Social Anxiety Blogs

Hello everyone I am 34 years old and over the years I think my anxiety is getting worse. I have always been a shy person not very social at all. But as I got older I started to be more social having more friends and doing fun things. Now that I am married with one child I prefer to have "me" time when I am not around my family. I would say 10 years ago I use to get real nervous with job interviews and never thought I would make it through. I would get the sweaty palms, rapid heartbeat. About 8 months ago I started to notice my anxiety getting worse. One of the biggest and I mean biggest symptom I get is I cannot take a deep breath, therefore I think I am dying and I will panic. I went to the hospital 6 months ago. One morning I was playing with my son and I felt a sharp pain in my collar bone. After that I couldn't take a deep breath and I panicked and called 911. That is the first time something like this happenned. I was taken by ambulance to the hospital and they couldn't find anything wrong. I had a chest X-ray which came back fine. The ER doc said I had a perfect heart. He said it was probably do to stress and anxiety. My life has gotten very stressful in the last 5 years after I had my son. It seems money has always been a factor in my stress and my sons speech disorder. Then at the time of my hospital trip I was working in the toy dept. at Wal-Mart which was stressful. Now for the latest. My next problem is having to do with being out in public especially every time I eat out with my family. There are moments where I feel I cannot take a deep breath and I try very hard to not cause a scene in public, but I am literally panicking to my self. I almost feel like I have to get up and leave. It is scary and think what if I pass out and they cannot revive me. All these awful thoughts go through my head so fast. Finally I drink a lot of water or whatver I am having and think I will get through this there is nothing wrong with my heart. Just recently my son and I went to a carnival and there was a tremendous amount of people walking. As my son and I started to walk towards the petting zoo I had a moment where I couldn't take a deep breath and I grabbed my sons hand and started to walk the other way back to the car. I grabbed a drink out of my purse and started drinking it fast. Of course those racing thoughts came again and I kept thinking where is there an ambulance what if I pass out and no one helps me. After drinking the drink fast I calmed down. I don't know why this is happening? I haven't seen a doctor just cause I am without health coverage. I need to get it and get on medicine. I need something to calm me down when I am out in public. Shopping makes me nervous but I haven't experienced any serious anxiety issues with that. For some reason it happens if I am confined in a place such as a restraunt or a huge place with tons of people such as the carnival. I don't know why then when I am at the mall I don't experience it. But I can tell you it is scary when I eat out which my husband and we go out at least once a week. I have never told him all this. If there is anyone out there that has experience this please respond. Any feedback is greatly appreciated. I hope there is help for this.

Angie