All I can tell you is from my own short life experiences, and nothing more. I used to have a stress problem and anxiety attacks up until some one year ago. It started two years ago. Today I feel a lot better and I can look back on that period of time and have a little smile.
Being stress in a chronic way is no fun at all. The stress symptoms are not birthday gifts or any kind of party time. It hurts, and it’s frustrating, and you find yourself in a position where your entire time and mind are occupied by this problem. You just feel like you can not think about anything else.
The problem can grow so big in you, that all of your relationships with parents and friends and neighbors are affected by it. Life itself can become a depressing choir for you. You feel like you don’t want to do anything, or go anywhere. Sometimes nothing seems to be interesting because you believe that when you’ll do that or go there, you’ll be too anxious and stressful to participate or enjoy it.
I remember how hard it was for me to go to school and be with my friends. I remember how hard it was sometimes for me to be with my family which I love dearly. You must know I always was a happy kid who loves to play and do stuff. So you will understand when I’ll tell you I wasn’t ready to give up. I had a stress condition and anxiety attacks, but I was defiantly not depressed. I was looking all the time for ways out of this. I wanted to cure my stress, and if not that, I wanted to know at least how to reduce stress.
When I started reading about my problem and talked to my family doctor and talked to my older brother, I soon realized that being active is very important in order to improve my situation.
I learned that I need to know how to manage my stress. I started looking for ideas and places where I can do some stress management activities in order to reduce my stress level.