r/AnxietyChats

Hi everyone. I’m 19F, and I’ve been trying to work on my anxiety, but I feel like I don’t actually know how to regulate it.

Most advice I see is things like “take deep breaths,” “challenge your thoughts,” or “just let it pass,” but I feel like I’m missing something because my anxiety keeps showing up in different situations.

For example, I recently started helping at my family’s business. Before going to work, I get really anxious and feel like I don’t want to go. When I interact with customers, my mind goes blank, I overthink everything I say, and I even mess up simple calculations because I feel so pressured. The weird thing is that I know how to do these things when I’m calm.

I also struggle with rumination after a breakup from a 4-year relationship. I’ll be trying to focus on myself, but my mind randomly goes back to my ex and starts imagining “what if” scenarios. I acknowledge the thoughts and try to redirect myself, but they keep coming back.

I’m already trying to improve my life by fixing my sleep schedule, exercising, helping at work, reducing doomscrolling, and learning emotional regulation, but I still feel anxious almost every day.

So I wanted to ask people who have learned to manage their anxiety: what does emotional regulation actually look like in real life? What do you do when you notice yourself getting anxious? How do you stop your mind from spiraling without just suppressing your emotions?

I’m looking for practical things that helped you, whether it’s skills, routines, books, therapy techniques, or mindset shifts. I’d really appreciate hearing what worked for you.

I have this friend from college two years ago and we catch up every 4/5 months and I was extremely limerent over her in college… We met up recently and 2 years later I’m still not over her. This friendship gives me extreme anxiety and adrenaline that my heart starts to hurt. When we met up recently my heart was pounding the whole entire 4 hours. The whole time I just kept thinking about how I have a *secret* and was sooo close to just spilling it out and letting my true self out instead of masking acting like shes not the most attractive person ive ever seen in my life when she asks me about romantic relationships/who i find attractive. Honestly I think that’s what the constant heart pounding was from, the adrenaline of being on the verge of just telling my true deepest darkest secret.

I really want to care for her as a friend in a NORMAL healthy way but my past mental state with her might have just messed up our relationship and the things I associate her with forever.

My mind says do NOT tell her it will end horribly and nothing good comes out of it, but my consciousness is dying to express itself. Idec if the friendship ends bc of this, actually part of me WANTS her to end the friendship so I can finally be free. But what if it backfires? What if I could have just detached and let this go, and now this confession will keep me trapped for much longer? I also don’t wanna harm her and drag her into my extreme attachments and delusions.

I think I would erase the shortness of breath, I always feel like I’m dying 😭 what about you??

Truth, is like a begger in the street, being ignored or disrespected.

Is there anyone else, besides me, that feels unhappy when being exposed to untruths?

Hi, I’m just venting at this point but I feel like I have a heavy weight in my chest these past few months. I feel like my life is having a « turning point » where everything change. I’m scared and I don’t even know if I’m excited or not. The thing is, I’m looking for an apprenticeship and I MAYBE got it, in a big city, far from my family. I love big cities and I love the one I’m going to be in but I’m feeling so nostalgic, melancholic even. I’m thinking of times where all of my siblings were at home, we played games really late in the night and I didn’t have to care about anything. Even now, I’m at an internship and I love my colleagues, the environment is great, but it feels so strange to me that I’ll never see them again. Sometimes I feel like I’m watching my life. What if I’m making the wrong choices ? What if I give up on my dreams ? What if I get caught up in a life I don’t want ? I hate change. So much

Hi Friends!

I am writing here to ask for your advice.

I generally suffer from severe social anxiety. As a child, I hated public speaking or talking to strangers. I don't have many friends as a result. I can't even hold eye contact with strangers. I can't reply in interviews, my fear and aniety are clearly visible on my face, my hands shake with nervousness. Even on phone calls, I fumble, take long pauses or freeze entirely. I have lost many job opportunities due to this. It's really getting tough for me to find a job. It's really taking a toll on me.

If any of you can help me through this, please advice.

