decided to, and had one of the worst panic attacks I've ever had, because I was reading the package and it contained PPD (P-Phenylenediamine) which is a very dangerous chemical usually in black and darker hair dyes. I instantly freaked because it's been connected to instant fatal allergic reactions, and tons of other complications. Allergies run in my family and I am allergic to almost everything. I am not afraid of it going wrong because of my experience, but I know in the past I always felt guilty dying my hair. I always felt like, I know how bad this is, why am I doing it? I'm a raw vegan (I eat some things cooked, like lentils and beans), and ever since the anxiety onset, I have had EXTREME moral issues. I changed my diet (used to have snacks here or there) to be completely sugar free, wheat free, gluten free, soy free, yeast free, trans fat free, low saturated fat, etc. I got extremely upset when my mum got me a fairly natural vegan cheesecake, and basically yelled at her for doing something nice. I felt like "No, she's trying to tempt me and ruin my restrictions, now I'm going to get fat, and be disgusting again". These moral issues come in with hair dye now too, and make up, and everything else I can think of.Another example, is that my anxiety started getting bad after smoking marijuana. I had a panic attack out of no where once while high, and ever since it's been bad. I used other drugs as well, and this ties into what I'm going to say next. I really need to be taking an anti depressant but part of why I won't is because I have deemed them to be unhealthy and bad, yet I know that if I was less scared of my drugs of choice, I would be right back on them in a flash. I am almost ready to start taking an antidepressant because I know when I was on zoloft last year, I was more accepting about drugs, and I feel like if I get on the antidepressant my doctor wants me on, I'll freely and happily get back into them again and get back out with my drug using friends and everything will be perfect. In my mind, that is somewhat morally wrong, but I feel like anti depressants must be so much worse. I don't understand my thinking, but my doctor is aware that taking drugs and medications of any kinds has been extremely hard for me. Sorry for the long post, I wrote this just after the other reply to the other person, and I'm kind of in a venting mood.
Morpheuss everything you say makes a lot of sense and I can definitely understand where you are coming from.
As your GP has suggested medication to treat your anxiety, if were you I would definitely consider that as a serious option.
What you really should not do is get yourself back onto the drug scene as that could really mess up your life.
As for friends, well if they are taking drugs I really would not get involved with them again because the risk to you is far too high.
Our friends in life come and go, and at your age you have not really had the chance to meet anyone. When you are older you and maybe in further education or work you will undoubtedly meet people who will not risk damaging you, who may become lifelong friends.
What I really want to say Morpheuss is that I understand you feel frightened and alone, but this will pass in time. In the meanwhile you have to think about how best to beat your anxiety issue, which as I said before maybe is with the help of medication from your doctor.
My best wishes
Rod
Well I'm afraid I really cannot comment on any of the above as I have no knowledge about this kind of thing.... but I will say that taking recreational drugs will not help your anxiety.