If you are a college student and have anxiety, then you understand that it can be very difficult. You just hope that every day will be anxiety-free. There will be one day that you feel great about yourself and nothing seems to go wrong. Then there will be other days that you feel both depressed and worried all at one time. You just hope that you can get through the day without having an anxiety attack in the middle of class. There is also no way you are able to explain your anxiety to someone who does not experience it, but sometimes you just wish that they knew how you felt.
You no longer want to complete your schoolwork.
School is no longer important to you, and you just wish that you were graduating this year. There is no reason to even go to class when your anxiety begins to hit because everything that your teachers say annoys you. It is not like you will be able to focus during class anyway, so why should you go? Once your anxiety subsides and you look over the material from the previous class, you realize how easy it was. Sometimes you even already know that material. It makes you wonder how you did not know what you learned in class that day anyway. You also keep debating if you can skip class for the second time this week before you even get out of bed.
You debate dropping out of school because there is no room for any more stress.
All those exams and reports, you just can’t take it anymore. They just seem to keep piling up, and you are not sure if it is the schoolwork that is giving you anxiety or not. It could be a 20 page paper or a single paragraph, but it will still get you stressed out. It sure doesn’t help that finals are coming up, either. There is no way that you are able to cope with your anxiety at any point in time because once you begin to relax you remember that there is another assignment due. The easiest way to get through the day is to just watch Netflix or go for a walk. School cannot be on your mind at all or else you’ll end up having another anxiety attack.
You can study for an exam but will still think that you failed it.
It could have been three weeks before the exam that you started looking over the material. You know every single detail for it and have memorized what every page in your book looks like. It is the thought that you failed the exam that will haunt you. You think that you could have studied harder and wonder if you are going to have to drop the class. It comes to the point that you become worried both before and after the exam. The test anxiety never seems to go away until you receive your grade. Once you see your grade, you realize that you did better than you expected as usual. It makes you wonder why you were even worrying about it in the first place.
There is a point in time where you no longer want to see your friends or the people that you love.
You can always tell when your anxiety is going to be high for that day. You cannot focus on anything that people are saying, and you just do not want to be around anyone. There is no telling what you are going to do or say around your friends so you just try to avoid them. Your friends will call for you to hangout, and instead of making up an excuse, you just do not even answer the phone. It could be your best friend and you still decide that you are better off not talking to anyone. Your mom will call to see how you are doing, and you have to act like nothing is wrong. There is no need for her to have to deal with your problems, especially since she is so far away.
You always think that the worst is going to happen even when nothing is wrong.
The worst part about anxiety is that you always think of the worst possible situations. There is always going to be a negative outcome on every decision that you make for that day. It is not your fault that you have to take a nap in the middle of the day because you cannot deal with it anymore. There are times when your mind just begins to become overwhelmed with negative thoughts, and there is nothing you can do.
On the days that you do not have anxiety, you feel like a completely different person. You want to be around other people and enjoy going to class. However, there are points in time that your anxiety will last for days at a time. The hardest part is to know that it will never go away and you have to learn to just cope with it. The constant worrying and depression hits you hard, and that is all right. You need to understand that other people are in this same position. Just know that even though things may seem difficult now, they will get better.
