Been very recently diagnosed with anxiety after over a year of struggling with life in general! GP did not want to start off with medication and I am awaiting my first counselling session in the next fortnight, which I cannot wait for as I really hope it will help. I have always been a bit of a worrier but now it rules my life.
The most troubling symptom I am having is obsessive, irrational worrying. I jump to the worst possible conclusion based on very little, and the panic feels so real it can take hours or even days for me to calm myself enough to rationally examine the scenario and realise there is no evidence or logic to underpin that fear. It all feels very real to me. When I talk about it to other people, they are kind but I can see that it sounds utterly insane to them. I cannot rationalise my worries and I feel as if disaster is inevitable a lot of the time.
At the moment my worries are based on losing my job; although if work is going well I will find something else to focus on like driving, my health, whether my home will be broken into etc. I think at the heart of it I feel like I am a bad and useless person, and this will be uncovered and I will be humiliated and lose my job, my independence and my friends.
I can cope with the physical manifestations of anxiety, I can cope with the bad sleep and the fatigue and the poor self esteem, but this end-of-the-world feeling terrifies me and I am worried it will get worse and I won't be able to cope.
If anybody has any gems of wisdom on how to ease this totally irrational, obsessive worrying I would be so appreciative! I know it's a long term thing I will need to work at but I feel like I really can't lose another weekend to feeling so powerless :(