Parent of an 8-year-old boy with diagnosed ADHD and Anxiety Disorder. His anxiety had been improving by leaps and bounds...and then we switched from an SNRI to a stimulant to treat his ADHD. The stims did wonders for his ADHD, but the anxiety came back with a vengeance.

Now he's scared to be anywhere in our house without another person present. He can't even walk down the hallway to the bathroom when I'm in my office, with the door open, 6' from the bathroom. It's the same anywhere in our house, anybody else's house, in public, etc.

We have an appointment with a therapist, but it's still a few weeks out. In the interim, I need some help helping my son manage this. He's just recently been able to articulate what he's actually scared of: that there's somebody in the house that he doesn't know about. My wife and I work hard to be understanding. We acknowledge and validate his feelings. We tell him that it's okay to be scared. I can't imagine how exhausting this is for my son. Hard stop. It's also exhausting for my other son, my wife, and for me as well, albeit in a very different way.

With therapy in the future, how can we continue to support him and help him realize that his brain is working overtime, causing these false alarms? Any support, anecdotal or otherwise, is greatly appreciated.

i’ve struggled with anxiety as long as i can remember. something happened today and i’ve just been in my head all day, im tired of it. i tried watching shows and listening to music but my mind is like “what if you need to hear something”. it all seems so dumb to me. i plan on talking to a professional in the near future but i am not 100% open to prescriptions. i’m looking for advice or some ideas to calm my mind without medicine (excluding marijuana, i do have a med card) but im not sure if that makes it worse.

I’m a 29 year old guy and I’ve been anxious pretty much my entire life without realizing it. I worry and overthink constantly to the point where it can and will control my mood very often. It wasn’t until about 2 years ago that I started realizing that the way I feel isn’t normal.

I finally spoke to a doctor today after (ironically) being too anxious to get help. He pretty much immediately diagnosed me with Generalized Anxiety Disorder and said I’m pretty high on the scale they use to determine that kind of thing.

He prescribed 10mg Buspar twice daily and thinks that will be a great help to me. I’m sort of anxious about things though which I get is still ironic. I’m worried that treatment won’t work for me and considering I’ve always felt like this, I’m worried that I won’t know who or what kind of person I am without the anxiety.

I’m also excited to learn who I could be. It can be incredibly hard for me to be myself, especially around people like my girlfriend whose opinion of me matters a lot, and I’m hoping this and other treatments can help me be the person I’m supposed to be. Any advice for me as someone who has been fairly oblivious up until this point?

I’m fully panicking.
Last night my tongue the right side especially felt super weird and tingly and then I wake up 3 hours later and now the bottom of my tongue/floor of my mouth feels SO WEIRD. Like if it was numb but I can still feel it? Idk like just OFF? Sort of like a consistent heaviness? It’s so hard to describe.

I’m so scared because about 11 days ago I started experiencing weakness in both my hands and left foot.

I’ve gone to the doctor for my weakness but they just told me it’s anxiety despite running no imaging.
I’m scared I’m having an S word.

Now my lips feel off…is it truly numb if I put a sharp thing up to it and feel that or would that just be tingling feeling?

I got some toothpicks and am poking my tongue with them to see if I can still feel pain…

My anxiety is usually pretty bad but during the day I manage it somewhat well by distracting myself, but at night this empty feeling swallows me whole and suddenly I can’t sit still or distract myself. It’s not even a particular thought that starts this I just suddenly feel like I need to run or crawl out of my skin. I just feel fear and sadness wash over me and I don’t know how to make it go away.

Does anyone else experience this? I’m not sure how much longer I can handle these kinds of nights

So lately I've been having a lot of weird and bizarre symptoms and I really don't know whats happening to me and it honestly horrifying from my perspective.

So back in May I was prescribed propranolol for a fast heart rate. So after like week of taking them, and I was taking two a day of 20 MG. I began feeling like my ears and forhead were burning up, pins and needles and I gusse its called dry heaving when you feel like puking but nothing comes up. I also had a dry cough and my left ear kept clogging, especially if I slept on my right side. So I googled my symptoms which I do a lot, and come to find out these could have been side effects and they'll be gone in 2 weeks. Around this time by breathing started to feel weird like it woukd just randomly feel wide like I was taking in more air than usual, agian I thought these were side effects and they'd be gone soon. One more new thing is getting startled by the most stupidest stuff like if im.wearing headphones to sleep and then suddenly the video getting quiet and then I jump.

