Anxiety as Skepticism?

I've been fighting with anxiety quite a bit lately. Between panic attacks over social outings, avoiding social situations completely and being misunderstood by others around me, it has been quite tough. 

Anxiety was much easier when I was younger and it was understood to be anti-social tendencies.

Anxiety was much easier when I was even younger and was understood to be shyness.

Anxiety was much easier when I recently understood it to be skepticism. 

Problem. I have been thinking more about anxiety and what it really means and how I really experience it. Obviously it is not experienced the exact same by all, but I realized that anxiety is much like skepticism. I think the line that skepticism crosses over to be anxiety is fear. 

Think about it, people with anxiety and/or skepticism question things, overanalyze things in order to uncover what will happen/what is true, think about all possible outcomes of a situation, and find it hard to just accept things. The difference is this fear or worry that people with anxiety get. People who use skepticism don't necessarily feel this. 

I am a skeptic about most things, only because it is hard to be a skeptic about all things all of the time because to even begin to function in modern society you have to accept some most-certain truths just to get by. But when I experience anxiety, it is usually over unnecessary things to even be worried about. The thing is that I think I've always had anxiety, along with my dysthymia (depression), or at least I have had it for a while now. It's just as a kid they called it shyness, as a teenager they told me I was introverted and anti-social. It's just when I got to just this year, just about to hit my 20s that I finally realized and they finally realized that it was anxiety. 

Anyways. I thought this might be interesting.

You can almost see quite literally my double-major in psychology and philosophy in this blog post. Oh god. Does this mean I am actually learning things in school? I didn't know that was possible. 

I'll be back soon enough,

Sarah.

3rd Year of School and still sad

2 years down, 2 to go.

I really want to try to make an effort to enjoy my education. I realize that the thing about a liberal arts education is that this is the only time I'll probably ever be able to just sit and have meaningful conversations as my full-time job. The reason I am in philosophy is not for my career, it's for the lessons and the actual schooling. I just have this deep lack of motivation to do much of anything of the sorts.

Hey, do any of my old readers remember when I used to describe my mental issues in full detail? I used to complain and reiterate my pains and problems, psychologically speaking. I still have many of the issues I used to describe. For those who don't know, here is the most brief version of my mental history:
My parents split up, I saw a psychologist who made me happy for a while (ages 10-12?) after my mom was concerned for my mental health. My dad died, I stopped seeing the psychologist, high school came and made me sad and I realized my intense anxieties and I kind of just learned to get over them by myself after multiple doctors proved to be of no help to me. After a mental episode in grade 12 I was sent to get psychological testing which was an appointment for 6 months after the episode and the psychologists claimed I was "perfect" and told me "not to pursue philosophy", I am pursuing philosophy. I got into university and was confused why my grades dropped and why I was sad and I went to the doctor and I got learning testing done to make sure I have no learning disabilities and I don't but I learned I am terrible at spacial reasoning and have genius-level writing skills, the psychologist suggested I have dysthymia and possibly bi-polar disorder or PTSD, and suggested to get more testing done which I didn't want to pursue due to the fact that last time I tried to get testing done by a psychologist they did nothing. The end. (I understand those sentences were pieces of shit, that's the point)

Anyways, to summarize my current status of mental problems: I definitely have dysthymia, there is no doubt about it. I was also diagnosed with it by the learning disability psychologist, so that is what I know for sure. It is what I like to describe as permanent part-time depression. I go through phases of depression, some worse than others. They often render me angry, sad, lazy and unable to function in school activities, let alone social activities. I also am likely to have anxiety, which I am currently considering seeking medication for but I also don't want to. I also may have PMDD which I also sought medical help to diagnose but I didn't finish the diagnostic process because I was too lazy. Whoops. PMDD is like PMS except it actually drives me to suicidal tendencies maybe once every year.

Right now I am decently okay. I am not sad, I am pretty happy, but I am not as happy as I could be and that makes me sad. These cycles drive me insane.

So what am I going to do? Probably ride out what I am feeling now until I go crazy and then maybe seek medical attention to go on some pills for depression or anxiety, which I'd hate to do, but I want my education to not go to waste. Counselling has never worked on me because I start using reasoning and logic with the recent college grads of next-to-meaningless College and defeat them in their attempts to aid me. I shouldn't do that, but I do.

Why am I telling the internet this? I'm not too sure. I was tempted to write a book for a while about my inability to receive medical attention for my psychological dysfunctions but I soon realized that it is mostly because I am holding my own self back, not because of any fault in the system. The psychological treatment system is pretty fucked up on it's own, but that is almost inherent and has next to nothing to do with my own specific situation.

My point? I am going to try to not let my dysthymia get ahold of me. The problem is I have lived with it for so long that it has become a bigger part of me than it should've. It's almost like a drug to me. I like the sadness and hate the sadness. I know it impairs me but it is so easy to just fall into the habit that I am being forced into. Though, it is incredibly hard to just say "no" to depression because depression is something that happens to you, it is not something you make happen to yourself. Though you could make yourself depressed, that is not my case.

Anyways. This post is pretty stupid right now. I am not quite to sure as to why I am posting it. I don't want feedback, please no comments.

Talk to you soon, interwebs.

Sarah