Hi everyone,  I just found this sub because I needed to vent my frustrations with people who might actually understand what I've gone through. 

When I was 16 (I'm 36 now)  I was diagnosed with GAD. One of my own personal triggers has been being hyper aware of my breathing, and sometimes I get this feeling like I'm drowning, just unable to take a deep breath. It has lead to me spending the last 20 or so years almost constantly sighing or yawning,  and having to explain to new people "Hey,  I have an anxiety disorder which causes me to do this, please do not think I am bored or disinterested if we're talking and this happens."

I started to see a new primary care doctor today as my old one left the practice. She was doing the standard "wellness checkup" thing and when she checked my breathing she said "Your lungs are a little loud... have you ever been diagnosed with asthma?" I said I hadn't,  and she asked if I ever felt like I couldn't breathe. I said "Yeah,  almost constantly,  but I have an anxiety disorder." And she paused for a moment and said "Right. Well that feeling is a symptom of anxiety, yes,  but it's ALSO a pretty major symptom of asthma. If you can't breathe, that's just going to make your anxiety much worse. With your lung sounds,  I'm going to prescribe an inhaler for you and we'll see if that helps."

I am so frustrated right now at the possibility that I've had asthma all these years and it was overlooked/dismissed because of my anxiety diagnosis. When I tried to rant about it with my friends/ family I got a lot of "Well at least you have an answer now." And I can't help but feel like, I've been dealing with feeling like I'm not able to breathe for LITERALLY 20 years now, and it's just infuriating to think if a doctor had actually paid attention at any time, it could have potentially eased some of that discomfort for me. 

There really wasn't a point to this post I just needed to vent to people who might understand