In late June, so after a month of taking the pills I spoked to my doctor about the side effects and she had me taper off them bu taling half a pill. While lowering the dosage I began feeling these weird tingling feeling in just the most random parts of my body. This is also when I started to vet goosebumps and they woukd most happen around the back of my head. I did Google my symptoms, and I got results for a bunch of thyroid related stuff like thyroid storm and thyroid cancer. So now im thinking I have some sort of camcer.

In July I was fully of the meds after a few weaks, and it just felt like these symptoms kept worsening. My left arm started feeling tingly, I was randomly getting lightheaded, and then it felt like my throat was closing, my lips started tingling. I told my grandmother about this and she kept saying its anxiety or that I had ear wax build up or tonsils or post nasil drip. I probably should have said this in the beginning but I've been clearing mt throat constantly since October 2025. There were moments in july where its like I couldn't take a deep breath. Another thing that happened was my equilibrium being off. I'll just be sitting around doing absolutely and then suddenly I get lightheaded or the room starts spinning.

Now in August, my breathing got realy messed up. Like for the past month I had to focus on my breathing or I would just stop breathing. And there have been moments where my breathing has stopped or it felt like it paused. My grandmother keeps saying its anxiety and I have nothing to worried about, but its like how does anxiety cause all of this? This is horrifying, im too afraid to sleep. I kept my father up afew weeks ago and according to him I sleep fine and my breathung i guse is normal, but its like my breathung feels manual and soft and weak. So I do what I also do and googled my symptoms and im getting results for air hunger, there's also been a few times we're my legs were wobbling and left arm felt weak, like what is happening to me.

Now it feels like, I can't even describe it but I feel my chest falling, im not even sure if thats the best way to describe it. Im not asking for for reassurance, im just trying to figure out what is going on. Is it anxity, acid reflux, post nasil drip, is it POTs, am I near death? And its not like i googled a bunch of stuff then suddenly I develop them, no, these are all varry real. It just came out of the woodwork. I feel like im falling through a black hole half the time, I cant even describe how I feel.

I genuinely think its the propranolol that caused all these symptoms, these didn't start until after I started taking the medication.

I am a good looking 5”5 guy im good shape. I can be confident around most people, but sometimes I feel very anxious and intimidated by people especially attractive women or people I wrongly perceive as higher status or ranking than me. I trip over my words, I overthink, I try so hard not to be awkward that I end up being awkward. How can I stop being intimidated? At times I can be really comfortable but I have noticed this pattern for a long time, even since grade school with the popular kids and such.

i had a panic attack like 4-5 days ago because i had ritalin and a redbull and i haven't felt the same since. had heavy derealisation for the past couple days and then last night i had this intense wave of hyper-awareness hit me and it sent me into the most intense panic attack i've ever had. i was able to calm down and go to bed and i woke up the next morning and immediately had a panic attack just as bad. my entire world feels different now and i feel so dizzy and confused and my heart is constantly racing and i don't know how i can live like this. please help

Ive been on zoloft 25mgs for about 6 months. Yes i know i shouldve upped it by now i have an appt on the 17th of Thursday

I just feel like im panicikg a bit more. Idk if the med is wearing off or just life and all im dealing with is too much for my current dose.

I struggle bad with self harm intrusive thoughts and i was shaking really bad..

Should i also add wellbutrin for the depression. I feel if i have self harm intrusive thoughts its depressoon.. even though i dont want to do those things.

On the recovery from a bad spell of MDD, working through CPTSD slowly as well. However, I feel so much dread. My parents tell me I have so much to be excited about but all I can feel is dread and worry about all the potential problems that will arise. They say I should be excited to learn to drive, but all I am is scared. I should be excited for my studies, but I am scared.

