Hi guys, my first post here. I would greatly appreciate some objective perspective about my situation. 

Situation: I’ve been having prolonged anxiety for the past year because I’ve been taking 1.5 gap year between college and graduate school and haven’t been working except for doing a year long internship. Since I’m a reasonably high-agreeable and high-conscientious person, not working is really a recipe for daily anxiety attack from even minor triggers. 

Background: The reason for me not actively looking for a full-time gig is that I gunning for a higher LSAT score and I’m studying intensively for about 6-7 hours a day. Law school is the first big decision I made for myself and my whole undergraduate experience is geared towards it so I don’t want to regret for not giving it my best shot. 

You might wonder why I would spend so much time on a standardized test? For those that don’t know, it accounts for more than half of the admission. And as a person who speak English as a second language, I started very low from 140 (10% in ranking). Right now I’ve improved my score to a 165 (90%) and currently shooting for 170s cuz I want to get in a school with some international cred and hopefully with some $.

So here’s my dilemma: I think it would be a rational decision for me to spend as much effort possible to maximize my score but I’m feeling anxious constantly for not working and living at mom’s house. For instance if I see anything online about unemployed young man and I would take it personally and feel ashamed. I also feel left behind cuz all of my friends are moving on to jobs and master programs. I’m probably one of the harder workers during college so this gives me even more doubts about myself. 

This resulted in me to withdraw from social life, because I feel ashamed, and basically working all the time on either LSAT or my assignments from the internship. And when I’m taking breaks, I work out and read everyday but I’m basically using binge watching as a coping strategy for not having a social life. I read about anxiety could be a signal for improvement and could be used constructively, so I wonder in your opinion, is my feeling neurotic and should be managed or is it signal that tells me that I should go on to look for a job or more social life?

TL;DR working full-time on LSAT and not working makes me anxious daily and withdraw from social life. Is this anxiety neurotic or is it a signal for something?