Help for an Anxiety Newbie?

[Whitney]

I came to a realization tonight. I am a MESS of anxiety. Normally I stuff down my emotions and hold a lot of tension in my body, resulting in daily migraines, so I have a hard time accessing my emotions and even knowing what the hell they are. Today I was talking to a friend and I had a break through. I AM FUCKING TERRIFIED.

Here's the thing - isn't the trick for anxiety to talk yourself through the problem and realize that it's not as bad as you think? I'd argue that in my case it IS as bad as I think. So here's my fear list in paragraph form:

I'm cut off from my parents (financially and otherwise). I suffer from debilitating migraines that impact my ability to earn a living. I am a grad student in a PhD program, and I earn a living as a teaching assistant and as a freelance writer on the side. I hate grad school. I like what I study. I hate having to get up at a time pre-determined by someone else and then go to a specific place and learn in a specific way of someone else's choosing and then get graded on it. I hate that when I have bad professors, I'm held accountable for the material they didn't teach me, and the grade is seen as a reflection of MY work.

For the past 5 years, I've attempted to make ends meet as a freelance writer, which is my career of choice. I was desperately poor and couldn't make it work. So I'm in grad school now with the ultimate plan of becoming a professor. Eventually it'll be a well-paid and somewhat cushy job in which I can choose my own schedule and what I do more. Right now it's hell.

Every single fucking day, I have to get up and if I don't get my butt to that classroom and turn in the homework and what have you, I'm fucked. And I'm afraid. If I don't show up every damn day and do what they say, I don't get the grade, I don't get the credit, I don't get the degree, and there goes my ability to earn a living.

I realize that there are some flaws in this logic. For example, I can be absent once or twice, it's true. I don't need 100% in my classes, I don't have to be perfect. I can even drop a class or take a smaller course load or a year off. But that just extends my time here in hell. And at some point or another, I DO have to do all this shit. And I'm terrified of being out on the street and homeless without any money. At some point I have to learn how to go to class and do my homework while ignoring the axe hanging over my head as I do it.

Honestly, I wish my useless parents would just die and leave me their cash. They have the means to help and then some, but they think helping their disabled daughter would be "enabling" me to be irresponsible. Because irresponsible people get PhDs, right?

Any books anyone can recommend or tips?

How I cope right now: Lots of exercise and sunshine, healthy food, massages, what I call "being kind to myself" - i.e. doing things I like instead of homework and not beating myself up for it, talking to friends. Just got a new therapist. I think she's a tool. But I'm stuck with her since my insurance is sucky like that so I'll give her a try. So I'm looking for tips for stuff outside of therapy, ESPECIALLY good books to read. Thanks.

[unapalomablanca]

I wish you the best, and hope that you find help! Anxiety is horrible; I feel like it's more subtle than depression in the way it becomes a part of your life. And it's so damaging on every level, from social interaction to physical health.

Anxiety has been a big problem for me, lately. I feel like I'm relearning the difference between what's normal and what feels like normal but is actually screamingly horrible terror.

I think that dealing with an enormous amount of stress over a long period of time, as you have clearly been doing, will make any illness worse. Have you spoken to a doctor yet?

[Fargin]

I call it the one-two punch, first you feel anxiety, then you hate yourself for it.

Through cognitive behavioral therapy I was introduced to the concept, that emotions have a purpose and that they help you express yourself and act. It suddenly made sense, that emotions wasn't just something, I had to hide and control like a ball in my stomach. That suppressing and ignoring my emotions, let me unable to act or use my intuition.

Thought out my life, I've described myself as being constantly in state of controlled panic. In the last couple of weeks, I've begun to change the way I view my emotions. Before I viewed them as a bomb, I had to prevent from blowing up and now, I'm trying to access them as information, which is important, when making decisions and use them as motivation to take action.

Before I'd react to a situation with anxiety.
Then my intellect would tell me, that I was being stupid and tell me to just do it.
Then I'd get even more angst(?) and then again even more angry with myself.
I'd be stuck in a cycle, until I suppressed my anxiety, which cost so mcuh energy and felt like doing violence to myself.

Now my anxiety is still with me, but since I've accepted it(or working on it), it's become more a part of my decision making, instead of a road block. I allow myself to be worried, but don't allow myself to then follow up with calling myself a stupid wimp. Worry is always my natural reaction to most things and once, I've accepted it, I can actually look at the positive sides too.

I grew up in an environment, where emotions was dangerous and always escalated into total degradation and humiliation. So if I forgot to be worried and cautious, I'd always get in trouble.I also thought that any kind of display of anger or unhappiness, would decimate a person, just like I was during my childhood, so I could never express my unhappiness with someone, without thinking I was being just as abusive myself. So anxiety was what kept me safe and anger made me feel like a monster.

I'm 41. on a full disability pension, because I've been either paralyzed or very limited purely by anxiety for my adult(whole) life, but in the last two months or so, my anxiety as actually become more of a passenger, instead of someone I have to fight with for control. I don't have any books to recommend, but I'd invite you to simply google "purpose of emotions."

Lots of exercise and sunshine, healthy food, massages, what I call "being kind to myself"

Also this.

[Whitney]

Thanks to those who responded. It's a good idea to embrace the purpose for my emotions. Right now every part of me is screaming about the injustice of having to go to school every day when - if the actual purpose is learning - I could accomplish that better at home on my own instead of in a nasty environment like school.

For my entire adult life I've been too disabled to work and lead a normal life but not disabled enough to apply for disability. It's this wretched in between area. Although even if I DID get disability, the payments wouldn't be enough to live on anyway. It's terrible how little they pay for disability, as if anyone can actually live on that.

[Whitney]

Oh, and to unapalomablanca - I've been dealing with doctors for my migraines for 10 years. Therapy for 6 years. JUST got a new therapist. Haven't talked with her about anxiety yet but I've only seen her once. Really don't like her at all. Wish I could see someone else. But that'll take a while, given how the insurance works. I'm gonna stick it out with this person for the short term.

[Fargin]

For my entire adult life I've been too disabled to work and lead a normal life but not disabled enough to apply for disability. It's this wretched in between area. Although even if I DID get disability, the payments wouldn't be enough to live on anyway. It's terrible how little they pay for disability, as if anyone can actually live on that.

My main problem getting disability was, that my worst fear was other people discovering how fearful and paralyzed I always felt, so I became good at hiding how bad I felt, even to myself.

I can make ends meet, because I've cut my living expenses to a minimum, but I wouldn't be able to start a family and I struggle a lot with a feeling of complete loss of social standing. I've been on disability for three years now, but during these first months of 2015, where I've seen an improvement in dealing with anxiety, if at all possible, I'd love to return to the workforce some day.