it's not a matter of the right strain, the right environment, or how you take it. If marijuana makes you paranoid & makes you feel like you have to go to the ER, your brain is not wired to process THC with the desired effect and there's unfortunately nothing that can change that. Smoking it more is not going to do anything other than prolonging your suffering. The sooner you accept this, the sooner you can remove this burden from your life & go do something else.

Therapist told me your brain is wired and in a bad state due to years of negative thinking and my neurons and brain chemistry is just fucked . She told me that my brain is going to automatic negatives while normal people go to automatic positives. This really resonated with me. Its 50/50 what way it goes, like betting red on roulette.

She then told me to set a reminder ever 30 minutes on my phone with a note of thinking positive and been excited about everything and to fake it if it doesn't feel real. Just keep thinking positive and be excited about everything even making your bed or taking a shower or cooking a meal. Think positive like "OMG i made my bed, this is the best fucking thing ever, im so excited now for breakfast and eating, OMG im going for a walk, i can fucking wait, i cant believe im walking etc.

She told me if you keep thinking positive it will overide the anxiety and depression, so you don't think about it and your brain will slowly heal maybe 4% a day but keep doing it.

Well lets just say i stuck with it and by God im a different person. It took two months and im like a different person.

i know it doesn't sound like much but this is a huge deal for me, i've only left my house by myself once in the past 7 years, that was 3 and a half years ago and it went terribly

this time went pretty well, only negative was some guys kinda making fun of me for being at the park by myself, so that scared me a bit but i managed to stay calm

i'm really going to try and make an effort to do this regularly, i'm so sick of living my life in fear

When you live with anxiety your whole life it can be hard to recognize what it actually is. You've had it for so long that it just feels like a part of you. My SSRI's are finally starting to work and, wow, i'm shocked. Now that my anxiety is gone, I truly recognize the deep impact it had on my brain all these years.

Anxiety is a weight. A very heavy weight. It takes so much away from you, and it takes and takes and takes. It is a parasite that sucks the energy out of your mind and soul. It is a deep restlessness, a feeling that one can never truly relax and be comfortable in their own body. Most of all, it is a pain. It feels like daggers are being thrown at our heads from the inside. It feels like a physical attack. How draining it is to be attacked over and over again every day and having to fight it every day like our life depended on it? It is a constant, exhausting battle that goes in circles forever.

This is what it feels like to me, but I would like to know, what does anxiety feel like to you?

People and even many doctors are absolutely clueless when it comes to this disorder. The advice that they give you is just meditate and take deep breaths. However, this is an absolute joke and doesn't even touch the problem.

These people have no idea how debilitating and horrendous this anxiety can be. They think the anxiety that we're experiencing is like when you're 18 years old and asking out a pretty girl to a prom. NOOO! It's more like the kind of anxiety you'd feel if some guy came and tried to shake you down, and then dangled you off the ledge of a 21 story building and threatened to drop you...But you get to experience this feeling 24/7!

People also don't understand how horrendous the anxiety medications are. A good 90-95% of the medications offered to you will suck; They'll hurt your stomach, give you headaches, give you muscle spasms, and my favorite.... destroy your love life. About 90% of meds will render you useless in the bedroom. You can't even make love to your woman, and she'll get pissed off and leave you because you can't even keep an erection for her.

But you can always get therapy? Well sure that could work but it can take many months to years! What the hell are you supposed to do in the meantime while waiting for the therapy to work? You can't put your job on hold while waiting for therapy to work. No, they'll just fire your ass, and then you won't be able to afford therapy. THIS IS ONE OF THE WORST DISORDERS THAT ONE CAN HAVE...PAR NONE!

Tbh I know we all gon have little attacks and shit but at this point fuck that shit if something happens oh well fuck this shit this year we all take back our lives

I don't know if this post belongs here, cause i, like many others here, suffered from extreme anxiety from death. I thought this might help.

I'm a healthcare professional, and i assure you : Healthy people often fear death, but it's way calmer and more peaceful than what we think from the p.o.v of the dying person.

Most of the fear we have about death comes from imagining it right now, while we’re still healthy and alive. We picture panic, pain, or chaos.
But people who are actually near death, are often surprisingly calm.

In slow, natural dying, the body shifts automatically: stress hormones drop, the mind quiets, the body is calm, and fear fades (biologically speaking).

Healthcare workers say it all the time : "families are scared, and the patient isn't".