Those outside the states, it’s about to be Independence Day. A day of celebration and relaxation. For the past decade every Independence Day has been fucked. Most years I remember my mother trying to do work (she works in accounting) and things being all fucked up so she takes her anger out on me, my sister and her husband. Other years it’s people fighting over politics or me being so paranoid something is going to go wrong that I don’t even enjoy my day off before I go back to work, because it always seems like I can’t enjoy Independence Day without worrying about work.

In fact , this seems like every single holiday. Shit goes wrong and I have to work that day or the next so I can’t enjoy it. For every good day, there are infinite number of bad days.

I’m not looking forward to tomorrow. Today was supposed to be easy and I nearly had a mental breakdown. I’m just hoping at this point that things finally turn around.

Hey guys, I have a bit of an odd question-

But for those who have general anxiety/issues with sleep, is there anything you say to yourself to trick your brain into thinking you're safe?

My body tends to lock into fight or flight every night and although some OTC medicine / tea i take make my body tired, its my brain that keeps me awake.

I used to be able to chant 'Im fine, Im safe, there's no one here to hurt me' but lately that doesn't seem to help much. Not sure why- but just generally curious if anyone else has coping methods, thanks! :>

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Hi, this is my first post, so I'm a little nervous. I've had social anxiety for years now, I'm going to therapy and when I have time I go to a self-help group as well.

I feel like I'm so in my head that I mess up something and I didn't even notice, like it just happens subconsciously which almost makes it worse for me bc then it feels like maybe that's just part of my personality.

For example, it was my birthday two weeks ago and my birthday absolutely stresses me out bc of people expecting you to celebrate in some way (and I do want to celebrate, I just don't want to have a big party or something like that) and I'm always afraid that someone is going to be mad at me or I start questioning if people would even want to spend time with me for my birthday (I know that's a self-worth issue). So I did something low key with just one close friend (Lara) and my parents came the day after just for me which I appreciated. I share the same birthday with another friend from uni (Mark) so we tend to celebrate it together with out friend group from uni, but this year Mark also invited his boyfriend so I thought I'd invite Lara as well.

I do have another relatively new friend and also Lara's sister currently lives with us in our shared flat and therefore we automatically spend a lot of time together, mostly in a group of three. Yesterday night Lara and I had one of our very serious and honest talks (I love these talks but they're very exhausting at the same time) and basically what came out of it was that it was clear to her sister now that she and I were not friends bc I didn't invite her to the birthday brunch and Lara was also surprised that I didn't invite my relatively new friend. She said if you don't invite someone to your birthday party you automatically exclude them and she's right and now I feel so bad because I didn't even think of her sister and my new friend, I really didn't, so it's not that I wouldn't want them there, it's just that I genuinely didn't think of them.

That's what I meant by subconsciously messing up and now I'm spiraling as usual bc I feel like it's not just anxiety and I can rationalize myself out of this spiral, this is like I genuinely messed up.

To be fair, my relatively new friend didn't invite me to her birthday either, but I don't think that should be a reason for me not to invite her, Idek if she even did something where she could've invited anyone, so that just sounds like an excuse on my part.

It sucks bc it comes across as "she intentionally doesn't want to" but often it just didn't occur to me, I think maybe it's my problem with self-worth that just makes me so passive when it comes to friendships, but I don't actively think I'm not worth anything, it's more of a feeling and like a subconscious blockade that gets me into situations like this. Now I can't even really look forward to that birthday brunch bc I feel so bad. I think part of it is also bc I value Lara's opinion (of me) so much, so I know I'm a little emotionally dependent on her and I try to detach but this time she is legitimately right, I should've invited both of them, but it makes me feel worse that I know she disapproves of how this happened and that I didn't think of her sister and my new friend. She's a social butterfly, but she's just also really good at friendships.

Those are the moments where I would love to just start over like in a video game, just pause and do it all again with what I learned so far.

