The way I experience Anxiety

I suffer from the Generalized Anxiety Disorder and have probably been anxious all my life. My parents both suffer from anxiety and depression and are on the SSRI. I have a very hard time recognizing symptoms of anxiety in myself and others because I have grown up around it.

I went to see my medication physician today. I will be upping my Paxil dosage (an anti-depressant). (Incidentally Paxil has been a wonder drug with social anxiety-I have been on it for about twelve years). However, the way I experience my anxiety is someone telling me you seem very anxious. If enough people tell me that I accept it but I am not myself aware of feeling anxious.

My form of anxiety is feeling under too much pressure-too much to do, too little time. I feel like a hamster on a treadmill-constantly going and going. My physician says (I don’t like it but I have accepted it) while there is a reality component of this feeling my GAD makes it worse. Probably without the GAD, I would just say I don’t have time do certain things but my anxiety makes me panicky about it. However, on my own, without professional help, I would probably not say I was feeling anxious but just say I was too busy.

My husband has OCD. He also complains of too much too with do too little time. However, I think in his case because of his OCD he makes the things he has to do more complicated than has to be.