No, that’s not what anxiety is. This isn’t the place for this discussion, however.
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I am lucky not to have anxiety issues.
I think it is healthy to have a good mix of family, friends, work and fun. For me, that is the key to no anxiety.
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You can have all that, and still have anxiety. 
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Hi Pal,
I am 41 and started having panic attacks after a surgery. It was an incidentally found tumor, non-cancerous in my saliva gland. I did not start having the problem until a few months after the successful surgery. Essentially I feared any issue I had could be cancer or something else that was going to kill me. I would convince myself something was on the verge of killing me and the panic attacks would come. It peaked when I did have an actual medical problem. Not life threatening but some of the nerves in my back are compressed. While going through the mri’s and diagnoses I was prescribed medication which helped. As part of my recovery I’m doing physical therapy which is also helping I think and I also started to eat right.
During my worst week the thing that kept me sane was going to a website and reading about other people with a similar problem. I just searched google and found forums and posts of people dealing with the same thing. Just knowing other people were also struggling was very helpful.
Good luck buddy. I know it doesnt feel like it, but it will get better.
God is in control of everything.
Then the Lord spoke to Job out of the storm. He said:
“Who is this that obscures my plans
with words without knowledge?
Brace yourself like a man;
I will question you,
and you shall answer me.
“Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?
Tell me, if you understand.
Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know!
Who stretched a measuring line across it?
On what were its footings set,
or who laid its cornerstone—
while the morning stars sang together
and all the angels shouted for joy?
“Who shut up the sea behind doors
when it burst forth from the womb,
when I made the clouds its garment
and wrapped it in thick darkness,
when I fixed limits for it
and set its doors and bars in place,
when I said, ‘This far you may come, and no farther;
here is where your proud waves halt’?
Have you ever given orders to the morning,
or shown the dawn its place,
that it might take the earth by the edges
and shake the wicked out of it?
The earth takes shape like clay under a seal;
its features stand out like those of a garment.
The wicked are denied their light,
and their upraised arm is broken.
“Have you journeyed to the springs of the sea
or walked in the recesses of the deep?
Have the gates of death been shown to you?
Have you seen the gates of the deepest darkness?
Have you comprehended the vast expanses of the earth?
Tell me, if you know all this.
“What is the way to the abode of light?
And where does darkness reside?
Can you take them to their places?
Do you know the paths to their dwellings?
Surely you know, for you were already born!
You have lived so many years!
(Job 38:1-21)
“Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades?
Can you loosen Orion’s belt?
Can you bring forth the constellations in their seasons
or lead out the Bear with its cubs?
Do you know the laws of the heavens?
Can you set up God’s dominion over the earth?
“Can you raise your voice to the clouds
and cover yourself with a flood of water?
Do you send the lightning bolts on their way?
Do they report to you, ‘Here we are’?
Who gives the ibis wisdom
or gives the rooster understanding?
Who has the wisdom to count the clouds?
Who can tip over the water jars of the heavens
when the dust becomes hard
and the clods of earth stick together?
Do you hunt the prey for the lioness
and satisfy the hunger of the lions
when they crouch in their dens
or lie in wait in a thicket?
Who provides food for the raven
when its young cry out to God
and wander about for lack of food?
(continued, Job 38:31-41)
Give your life to God, and He will take care of you from the smallest thing to the biggest.
“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?" - matt 6:25
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I can’t watch that in my country. Is it a nice song? I’ll look it up later. 
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I do breathing exercises and meditation to help with mine though I have medication if it gets really bad.
I wish you luck and take care!
Work out, go outside, go for a walk, practice mindfulness, get active.
Sitting around doing nothing is the best fuel for anxiety.
I had the same problem, daily life was pretty unbearable. About 6 months ago after experiencing a brutal panic attack I thought to myself: “Enough.” After speaking to a friend of mine she advised to have medication prescribed to manage it. My Doctor found the right one for me and the anxiety I usually experience was manageable rather than debilitating. I now recommend anyone who is experiencing issues with anxiety to just speak to a Doctor, that visit could change your life. 
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Anxiety is something I have had all my life. Here’s how I deal with it:
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I take Lexapro. I’m on a 10mg dose daily, and it helps raise my baseline so I don’t have panic attacks, and I can function more normally. But it doesn’t ERASE anxiety.
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I have been to therapy, but I do not like talking endlessly about my problems and paying for it. The whole arrangement is a bit weird to me. But it can help give you some tools to manage your pain.
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I pray. I’m not a religious person, but it helps. I feel connected spiritually to whatever our “source” is when I pray, and I feel very confident that if I didn’t do this, I would not be better off today.
None of these are bulletproof. Life is full of obstacles and suffering at every turn. I wish I could tell you there were a magic pill to take. You CAN reduce the pain though. I’ve done meditation, too. That can really help, and it takes some practice, but it helps.
