Hi,

I'm an Engineering student who has had pretty big problems with anxiety from as far as I can remember. Throughout high school and university I've noticed that sometimes during exams, I get heavy mental blockage where it feels like I have no control of my brain and there is an inner demon inside of me not letting me use it. Ill sometimes be staring and repeating the same simple sentence for about 5-10 minutes and nothing will go in. When this happens it makes even more anxious and lose control of myself, I often cant stop thinking about how useless and stupid I am for most of the exam. I've always been super hard on myself and for most of my recent years I have viewed myself as worthless due to some experiences with homelessness and instability in my teenage years. 

Although I am probably the most mentally healthy I've ever been, have a stable home and go to the best university in my country, I still have these experiences. I deep down know I'm smart and have a history of performing super well on non exam assessments like big projects over a few weeks. Other high pressure situations cause the same effect as well. This is really frustrating because I would like to be able to perform well in high pressure situations and have more control over my mind in general. 

Does anybody have similar experiences? How did you overcome them and what can I do to overcome them? 

Thank you so much.