Dear Anita,

It’s been a while and I am glad to say that I am fine.

This past Thursday I experienced a lot of anxiety in the morning. Anxiety that someone would take my seat in class, and just anxiety for things reasons I know not. It faded as the class went on, but when I got home the anxiety came back. I don’t understand why if I wouldn’t be having class again until Tuesday. Dread I suppose.

However, Friday, and the weekend was fine. It was good and I was not anxious at all. Monday was good as well. No anxiety about the upcoming day.

Today was a bit overwhelming. I had a hard time not running to class even though I was 20 minutes early. Everyone just has a habit about showing up to class early even though the professor doesn’t arrive until 5 minutes before. I felt comfortable in lecture after I sat down, but to be honest, as soon as the professor opened the door, I leaped up to get into my seat. Lab class was great, which is not something I expected to be saying. I talked to the two girls in my group and we worked well in the experiment. I was the one doing most of the instructions and gathering of things, they seemed not too sure about what to do, I felt comfortable leading the group. However, I know that this is only because it was a small group. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have been able to do it. I felt so comfortable, that I even managed to ask them if they wanted to work together for the upcoming group project, even though group names are not due for another two weeks. They said yes, and I was glad to get it over with. We then talked about our upcoming exam, our quiz, and yoga. It was good.

Unfortunately, while I did good socially today, my general anxiety was high. Especially when it came to driving. I was worried I was driving too slow, that I was withholding traffic by not driving faster, that other drivers were probably irritated by me, even when I was driving the speed limit and when the cars in front of me were pretty far away. Turning on streets was especially when I thought that. I felt the sense to hurry up. It was very overwhelming. When I parked I asked myself, am I too close to the street or too far apart. My general thoughts were, “can I go now? are there any cars coming? there are no cars coming, I better hurry, oh no, I am going a bit too fast, I better slow down” etc. It was like this the whole time. Unfortunately, I do not think practicing mindfulness would help me in this case, I’d get caught up in thoughts with myself, and I would get distracted.

My anxiety today also revolved around crossing the street, not arriving on time, being too late, coming across stray dogs, etc.
So my question is, what can I do in this case? How can I make it manageable? I really do not know what is worse, having general anxiety or social anxiety.

Thank you for that part about comparison. You are right, “Comparisons can be counter productive. People see too much into symptoms, thinking things like: oh, I don’t have THAT symptom, that means that person is too different from me. Thing is the symptoms of anxiety are different but anxiety is always… too much fear at too young of an age to deal with it healthily.” This really is what it is.

I am glad you are doing better, “Well, I am still healing, every single day, practicing mindfulness and more mindfulness, paying attention and I am seeing more and more each day. The more I notice, the more I see what I didn’t see before, the more there is to see the day after. I do not anticipate “the day AFTER” that is, me being healed and living “happily ever after” in a state of eternal comfort.” This brings up a big question for me, and it has to do with what Cheaw Hon said. She said she overcame her anxiety and issues. However, while not trying to compare her to me, I couldn’t help but ask myself, is there a way to overcome our disorders? Or is it something that will be with us all our lives? The rational part of me says that it is not possible and that since it has gone on for far too long that regardless of how much I can manage it, that there will always be remnants of it.

Thank you for asking me how I was doing. I got too busy with school work that I forgot to respond.