Am I actually a sufferer of anxiety or just having "normal" anxiety/worries?

[fluxx345]

Hi, I would just like to ask about how I'm feeling right now.

I'm male, 20 years of age.

For a quick background review, I usually tend to worry about my health too much.

The latter half of 2013 has really been a roller coaster ride for me. I got diagnosed with pneumothorax on November of 2013, which has been happening to me in the previous years but I wasn't aware of it. Because of this, I got really stressed out knowing that anytime soon I could have another episode. This carried on for the earlier months of 2014, during January - March of 2014 I was really stressed out about this and developed GERD/heartburn due to stress.

Because of all of this, I tend to get anxious over little things concerning these two conditions. Eventually, I had surgery to address my pneumothorax (June 2014) after a successful surgery, I lived a much better life, free of stress, my GERD went away too, since I was happy and positive most of the time.

Fast forward to today, January 2015. Since I'm still on my month long vacation, I workout at home. I felt something weird in my knees when I put weight on my knees the day after exercise, but it was nothing serious. No pain, no swelling, nothing at all, and it went away after a day of rest. Still, I worried too much about it, and actually even posted in the orthopedic section of MedHelp.

Because of this worrying, I questioned my anxiety. My attention was actually shifted to anxiety itself instead of my knees. Here's exactly what I'm thinking:

I'm afraid that I might actually have anxiety because of this excessive worrying about my knees, I'm afraid of the idea of having anxiety, and lastly, I'm afraid that I might experience a repeat of what happened last year during the same time of the year. Generally, I'm just afraid that I might get back to my "troubled months", but other than that, I'm doing good.

I'm not getting the typical symptoms of anxiety, the only symptoms I'm having right now are worrying and fear, and this also somehow affected my appetite.

My daily activities are not affected, it's just that I want to avoid doing things I like at the moment because I'm afraid that I might associate them with this "mood" in the future.

I was looking up symptoms of Generalized Anxiety Disorder, and it seems that I'm far from it, yet I'm still worried. I'm not sure how accurate the online anxiety tests are, but each one of them is telling me that I have mild to no anxiety, if any. Still, I want to hear your thoughts about my case.

Based on what I wrote, do you think that I am suffering from anxiety, or am I just having a bad time in general?

Thank you MedHelp, I would greatly appreciate your inputs.

[fluxx345]

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[fluxx345]

Anyone? :)

[fluxx345]

Hmm, I only get a racing heart when I wake up and then SUDDENLY remember all my worries. I get a mini panic attack then, but to be honest I find it "normal" since it only happens when I'm actually very worried about something, and when that goes away, I'm usually fine with no panic attacks at all.

I mean there are episodes where I worry A LOT and get totally scared, but then I get a grip of the situation and somehow turn things around. As I'm typing this, I'm actually very calm and relaxed with no worries at all.

I just hate having to worry about anxiety.

Thanks a lot for your insight, I hope we all beat this!

Would love to hear the opinion of others as well! :)

[MattyTaylor]

It wouldn't hurt* talking to your doctor about it. lol sorry for the typo!

[MattyTaylor]

Hi there! My anxiety issue is also centered around health issues as well. Every person has anxiety as you know, it only becomes a disorder when it really consumes you and effects your day to day life. To me it seems like you aren't that bad! You have normal worries that come to your mind about possible health issues, but you are able to go about your daily life, it isn't consuming you with debilitating worry. No panic attacks or racing heart? If not thats awesome, to me it doesn't seem like your anxiety is anything extreme. I'm in my early twenties too so I know its normal to sometimes over analyze any and ever little pain in our bodies as we grow older. If your anxiety persists, starts affecting your daily living to any extremes, or gets worse. It wouldn't help talking to your doctor about it. Until then I wouldn't worry, everyone has a little anxiety! :)