Hey guys! One thing I really haven’t written about on here yet is about my general anxiety. I guess I was busy blogging about Tourette Syndrome and OCD! Anyway, I have a lot of generalized anxiety since I do have GAD (Generalized Anxiety Disorder), and lately my anxiety has been getting worse here in college with all the new stress.
I worry about a lot of things on an almost constant basis such as my friends, my grades, my family and my own health and sleep. Lately, since I’m in college, I’ve had a lot of anxiety about friends and grades in particular.
I worry and am anxious about if my new friends really do like me and really consider me to be one of their friends. I worry about if they think my tics are annoying or if they wish I would stop but can’t say anything to me because they know I have Tourette. I worry if they will get fed up with my tics and eventually decide they don’t want to put up with it anymore. I worry that they don’t view me as they view other people but instead view me as a person with a disorder/disability.
Even though I really have no proof that they think these things and these thoughts just come from my own head, I still worry about them a lot. I also worry that they don’t think I’m mature enough or interesting enough and will eventually decide they just don’t like my personality.
I also worry about my grades, homework and studying. Sometimes, just doing my homework causes so much anxiety that I avoid doing it and just surf the internet, work on my documentary or play around on Facebook. I know, that’s really bad. I do it eventually, but I don’t spend as much time on it as I could have, and I don’t try as hard as I know I could.
I know I could be studying harder and doing more work, but it’s just too anxiety provoking for me. Even though I’m at a very prestigious college and am getting pretty decent grades, I know I am capable of even more, but I just don’t want to push myself that far right now because of my anxiety.
All of this anxiety makes me feel really tense all the time. Sometimes, I feel like I can’t breathe very well because my throat is so tight and the muscles around my throat, face and neck are so tight. I clench my jaw really tight as well, which I’m not sure if this is a tic or a result of my anxiety.
I’ve also been having a lot of trouble sleeping lately because of my anxiety. I don’t want to try to fall asleep because the process of falling asleep causes so much anxiety for me so I stay up until 12 or 12:30 just avoiding turning off the lights and putting my laptop away. Then once I do start trying to sleep, my tics get really bad from being anxious.
I worry that I am bothering other people in the dorm. I worry that I won’t get enough sleep and that I’ll be tired the next day. I thrash in my bed and can’t stop my brain from thinking in circles about things that make me anxious because there is nothing to do except lie there. It takes me between 2 and 3 hours to actually go to sleep, and then once I am asleep,I have these awful nightmares. Luckily, I usually stay asleep until the morning, though.
Then the next day, I’m tired and take a nap, but when I take a nap, I don’t have any anxiety about sleeping. I really enjoy the nap but never am able to enjoy sleeping at night.
So, anyway, the point of all this really was to say that I’m going to be seeing a new therapist/counselor here at my college specifically for my anxiety. I’m actually kind of excited. I haven’t had great luck with therapists in the past, and I’ve really only had three therapists that I’ve actually liked. For most people, that might sound like a lot, but for someone like me who has seen more therapists in their life that they can count, that’s not very good.
Well, maybe I actually can count….let’s see…I think I’ve seen 14 therapists in some form or another throughout my life! Wow, that’s really a lot. I guess I didn’t realize I’ve seen that many therapists in my life. I’m going to have to do a whole different blog post now on all the different therapists I’ve seen and what I liked about that/didn’t like, etc.
Anyway, each time I see a new therapist, I have high hopes that I’m really going to like them and connect with them and they’re really going to understand me like no one else ever has. Maybe I get my hopes up too high, really. I haven’t had that therapist yet who has changed my life, and even though I don’t think this new therapist is going to change my life or anything, I am just hoping that she will be someone who will help me lessen all this anxiety I’m dealing with.
And maybe as an extra bonus she will really understand me and at least be someone I can talk to openly and give me some positive feedback when I’m talking to her. I hope she’s nice, and I hope she will be able to understand all this stuff I deal with on a level that my peers and parents can’t understand.
I’m still seeing a therapist off campus for my OCD, but I only see her once a month now on a maintenance program just to make sure I’m maintaining the gains I’ve made with my exposure therapy. But right now, I’m not pushing forward with my OCD because in my opinion, my OCD is pretty under control right now for the situation I’m in here at college. I know I’ll have to do more work with exposure therapy in the future, but right now I’m just focusing on college.
I saw the new therapist here on campus for the first time yesterday at 9 a.m. I even got up at 8:30 to go see her, so that tells you something. I don’t get up at that time of the morning in college ever, but I was willing to do it for this.
its interesting to read this ruthie because i get anxious about seeing therapists too. any time i have to speak to someone about by tourette i get anxious. nothing else really makes me anxious, except maybe my grades. its definitely not a tic or anything. what ways do you best try to get over your anxiety in those situatons? :)