Do I have Anxiety Disorder?

Well.. Recently after some thinking and talking to my girl friend about this. I think I have a serious problem with anxiety. I've had this since I was in middle school, but I didn't think much of it. I just thought I was someone who worried a lot. But now it's really starting to get to me. It's even affecting my dreams, and my sleep.

I constantly will worry about the future, and what everyone thinks about me. If I meet someones family, later I will constantly ask them "do you think they liked me?" as if I'm trying to find some reassurance that I'm a good person. When I'm out and about I always feel like I have a thousand eyes watching me, and that everyone is talking about me. I feel very self consious at these times, and even find it hard to breathe.

When I'm alone I'll often sit and reflect and analyze myself and where my life is going. I'll make myself depressed thinking about how I don't have the best job, or if no one calls me that night I'll think that I'm a loser and worry that no one likes me anymore. I can have very low self esteem at times.

When people talk to me, at times I'll lose my train of thought and I'll chuckle at things that shouldn't be chuckled at, but I feel if I don't do it, I'll be awkward, even tho it makes me more awkward. I'm very self consious in the way I walk, I fidget a lot when I'm in uncomfortable situations, I have numerous nervous ticks.

But my biggest thing of all.. is the issue with my relationship. I've done this in the past.. But recently I will constantly worry about my girlfriend leaving me for someone else. I will picture her finding a new guy and being happy without me. It in turn will cause me to constantly question her. Always asking her, do you love me? Will we be together forever? Is there anyone else? etc.

She loves me so much, but it hurts her when I worry so much like this. We have broken up in the past, but we've gotten back together. She really wants us to work things out, but I feel the key thing is for me to overcome this in some way. But I'm not sure where to start or who to go to. I'm not sure how recovery works for anxiety. It's hard though because I'll even have dreams about her leaving me, and it hurts so badly.

I love her so much, and I do want to be with her forever. Sometimes I feel hurt because she's so independent and a 3 years younger than me, so it's still way too early for her to decide on a commitment like that. But I really want us to be together I don't want this to drive us apart.

I don't know if it's weird for me to look ahead and want her to want to be with me always. I want her to need me and no one else. I'm not sure what to do. I have so much trouble communicating. I know I have this issue though, but perhaps it's an issue on both ends? Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I'm sorry for such a lengthy post.

anxiety is worrying about irrational things.
the whole thousand eyes watching you sounds like social anxiety disorder.
but everything else doesn't seem too irrational to me.

INSECURITY=INSTABILITY--probably brought on by something from an earlier age,perhaps the emotional development has not been adequate or else.......

It is no poetry when I say that anxiety is a raging beast eating away all the life that is left within us & that it has a snowball effect on all of ones life,one fear leads to another-we are like a rocking boat

It ; ANXIETY stays with one - day in & day out ceaselessly except in rare moments
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whether it's slight paranoia or analysing stuff-it all comes down to managing your thoughts which are images in the consciousness(awareness;attention)
the images should be regarded as being stuff floating in the river bumping you & moving pass.
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I don't believe there exist security in worldy things,people or places-although everyone,society & all would want us to believe this.
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WE FEEL SO INADEQUATE,THAT WE WISH SOMETHING OR SOMEONE TO FILL THE GAP;HOLE IN OURSELVES
If we truly believed or understood that WE ARE WHOLE or could even live on our own.
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All illness' seem to "crash" with some lack of love
someone did not love us(at an early age),as we believe we should have been loved,SOMETHING UNJUST HAS STOLEN OUR "BORN" HUMAN RIGHTS--after this, one can have (1) shyness (2) inferiority complex (3) not mixing in the main crowd;introverted(4)ANTI-whatever (6) paranoia(7)anxiety-anguish ETC--order does not matter & can be different things to different people
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This reply does not answer the particular sentences of yours,but an overall picture is painted here

Seems like the key thing going on right now is your scared your girlfriend is going to leave you. So am I, so do most of my friends, so does most everyone I know, some married even. Many worry about that. ALOT even, it's pretty normal in my books. Some time to make yourself more comfortable, you may ask some of your friends...simply ask "Do you ever get worried that (individuals girlfriend) is going to leave you, even just once in a while?" Maybe they all so "no", they don't worry. Doesn't necessarily mean too much, especially depending on their age (don't know how old you or you friends are). There may also be a chance that you could make a connection with a good friend of yours with the same problem, or maybe you'll make a good friend out of a friend by making that connection that could possibly help you and your friend. It could potentially help with your self-esteem problems to when you don't have to feel like your necessarily the only one (if that is a problem) or may just simply make you feel more normal.

Looks more like your classical self-esteem problems which is making you self-concious and nervous which it's by products would seem to be an anxiety disorder. But it is also very common for a person who has self-esteem problems to develope an anxiety disorder (depression to anxiety disorder is what happened to me personally) or for a person with an anxiety disorder to become more self-consious, lowered self-esteem and even depressed. They are evil twins. 10 times more evil when together.

Now I'm not saying you don't have an anxiety disorder, I'm saying that everything seems to be rooting from a self-esteem problem.

I am by no means a doctor or anything of the sort, only knowlege I have is from practical knowlege (my less then perfect life) and have had experience with problems with depression and a severe anxiety myself.

Best thing you could probably do for yourself is call up an expert, schedule an appointment, then go look on medical sites (legitimate ones that you know won't have crap info) and look up some stuff. See what is what? Find the definitions and the symptoms. Don't just rule anything out, the mind/body is a funny thing. Educate yourself a bit. So after reading this, call up an expert and schedule an apointment, then go online, do some research and then go have a friendly little chit chat, maybe even litterally. First day with my psychologist seemed more like a conversation then an evaluation, but yet at the end he hit the nail on the head and, in all honesty, saved my life.

Another thing, it would probably be in yours (and your girlfriends) best interest if you keep her as active as both of you feel comfortable, but again, ask the psychologist because I am by no means an expert.

Overal Hituro, you never know where your mind will take you, it can take you to a dark world that you don't even want to imagine, or it may not. Just when you think it doesn't get worse, you have no idea. You don't want to open this possibility, trust me, it can be dangerous and deadly. Now, what I am saying could be a gross exaggeration or a reality in the coming future, based on what you said, you don't SEEM to be quite down the road that far, but I could be wrong and it's possible to be on it while not even knowing. Anyway, I could go on and on about how bad it COULD get, but the moral of the story, get help! It's worth every penny to prevent going down that bad road if it's been paved in your direction.

Hope that helps, I just randomly came upon this site and this forum post and probably won't check back up on it, but if you want to email me about anything, TheGeist00@gmail.com is my email address. I truly hope things get better for you.