I've recently developed some severe anxiety and depression during the pandemic after the start of my 3rd semester in college. After a few month of dealing with this panic and worry and battling what I can now see as a weed substance abuse problem I have started taking zoloft and trying to better myself. I have also started to make better connections to how I feel and what I think about that makes me worry.

One of the biggest things for me which induces paranoia and anxiety is just the reality we live in and the way time just continues and there is no way for you to change that. For me memories from the past good or bad, are always full of worry and sadness as that time years ago is gone and who I was there and what I have there is just no more. The bad memories on the other hand seem to stick around and force itself into me where I have to accept them and live with them. The future on the other hand is a stressful hairball of worry. Ive found that its hard to worry about the future and feel complacent and content with the present. This led me to coping with that worry by being complacent with life if I just smoked weed all the time. This works but is not healthy and has made things so much worse. The stress and worry about time is only amplified as I continue to smoke because as I become sober the worry about the past and future comes out but with more and more force the longer I stay content being high. 

I've always been someone to worry about things but not until recently its blown up into full blown uncontrolled anxiety and panic. Perfect is unachievable and you will make mistakes in life. I always have this part of me in my head that tries to do everything efficiently and a certain way, even things as simple as making breakfast and how I take food out and put it away. After starting college this perfectionism I aimed for really too control. Being on my own, I tried to do think the right way and how I wanted them but life does not work like that. I spend more time thinking about how to do things right than actually doing things and getting started. One of the best things I've heard is "If its worth doing, its worth doing badly." And I need to force myself into doing this more as in the pandemic we all need more of a push to keep going as everything feels so abstract and disconnected at this point. 

I hope everyone is doing well after almost a year in this pandemic. For me these last 2 years have been the roughest of my life as my life has completely changed from starting college and living on my own to living within a dystopia world of civil unrest with the presidency and civil rights all during this pandemic. Keep trucking on everyone, idk what this is, just a rant on my thoughts and everything. Hope someone can get something out of this and just push forward knowing they aren't alone.