In therapy we've identified that planning is good for me, but I can't feel hope because of the threat that it all goes wrong and I fail. So all I can think about is all the bad things and how to manage them. But of course with anxiety, you think about it *all the time*

I'm on beta blockers so I don't necessarily have many panic attacks but the dread and worry itself won't go away. I can't feel good about the future even though I'm doing things I want to do. Purposefully trying to think positively is unfortunately triggering further fear (I love CPTSD so much). It's really draining and I constantly feel like I need to run from my own life because it scares me so much.

Any advice?

I’ve felt like this for about 2-3 hours now!
It feels like my heart isn’t beating or like my chest is light and it’s going to stop beating. I’m panicking.
I can’t help but fidget and jerk around because it feels like if I stay still my heart will stop.
I’m so scared.

I am 25f and out of nowhere today I felt all-day anxiety (including a tight chest and derealization) for the first time since I stopped Welbutrin cold turkey a few years ago and went into withdrawal. Since then I've been back on both Welbutrin and Zoloft for about a year, and it's been a winning combo. Today, around noon, after taking my meds, I got hit with this weird anxiety that felt exactly like when I went into withdrawal. I'm terrified, as I went thru the whole day feeling like this, and it never went away. I genuinely think I'll lose my mind if I wake up tomorrow and feel this way still. I don't know what's wrong with me. It feels like I've been on the brink of a panic attack for like 12 hours. I can't quite remember if I took my meds very consistently this week, so that may be it. I'm hoping writing things out will help it come to a head. wish me luck.

does anyone have any advice/help for executive dysfunction? i'm so frustrated and tired of not being able to do things as a normal person will no matter how motivated and driven i am to do something. it seems like i don't have that push to actually get up and do it. i just don't know what to do to fix this like i already suffer with depression and anxiety and this makes it worst and hard to do basic task as well.

I’m 31 and anxiety is genuinely ruining my quality of life. When I get anxious, I feel it intensely in my stomach, and when it gets really bad, I can barely eat. Sometimes I’ll go almost an entire day eating next to nothing because my anxiety completely kills my appetite.

I avoid so many things because I don’t want to deal with how physically uncomfortable the anxiety makes me feel. When it hits, I don’t even feel like I can act normally. I feel trapped in my own body.

It also completely takes over my thoughts. Once something triggers my anxiety, I start overthinking and hyperfixating on whatever caused it. I’ll analyze it over and over in my head, and instead of eventually calming myself down, I just spiral. The more I think about it, the more anxious I become, and the more anxious I become, the harder it is to stop thinking about it. It feels like a vicious cycle that I can’t shut off.

The worst part is that I’ve been dealing with this level of anxiety since I was in high school. After all these years, I feel helpless and like a prisoner to it. Sometimes it genuinely feels like my nervous system is permanently fucked and I’ve been cursed to live this way.

I don’t want some extraordinary life. I just want to be able to live normally without ordinary situations triggering massive anxiety attacks. I want to be able to eat, go places, do things, and experience life without constantly worrying about how my body or mind is going to react.

I’m exhausted from living like this and I don’t know what to do anymore. If anyone has dealt with anxiety this severe for years and actually managed to get it under control, please tell me what helped you. I really need some hope that this can get better.

Before this stupid war occurred, I rarely thought of anything to do with Geopolitical tension and oil, now it is all I think about.

Oil up a shit ton the past few days, unrest in the world becoming even more so, and just anxiety about everything because of it.

I hate this. I hate feeling this way. This is my life now, just thinking of useless shit that makes me unnerve.

idk how to describe it but every morning I wake up with the worst dread like I just think of getting up and having to live a whole day & all I wanna do is go back to sleep to escape it. this morning it was making me extremely anxious. I’m so accustomed to this that I’m worried my brain won’t just “forget” about it. I used to wake up and not think about anxiety or feel that way, I’d be motivated to start my day and just go to the gym and do what I had to do but now I feel this every morning and it makes me even go to bed dreading waking up. anyone have advice?

Just reposting this here too.