I'm 24 now so why do I keep messing up like this? I really don't want to spend the rest of my life with all of this anxiety and emotional dependence and depressive thoughts and I try so hard but in moments like these I just feel very low.

Does this sound familiar to anyone else? How do I become more aware of my subconscious behavior so uncomfortable things like this don't happen anymore? Is it even my lack of self-worth thwt did this or am I maybe just someone who forgets people whom I shouldn't forget?

This got really long, if anyone read it this far, thank you so much for listening to me pouring out my thoughts.

for the last few weeks, i have found myself convinced i have every illness, disease, cancer, etc in the world. i can’t enjoy anything without thinking, “well this is nice but it sucks i may have cancer.” without any solid proof. i have no history and no family history of any illnesses, (only my grandma has had breast cancer but she is the only one in my entire family who’s had something) and i go through loops of anxiety thinking I’m sick and i obsess over feeling all over my body for lumps or bumps, over analyzing every “symptom” I’m feeling and look them up and i cant stop myself. no matter how much i reassure myself or i get reassurance from my therapist and the clean blood work i’ve had i cant get myself out of this cycle. its so draining. i had to get off my medication and I’m no longer able to see my therapist because i was kicked off my family insurance so I’m not sure what to do.

Hey everyone! After years of struggling with anxiety, I have figured out what helps and wanted to share.

1. The worry time method

Dedicate 15 minutes a day as your official 'worry time'. When anxious thoughts come up outside that window, write them down in a journal and tell yourself you'll address them later. It sounds simple but is surprisingly effective at stopping the spiral.

2. The body first rule

When anxiety spikes, your rational mind is already offline. Trying to think your way out doesn't work because the amygdala has bypassed your prefrontal cortex. Ground your body first with the 5-4-3-2-1 method, breathing, cold water on wrists, then think.

3. The fact vs fear journal

Draw two columns in a journal. Left column is for the anxious thought. Right is for what the evidence actually says. Most anxious thoughts can't survive contact with actual facts.

4. Naming the anxiety type

Realising that my anxiety wasn't one thing but different types in different contexts changed how I responded to it. GAD feels different to social anxiety which feels different to health anxiety. The tools that work for each are different.

5. The one check-in rule

If you have separation anxiety or health anxiety, do just one check-in. One message, one google. Then stop and redirect. Checking repeatedly temporarily reduces anxiety but increases it in the long term.

6. The exposure ladder

Avoiding things that make you anxious feels safer, but it teaches your brain that the thing is genuinely dangerous. Write down your fears starting with the least scary version of the situation. This is the most effective evidence-based approach for most anxiety types and helped me the most.

What has actually helped you? Particularly interested in things that worked when nothing else was.

Thoughts?
Have you tried it?
Do you want to try it?
Did it work?
Have you any history on it’s origins.

Explanation:
PLUNGING your forehead and eye area into a freezing cold bowl of water for around 20 s 🥶👍

I have Panic & Anxiety disorders, it was suggested as a thing to try by my psychologist and it worked for a bit, but as Panic &/or Anxiety goes the fear of another spurred another episode on so I did it again and after the third dip, it was like my brain decided to not think about another Panic attack because the self imposed brain freeze was worse.
I was sceptical, always am with anxiety & panic treatment because nothing other than Diazepam has worked before but after an addiction to it I can no longer have it & on a less serious note being prescribed a sour gummy by a psychologist, come on.
It’s the ONLY thing that has worked for me just like to know if anyone else has tried it

Been on anxiety meds for 3months now (100mg sertraline) but don’t see any major difference.
Still feel pretty anxious before big events, meetings, interviews, public speaking, being the centre of attention.

Want to know everyone’s experience with anxiety meds- how long it took for you to see difference. Also looking for tips to keep my anxiety at bay.

Appreciate any small or big life hacks, thanks!

I'm needing some place where I can go alone and do something different.... I've been alone only when I'm working and I feel like I need to do anything to distract myself a little and actually be alone. You know?!

Do you have any special place to rechange socially? Any tips?