Woah, this is a long post. There's a tldr at the bottom, sorry lol

So I've had a pretty bad anxiety disorder since about summer of last year. I haven't been officially diagnosed but it's been very very awful, to the point where simple outings are torture. The latest being me and my group of friends going to see Sonic 2 and the entire time I was sweating and feeling totally abysmal. It sucks and most things like this (stores, the mall and stuff like that) are equally as bad. The majority of my life I've been fine when it comes to anxiety. Obviously I've had bouts before I go into a stage, in front of a crowd and stuff like that but never irrational like I do now. It's been a lot to work through and one of the things that made it so bad is that I never understood it. Like, I had no idea how or why this was happening...but it was. Until now.

So, again, the incident that caused this was in the summer of last year (I'm not sure exactly when). Just to give backstory for what happened, I was out with my friends for a while after a very very long time without going out due to covid and the majority of the day it was fun. Until it happened. My friend had stopped at this store and was going in with his girlfriend and asked us if we (me and 2 other dudes) wanted to come in. We said no, so he left and went in. Simple, right? Apparently not. So, a combination of things happened. He took the key out of the ignition leaving us without AC. It's the middle of summer in Texas so it was hot. Then, he shuts his door and locks the car. That's when it happened. This sudden flood of panic hits me like a truck and in that moment I had one thing on my mind: get out. So, before I continue, here's some backstory to the backstory. Probably a 2 or 3 weeks before covid hit (over a year before the car thing happened) I was in my culinary class at school when all of a sudden I felt weird. Like, really really weird. Basically, I passed out which had never happened before but surprisingly I wasn't too scared or anxious about it. The thing is, though, this happening planted a seed of doubt within me that said: "You can pass out now." So, from this point forward, I knew that I was able to pass out which previously I hadn't thought of. So what happened in the car was that those rush of things hit me and I thought I was going to pass out. Anyway, I ended up getting out of the car but unfortunately we had about another hour and a half in the car until we got back to my friends house. It was complete torture. I've never felt so awful in my life.

Past this point my life has been filled with irrational anxiety, claustrophobia and panic; all of which are things I'd never felt before. It made zero sense all those 2 years nearly, until tonight. I think I finally cracked it. Be prepared for another long paragraph lol

So, the key here is covid. I spent a very very long time in my house (as did most people), but even past the quarantine I still almost never left. I had my senior year of high school all virtual meaning that the entirety of the school year was located at my house. Not once did I leave. I had social interaction over the internet, mainly through playing the Xbox with my friends but other than that and my parents, nothing. This (obviously) caused a few issues. There's quite a lot but for the sake of this post I'll focus on one: because of my life being so samey (meaning for a solid year each day I lived was nearly identical to each other) my brain subconsciously started to do something. Anytime I thought of a hypothetical situation or anything like it, my brain found comfort in it and embraced it. I got so used to thinking of alternate lives and situations that due to not experiencing anything different those thoughts essentially became my life. This led to a strange thing happening to the way I process future events. So, let's use the movie I went to as an example. In my head when I was told "We're going to the movies" instead of thinking of it more directly, my brain framed it as a thing that I'd like to happen and was imagining. This is the same for nearly all of the situations that induce anxiety for me. And due to this framing when the time finally came for said thing to happen, not only was my brain kinda freaking out but I also was just simply thinking too much. I had developed a habit of thinking in the future tense. For example, "I'm going to pass out," "I'm going to freak out," "I'm going to have a bad time." So, essentially, due to not experiencing anything for a solid year, my brain gained an obsession with the future and not living in the moment which causes the anxiety.

And that's the issue, I think. The fix is to start paying attention to the current moment and stop thinking about the future so much. At least I hope lol

TL;DR: Due to covid my brain developed an obsession with the future tense so I overthink everything along with thinking of every situation that's not in my home as an imaginary scenario so when I do go do these things, my brain freaks out. Solution is hopefully living in the current moment and calling my attention to it.

I'm curious to hear what y'all think. This has been a very hard and long journey and I really hope it's about over. If y'all have any tips or anything to help me ground myself and not think too hard that'd be great. Thanks for reading!