I would start with a quiet prayer. To Buddha. To God. To the universe. Whatever. Just ask for help and say, “Please help me and give me strength”. From there, consider talking to a doctor and take steps each day to address anxiety rather than ignoring it. I’ve read books about anxiety. That can give you some agency and perspective. I recommend a book called DARE. It helped me when I struggled to get to sleep each night with anxiety. I was an insomniac for a while myself. I know I know, everyone says see a doctor, but those bastards have the power of prescription, and it CAN help take the edge off. It certainly helps me.
The alternative is probably things you’re already doing: distraction, drinking, drugs, etc. None of those are GREAT solutions, even though I understand it. I’ve done it all myself. After lots of suffering, the combination that works for me is Lexapro, prayer, and reading. But for someone else it’s a different list. Or it’s just one thing. Whatever it is, I hope you find it and find it soon!
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Right?
Pretty disturbing that some of the dudes in this thread are outright giving advice like “just get on Prozac” or “just get on SSRIs” rather than at least telling the OP to get a second opinion from a doctor first
Hell, even “try some weed” is safer advice than “just get on SSRIs”… I mean my goodness, this is a PG13/kiddie forum like you said and any such lurking kids might just might go steal some SSRIs from their parents drawer or something “to try it” 
…to be honest, I imagine a lot of kids/teenager types have dabbled with or tried weed along the way (it’s readily available in high school), but “just get on SSRIs” is risky advice since that’s some pretty serious stuff and kids/teenager’s brains are not even done forming yet.
It’s no coincidence that almost all of the “mass-shooters” were later found to be hooked on an anti-depressant/SSRI (…and sometimes on multiple such drugs), those things can definitely mess up a young person’s brain/cause them to do crazy stuff
Why do you come to the WoW forums seeking medical help?
Book a doctors appointment and stop seeking attention online for your daily dopamine.
There are a few resources online, and many workplaces utilize services like those offered through Lifeworks (Previously Morneau Chapel) and are generally free to employees.
If not, maybe suggest it to your HR manager and create a mental wellness initiative. The costs are incredibly cheap when compared to lost time so well worth the investment for companies. When i initiated it at my company the costs were as little as ~$4.50 canadian per worker/month. Anyway, not here to market the company just suggesting resources. They provide to our Canadian and US facilities in the same contract.
Another resource you can explore, which was share with me and some peers, is actually an Australian website for mental wellness. Its its a pretty decent resource all its own. Its called BeyondBlue.
I cant put in links but googling “beyond blue anxiety” will pull it up reasily enough.
Honestly 90% of my day is using my real life pets to distract me(they take away my WoW time, but it’s okay) I have 2 Siberian Huskies, 4 cats(just added one and she’s only a 7 week old kitten), 10 lizards, 2 betta fish. My hands are pretty full!
I have Agoraphobia, Social Anxiety, General Anxiety and OCD. I barely go out because I can only leave the house if I have a person I feel safe to go with me.
So WoW is like my social life(and even then, I rarely talk to people). I enjoy movies, sometimes reading, crafts etc. I just always try to stay busy. Sometimes WoW is boring so I have to find other things.
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Normal, healthy anxiety is worrying about or anticipating something in the future for which you have a reasonable/rational expectation of something unpleasant. Most people have anxiety for short periods, in manageable amounts, with obvious or at least rational triggers.
People with anxiety disorders experience the physical symptoms without the presence of a trigger. Panic disorders are related. The anxiety lasts for long periods in unmanageable amounts, and often without any trigger at all.
I explain it this way: The feeling you get when you look up for a moment in a crowd and you don’t immediately see the person you’re with–that brief stomach drop of fear or precursor to fear when for a second you think something bad might be happening.
Anxiety disorders, depending on the type, can cause us to feel that combination of fear and physical symptoms that go with fear…all the time and for no discernible reason.
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is a series of behaviors in response to pathological anxiety.
Most eating disorders are classified as anxiety disorders with the food behaviors being used to contain and control the anxiety.
Generalized anxiety and panic disorders are a more straightforward-yet-broad type of diagnosis.
It all varies.
The point is: you’re not wrong about what anxiety is. Anxiety is a normal emotion experienced by healthy people.
But when a person experiences disordered anxiety, it’s literally torture, and there are lots of different ways to manage it.
IF there is a legitimate trigger for the anxiety, then yes…we deal with that. But as I hope I’ve illustrated, there isn’t always a trigger, and the triggers–if they exist–are not always rational. It’s a disorder…not normal anxiety.
For me, I’ve had generalized anxiety disorder since adolescence–a very long time. I manage it really well without medication now, and the number one thing for me is sleep management and daily exercise to a certain heart rate for at least 15 minutes.
For other people…what helps me won’t be enough or it might not help them at all.
This is why doctors need to be involved.
