Posted 1/24/2014 10:56 PM (GMT 0)
Hello,
I am a 19 year old female and freshmen in college. This is the first time in my entire life that I've changed schools and lived away from home (although it's only 2 hours away). My first semester I was 100% fine and felt great and excited to start a new chapter in my life. After my school underwent an outbreak of meningitis, however, I became very paranoid. The week before winter break I had a full fledged panic attack (although i wasn't aware and confused my symptoms with meningitis which was false). Ever since then, I've been in a constant phase of fear and the fear to get another panic attack. Since then, I've had several panic attacks and remain in fear of more. I'm stressed out and scared and constantly frustrated and angry with myself because i recognize my irrational thoughts and despise my inability to overcome them. I constantly scare myself and become drowned in my thoughts. I tend to overanalyze everything I feel and I've been feeling very weird lately. I'm afraid that I sound crazy and oftentimes I feel pretty nuts and scare myself. In my Psych class, we were learning about schizophrenia and its symptoms etc. Now i overanalyze everything I feel and think that I won't be able to differentiate reality from dreams although this is not the case. I feel as if I MAKE myself think these things. Although I know I'm alive and healthy, I make myself think so intensely that i begin to question myself and my sanity. I also sometimes feel like a pain in the back of my lower head, like a heaviness, is this normal? Sometimes I think this will be permanent and it terrifies me to think that I will live my entire life this way. I've stopped drinking coffee/tea and have been trying to eat very healthy but it's already been almost 2 months like this and I just want to go back to my normal life and feel happy and relaxed. I fear that this will interfere with my academic life and that I'll have to drop out, etc. I constantly remember past events and how happy and carefree i felt and wish soooo badly i could feel like that again. I've been running a lot and attempting to instill only positive thoughts. I just want to know if anyone is feeling this way and what I can do to feel like a carefree young person because I don't want to waste my youth feeling this way :( please help me.