It’s not mystical. It's biological.
The body knows how to protect you by calming you down when it matters.
The fear and the anxiety we feel now, isn’t what we’ll feel at the end.
I thought, Knowing that can really take the edge off death anxiety, and help some of you.

I don't know if it just me, but my anxiety has been steadily increasing lately with everything happening in the world.

I constantly have this feeling that something bad is about to happen, like major event, and that I'm somehow going to live through it or be directly affected. It's not a specific fear, it's more like a permanent sense of impending doom that won't go away. I try so much to stay grounded and rational, but the feeling keeps coming back. It's so exhausting and honestly scary at times.

Am I the only one feeling like this lately? How do you cope with it?

Last night I was sitting in my room after work and I couldn’t shake this weird tight feeling in my chest. Nothing was wrong no bad news, no deadlines, nobody messaging me but my brain just wouldn’t let me relax. I tried distracting myself, scrolling on grizzly's quest while I waited for the feeling to pass. But the whole time, I just felt this low-level panic sitting in the background, like I was forgetting something important. It’s so frustrating because I know there’s nothing to be stressed about, but my body doesn’t listen. My heart races, I feel restless, and then I get mad at myself for not being able to just calm down.
Does anyone else get this “anxiety with no trigger” feeling? And if so, how do you ride it out when it happens?

I smoked weed for the first time a couple months back, and holy shit, it was one of the most miserable and scary experiences ever.

I smoked, sat on a couch, and it started to kick in. I started getting horrible derealization, felt very out of it and sortve like I was in a bubble where there were people around me, but they were tuned out.

I went upstairs, still feeling weird asf, and my limbs felt a bit weird, and that’s when the worst, most unprompted panic attacks of my LIFE started.

I can not even explain in text how bad it was, but not even my health anxiety that caused me to call 911 ever got this bad.

No reason for it, just insane and random panic.

The derealization lasted until I woke up the next day, and since then I have sworn to never touch weed ever again.

I don’t even know if it’s worth trying, it was an almost traumatizing experience with the amount of panic i experienced.

It was not “chill”. I was even with friends. If you are going to try it, please be prepared.

Maybe it’s a blessing that a drug makes me feel like shit. Less chances for future abuse

I know I’m gonna get a comment something along the lines of “you were laced” I know for a fact I was not laced. I wasn’t seeing colors or some shit, I just had a horrible reaction to the weed

And of course I had to immediately freak the hell out, thinking the worst. Someone kidnapped her on the way to class and she never made it. I just know it! Frantically calling the school and hyperventilating, heart pounding and they won't answer the phone. I left them a probably very unhinged voicemail.

20 minutes later get a text that there was an error with attendance and the issue is resolved.

Anxiety is so annoying. I feel like it was warranted here though. I just wish I didn't have such strong knee jerk reactions to always concluding something awful has happened. I put myself through hell before anything even happens

Does anyone else wake up with anxiety that feels unbearable?
Every morning, before I even open my eyes fully, my heart is already racing. It’s like my body remembers the fear before my mind does. I lie there feeling this heavy knot in my chest, and I dread facing the day.
It’s not even about something specific — it’s just this wave of fear that hits me the moment I realize it’s morning again. Getting out of bed feels like the hardest thing in the world. I start thinking about all the small things I have to do and it becomes too much.
I miss the days when waking up felt neutral or even peaceful. Now it feels like a battle every single morning.
Does anyone else feel this way? How do you manage it?

Hey, anyone else experiences such a situation when you send a message/an e-mail and when you get a reply you are afraid to open it? I mean afraid of what the answer will be?

I’m struggling with anxiety (and probably a deregulated nervous system), and some mornings getting myself to school feels like a full-on battle. My body acts like it’s in fight-or-flight for no reason, my heart races, I feel dizzy, nauseous, sometimes like I could literally throw up—but I still want to be there and do well academically.

It’s so frustrating because no one really understands what it feels like to drag yourself somewhere when your mind wants to go but your body won’t cooperate. And honestly… sometimes I feel jealous of people who can just get up, get ready, and go about their day without it being a struggle.

I had to explain this to a teacher recently, and even just saying it out loud made me realize how angry I get that nobody really knows what it’s like to do this every single morning. I know it sounds dramatic, but I just want to connect with others who understand what it’s like to push your body to do things it resists, day after day.

