Hello.
To give some context, I’m a 19 year old girl who had never, never experienced actual anxiety until some months ago, and it suddenly started for apparently no reason at all.

My childhood wasn’t the best, but I’ve never felt anxious or excessively stressed when I was younger. Now that I seem to have a pretty much stable life, I’ve started to feel anxious like I’m self-sabotaging.

No matter how hard I try to escape my thoughts or convince myself that what I’m thinking about is just not real, that it’s not going to happen — my thoughts keep getting the best of me (my fears are mostly irrational and I’ve also been experiencing intrusive thoughts). This caused me to get anxiety attacks in the middle of the night, my heart starts racing and I suddenly feel the urge to call someone otherwise I feel like I might go crazy.

Even though during the day I try to act normal, I noticed that I’ve become the person I’ve always feared I would become. I’m writing this as I just had a mental breakdown because this morning I forgot to wish happy birthday to my best friend who’s literally the only person I can talk to about anything and whom I love more than myself. I feel so ashamed.

I started being hyper-aware of my surroundings, loud noises and crowded places make me feel confused and dizzy, so I avoid them. I distanced myself from the few people who truly cared about me.

I space out more often, I don’t react to the external world as much as I used to, I’m tired and I don’t want anybody to know.

I feel dirty and ashamed because I feel like I’ve become selfish and that I only care about myself.

At some point I even thought about ending it, it wasn’t a serious thought, I’m not going to actually do it.
It’s not that I want to die, it’s that I don’t want to live like this.

I wrote this pretty much to vent out a little, but if anyone had some advice or tips for a girl who can’t afford a therapist, or if you felt like sharing your story I’d be immensely grateful.