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This is a tough one. I have acute anxiety that I cannot medicate via traditional means. I have a medical card, which has been a godsend. It’s pretty much the only way I sleep at night.
As for during the day, I try very had to break everything up into tiny, bite-sized pieces. Example: it’s not “take a shower,” it’s taking off pieces of clothing one by one, then turning on the water, then getting INTO the shower, etc. It helps me focus on the present as opposed to losing my mind over all the things I can’t control. Sometimes I have to tell myself, aloud, that everything is good and calm and I am safe and what have you.
Therapy helps immensely. I’m not in a place where I have the time to commit to that, so it’s just me and my brain. OP, if you have access to therapy, please seek it out! It will help you so much.
Best of luck to you, OP. I hope you can find things that work for you.
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As someone who is diagnosed with severe generalized anxiety with occasional panic, I have to tell you, this doesn’t always work, in fact it might not work at all.
While working with a psychiatrist and a therapist are important, not all anxiety disorders stem from a trigger. It’s a neurochemical disorder with a genetic component that may also have a trauma component.
I am diagnosed and have been rediagnosed several times (it happens whenever you move or get a new doctor) with severe generalized anxiety disorder with occasional panic, post traumatic stress disorder, severe persistent depressive disorder with co-occuring major depressive disorder (double depression), ADHD predominantly inattentive type with some mixed components.
A majority of the medications I’ve talked about are not “hard” medications. The only one even slightly concerning are Benzos and while some people can become addicted, not all people are like that. I consume about 30 half mg of Klonopin in 3 months, taken as needed. It’s extremely unremarkable.
Okay. I’m going to have to stop you right there with your attempt to silence people with the tHiNk Of ThE cHiLdReN nonsense. I go to a university and the general consensual among the several thousand people in the gaming discord is that wow is an old dead game for old people. There are 3 wow players, one who does mythic, and myself and the other are in my guild.
So no unless a kid is playing with mommy and daddy, they are probably off playing something more modern. And even then, it’s the job of parents to monitor their child’s activity on the internet. People on the internet are not babysitters. If I wanted to take care of kids I would have had a few.
Let’s be real here, kids are busy watching things like TikTok.
None of the meds talked about are opoids though there has been some links to pain and depression, and some people experience relief from depression when on opoids.
That said. The opoid crisis to me is that doctors are so scared of people getting addicted to certain meds that they don’t prescribe people who are in pain the meds they need. My step mother had pain problems and they took her off opoids because oh noes she might get addicted.
Since then she’s been in agony and her condition is getting worse. She got to a point where she could no longer sit in her recliner, and had to use a walker. Now she’s in a wheelchair because she is that crippled from pain management problems.
Addiction is a problem, but it’s not being handled well. It’s very hard, very slow, and sometimes prohibitively expensive to get help in the US. There’s also a stigma.
What in tarnation are you even talking about?
You shouldn’t have to deal with thayy. There’s nothing unmanly about talking to a doctor about your suffering. In fact, I think it’s extra manly, because it takes courage to ask for help, to be vulnerable, and to be open about your struggles.
Thank you for your service. I hope you continue to get care and progress.
Mine is named Nova. She’s orange and only has two braincells. I feel like you missed an opportunity with your cat’s name. I would have gone with, “Catthulu.”
If you ever want to do dungeons with some people who don’t yell or rage (and you are comfortable playing with a bunch of LGBT+ people) I’d be happy to play with you.
My roommate got that for her husband. She got me one for the church of the flying spaghetti monster or the invisible pink unicorn. I don’t recall which.
This is the problem with the system’s tendency to push one school of drugs on everyone, and continuing to try drugs in the same school. It’s also why I squint at people saying Prozac will work. It doesn’t always work for everyone.
It could be that what you have been given is not the right school for you for meds and they need to try something else.
I remember Lexapro not working well for me and it also making me sick. When the doctor walked into the office I did Pan dot them and said “I want a new drug, one that won’t make me sick,” and a few more lines from that song.
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Kaldara#11970 - I’m pushing keys for real this week. Ran a +12 and blew it by about 20 seconds, but that was really the DPS fault for dragging us off in an odd path that I wasn’t expecting and wasn’t the one I “shared” with MDT prior to the run.
I’ve got a socialization visit going this afternoon starting in about half an hour. I’ll be back on around 2:30 or so Central Daylight Time.
And I don’t care if you’re L, G, B, T, +, Cis, non, or anything else, as long as you’re not a Koala.
I freaking hate Koalas. They’re telepathic and they control the weather.
Update: It crossed 100 degrees outside and my AC is struggling. I’ve moved to the back of the house until about 7:00 pm Central Daylight Time. By then it will have cooled off enough that I can risk turning on my PC for play.
Good good. Then you won’t care if I’m secretly a cat irl.
I ask myself one question:
Why does Chris Rock look so much like William Dafoe in this meme?