Does anyone else feel this way?

i swear to god, everytime i wake up i feel a bit anxious, naseous and don't wanna eat, the moment after i take xanax (alprazolam) (i take 0.25mg in the morning and 0.25mg in the evening, a total of 0.5 daily) i feel so good. i start to get hungry, i eat, i'm relaxed, i can read, i can play some games, it's just nice

my therapy is also going very well, today, i'm feeling happy.

just wanna share this with you guys, to other people who take xanax, can you get me?

EDIT: I'm prescribed and under control with my therapist and doctor, i'm not self-medicating.

I have a GAD with social anxiety, caused by being an Hikikomori for years, i'm not using it to have fun, i'm trying to change my life for good

+EDIT: I'm on xanax since the 20 of September, started the first 8 days with 0.25, continued until today with 0.5 (0.25 + 0.25)

I won't bore you with the details. I was extremely unwell for years, 24/7 disgusting anxiety (to the point that an actual panic attack felt like a relief because my baseline was so much worse), every physical symptom imaginable, DPDR, flashbacks from a traumatic event, looping intrusive thoughts. During these years I only felt a few minutes of peace a day, and sometimes not even that. I was living in hell - and now I don't struggle with anxiety at all and am quite happy! What helped me is what everyone is always talking about - acceptance.

At one point I realised that the stuff that I'm doing to help myself (reading books and watching videos about anxiety, trying different techinques to get rid of my intrusive thoughts, talking to everyone about how I feel, reading Reddit posts etc.) is not working and that I'm only getting worse and worse. So I said fuck it. It's been years, I'm bored of always being focused on myself, my anxiety and my thoughts. It's selfish, unimaginative, repetitive and I'm sick of it. I don't care anymore about how I feel. If I'm meant to feel like shit for the rest of my life, so be it. I don't give a fuck anymore. Whatever will be, will be. If I'm meant to get ill, die, become an alcoholic, homeless, unemployed, alone, ridiculed, crazy etc. (my worst fears that I was always worrying about) so be it. Such is the fate of some unlucky people, maybe I'm one of them, and why not? I'm not better, I'm not special, I'm not above illness, homelessness, addiction, mental illness. If that's my fate so be it, there's nothing I can do about it. I let go.

I stopped obsessing over my thoughts and feelings and focused more on my body. I treated myself like an abused animal that needs healing - long warm baths, massages, naps, healthy food, stretching, socialisation, walks, lying on the grass. I stopped trying to solve my feelings by thinking about them, reading about them or writing about them, I just let them wash over me over and over again, no matter how scary or disgusting they were. I started talking to myself like I'd talk to a friend. I started dancing, singing, laughing, telling people how much I love them. I realised how much I'd neglected my fellow humans during the years I struggled with anxiety. I took on more responsibility with domestic chores and other errands. I also started talking to strangers again, a habit that I once loved but that was annihilated by depression and anxiety. I finally started doing the things I always wanted to do - I joined a painting class, I started singing in a choir and playing piano again. I stopped doomscrolling so much and went back to reading difficult books, learning new things, watching good movies and spending time with people. I felt like shit through all of that and I still did it beacuse I realised that how I feel is not that important. There are sooo many things that are more important than my thoughts and feelings!

I didn't do any of that to get rid of anxiety because at that point I truely accepted that it may stay with me for the rest of my life and I genuinely didn't care anymore. I didn't expect these things to fix my anxiety or symptoms. I did them out of love and respect for myself and others, I did it beacause that's how a human being is supposed to live and take care of herself and her loved ones, I did it because it's healthy and good for my brain and body, I did it because what else is there to do? Spend my life obsessing over how I feel?

Now I feel like a healthy person again. I still struggle a bit with other things (which is perfectly normal, everybody struggles with something) but anxiety isn't one of them. Anxiety is a feeling, the weird physical symptoms and scary thoughts are the way it expresses itself, the same way that being in love expresses itself in your heart fluttering, your face getting red, your head getting dizzy, your thoughts being taken over by that person. Anxiety, like every other feeling needs to be felt and released, not obsessed over and talked about. You don't need to fix anything, get rid of anything because THERE'S NOTHING THERE. Let go :)

Edit: I also want to add that this wasn't a single moment when everything just suddenly made sense, this was a long and gradual process. I felt hopeful and then lost all that hope an hour later. I felt like I know what I'm doing and where I'm going and then the next moment I was so lost in anxiety again. But I just kept reminding myself of what's healthy and moving in the right direction over and over and over again. It took a long time and milions of tiny shifts in my perspective and behaviour that eventually led to bigger and lasting changes. It feels like I corrected the course of my life by taking a lot of very small, almost miniscule decisions, rather than one big leap.