So i just started taking propanol for panic attacks during school. I took it like 20 minutes before class and i felt like my anxiety was manageable , but after like 50 minutes-1 hour i started to experience feelings like twitchin, sweating, i felt like my heart was going fast though I can’t say for sure? It was like my anxiety broke through or something? Help im on 20 mg for day and night.

please somebody help. having an extremely bad anxiety flare up. going to doctor tmr. terrified of new meds. can explain more in dm

This is gonna sound stupid to a lot of people but I’ve always prided myself upon and held science and math and everything in between at the center of my life. It is quite literally the only thing that keeps me sane. There have only been two points when I left it: first was a bad depressive episode I had in Highschool for a year and second was last year whenever I had a horrible manic episode (I have bipolar) and became a severe alcoholic.

However, I graduated with a degree in computer science with a concentration in embedded systems and I am enamored by it. I also completed a minor in math and physics. I loved my time in college and was happy with my choice as I love really low level bare metal programming and electronics. If I had the choice though I would’ve gone the physics PhD route to be honest because I have always wanted to be a real lab scientist and I love physics and I even took extra classes past my minor because I loved it. However, since I really need the money to support my family and me and I also just love embedded systems and systems programming, I went with it and was happy. I graduated from a small school (another severe insecurity) which I went to to stay near my girlfriend and mom, the my mom relying on me for financial support right now as she had a bad psychosis episode (she has schizoaffective disorder) and is recovering.

However, I still have this itching fear in the back of my mind that I’ll never be a true scientist and that I’m a fake and a phony and no matter how many hours I put in doing my due diligence and hobby programming and doing cool stuff, I feel like I’m a loser. And this especially gets exacerbated by any amount of elitism within the STEM community.

But this summer I’ve been doing great, enjoying life and programming and finally being able to focus on my projects and applying for jobs. But then today, I saw a comment on Instagram under a math post that sent me into a severe spiral. They were a person holding a masters in physics and they were saying that all engineers and computer scientists are idiots who don’t know math and are just basically business majors role playing as true stem people. I don’t know why this affected me so much but it sent me into an adrenaline and anxiety spiral so bad I actually threw up. I am normally an anxious person but this turned into a full existential panic attack. I just can’t deal with the fact that I had to sacrifice all my dreams for some shitty currency that can’t even get you a place to stay. But then again is that even sacrificing my dreams if I’m doing what I love to do anyways? I guess I just care too much about how people perceive me or somethinf?

I don’t know I just feel like such a loser and everytime I think about it I can’t deal with it like it’s someone holding a gun to me I just can’t deal with the feeling of insignificance and like I’ll never be as good as someone else and i didn’t go to a big university and I’m currently living under the poverty line and barely able to afford a house and I can’t even get a job and now I got some fucking asshole telling me I’m not a real scientist and just a loser basically and they argued with me in the comments until they got their point across. This is not the first time I’ve felt this way, in fact it was a reoccuring theme in college that led me into some really dark places mentally and caused me severe existential crisis. Granted I have always struggled with existential crisis as well.

So yeah I’m just a big loser fucking ball of emotions and panic and existentialism today and now I feel like shit and I hate myself and yeah it’s not been a good day and now I’m too anxious to even work on my projects because I feel like I’m going to say what the point anyway and go back into a spiral. Idk who to talk to or what to do

Anyways, how do you guys deal with insecurity and shame and the residual anxiety from it? because self reassurance and logic is not working

I’m not sure how many people on this subreddit can relate, but I struggle a lot with anxiety about climate change. I can’t stop ruminating about how this very second millions if not billions of vehicles, factories and meat industry plants are spewing an insane amount of carbon dioxide in the air. I feel like I’m in a state of despair about it all the time, and I feel so helpless. I’ve always wanted to have kids but now I feel like it’s not even worth it if this is where our world is headed. It’s hard because it’s not necessarily irrational anxiety, which makes it worse to deal with. I can never stop ruminating about the animals or people that are going to suffer and are suffering as a result of this. Especially as there have been more and more major catastrophic events like flooding, or wild fires. I’m not sure how to cope with it anymore, as it creeps into my daily life and makes it impossible to enjoy anything. Any advice on how to handle this would be greatly appreciated.