Hey!
So much great advice! 😀
Maybe I can add some insights how I tackled my anxiety…

1. Read about it! Anxiety & panic attacks are a surprisingly common phenomenon, and there are really good books that explain how it works. This knowledge will help you to figure out what is behind your anxiety.
Short form: Somehow your body has registered certain thoughts or experiences as life threatening – so whenever you think or experience something similar, it does everything it can to prepare you for fight or flight – which is not a nice feeling. Once you become afraid of that feeling, you start to look out for it, creating a cycle of anxiety that is triggered by your fear of fear…

2. There are methods to break that cycle, they include breathing techniques, meditation & exercise. Doing Yoga with affirmations actually helped me a lot, as well as exercising in general.

3. Maybe you are just generally scared because life feels threatening. Is it fear of making mistakes? That something could go wrong? To be honest, I am still having that, but I am getting better at facing those fears. I feel that they are closely linked with how much expectations vs. compassion I have for myself. I usually start to feel better when I give myself bravery talks: That also means I am brave enough to face the fear when I feel it coming up. It’s ok to be afraid, it’s a part of me, I don’t have to try to get rid of it or avoid it and it cannot actually hurt me. A car crash could hurt me, yes, but there is nothing I could do about it, so I just have to live with the risk.

4. Try to remember that decisions are not as crucial as you might think they are. I really recommed this very funny and inspiring talk by Dan Gilbert about how our psychological immune systems allows us to be happy, whatever card life deals us or whatever decisions we make:

5. My friend whom I wrote about had a hard time to accept that the world was not as fluffy-duffy as she thought – and that she was not the person her parents and friends expected her to be. So she (and I did that to, and probably most healthy people do at some point ;-)) withdrew and stewed in her feelings and fought with herself and others until she figured out and accepted who she actually was, what she wanted from life and what steps she could take… She ditched her studies, went to live in a different city, a different lifestyle… great things and mistakes happened, and now she has to make completely different decisions, but knows more about herself and that she is able to tackle them. I imagine it a bit like being stuck in a djungle where you lost the beaten path … you will just have to make your own path – and how cool is that!

Caroline, you have tackled lots of stuff already, you are smart and it seems you have people around you who love you. Don’t let anxiety throw you off, it is a very normal thing, you are not alone with it and there are lots of things you can do against it! Just walk on, one foot in front of the other! *hugs*