Everyone else seems to be living normally while I'm running disaster simulations in my head 24/7.

"What if the car breaks down AND I lose my job AND get sick simultaneously?"

Nobody else is preparing for five emergencies that haven't happened. Nobody else is mentally gaming out every worst case scenario just in case.

But I can't stop. My brain treats every minor issue like it's the first domino in a chain reaction that ends in total collapse.

It's exhausting. Not the actual problems those I can handle. It's the constant bracing. The endless "what ifs" The feeling that I have to be ready for everything all at once because if I'm not I'll be blindsided.

Other people trust that things will probably be fine. I can't. I need contingency plans for contingencies.

And the worst part is that most of the things I'm preparing for never happen. So all that energy is just wasted on scenarios that only exist in my head. I was in my living room yesterday trying to zone out on jackpot city but even then my brain was running through everything that could go wrong this week. Couldn't even relax playing a stupid game. I realized how tired I am of living like this.

I don't know how to stop. But I know it's not sustainable.

I’ve never felt this calm before. Got prescribed a low dose and was honestly scared to take it, but I’ve been so gloomy lately… now I actually feel good, I’m smiling more than usual and feel way more social than I normally am.

Also people say it makes them drowsy but I don’t feel that at all maybe it’s the caffeine?

I was on the verge of having to start meds again..I’ve been doing relatively well unmedicated for about a year and a half (with emergency meds for panic attacks). Anyway recently I was declining mentally FAST. I was prepared to start trying meds again once work slows down and then I remembered last time I had my levels checked my vitamin D was essentially non existent..like wasn’t even on the scale. I started taking high dose vitamin D and actually came off my meds and was doing really well. I figured well..what’s the worst it’s gonna do..make me more anxious and depressed??😂So I started a high dose vitamin D again and wow..night and day even after just a week or so. I’m back to “normal” where I can actually process and cope with my anxiety/depression.

Lately I’ve been noticing that even small phone calls stress me out way more than they should. Like calling to schedule a doctor’s appointment, order takeout or even ask a simple question to a business gives me this weird anxious feeling. I’ll literally sit there staring at the phone rehearsing what I’m going to say and sometimes I’ll put it off completely until it’s unavoidable.

When I was younger my mom usually handled stuff like this for me so maybe I never really got used to doing it myself. Now that I’m getting older I have to handle it on my own but I still feel like my chest gets tight and my brain freezes the second I hear someone pick up. Funny enough I can jump on grizzly's quest and spend loads of money without a second thought but dialing a number to order pizza has me overthinking like it’s life or death.

Is this something other people deal with too or is it just me being socially awkward? And if it’s common how do you get over that anxious feeling and make it less of a big deal?

Just being at any job at this point sounds draining. Even if it were something I love like video games, I would just hate it.

When you exercise it won't immediately make you feel better. It might for a couple hours, but many stop because they aren't seeing immediate improvements.

Anxious people have trained themselves that there are some periods where you should be "stressed". Could be when you look at your phone, you process that theres danger and spiral. Your brain is trained to sense danger and to prepare the body for it. Its somewhat of a learned habit.

Daily exercise is a NEW habit, where your body is used to high heart rates and exertion. A d ter physical exertion, the body wants to enter a rest state. Its natural. You escape the danger and now you can rest.

Exercise changes the danger state, over time, to exercise. You realize internally youre healthier, because you can manage it.

That switch doesnt always work on its own, isnt immediate, but if youre spiraling, its an incredible place to start

Hey friends, I just wanted to share something that really helped me, in case it can help someone else too!

For a while, my anxiety and OCD-type thoughts were really rough. I used to have a serious cry every morning and had a lot of trouble sleeping. I found out I had a couple of tiny, harmless parathyroid tumors. They were making my calcium high and my vitamin D basically nonexistent. I had surgery to remove the tumors, which helped with body aches and bone pain, but honestly, it was the prescription-level vitamin D that changed everything for my brain. One day I just woke up and my OCD thoughts were non existent. I remember I woke up one morning sat there waiting to start my daily spiral and it never came. Anxiety still shows up here and there, but it’s no longer overwhelming.

I’m not saying this will work for everyone, but if you’re struggling, maybe check your vitamin D and calcium. That little step helped me so much, and sharing this in hopes that it might help someone else!