I’ve struggled for years being a generally panicky person, but never thought it was anxiety, I just told myself it was a product of tough life circumstances and I would get over it one day, but I know without a doubt, that it’s anxiety. It was relatively fine until I graduated high school, then I constantly felt like I was riding through a tough “stressful patch” and things would get better. But the stressful times kept coming and as time went on, I can see now that I got worse at dealing with them, and much worse over the past year or so. 

I tried to fix it in every way you can, CBT, exercise, literally everything you can do outside of medication. Alas, I’m starting medication soon, but I am suddenly processing a lot of emotions about myself that I’m ashamed to admit: feeling like a failure, like I’ve lost control, and insecure wondering if people noticed it, because I tried so hard to hide it. 

This isn’t reflective of how I feel with others who suffer with anxiety or take medication at all, just about myself. Is this common?