I want to stop worrying and being scared of everything, how do I do that?

I have performance anxiety and now I'm scared of everything and I can't help it. I try to fight it in my head but I can't , my mind is constantly overthinking and I can't even make sense of what I'm actually scared of, I'm depressed now anxiety. What do I do? I'm broke as hell cos I stopped working and communicating with anyone.
Asked by Ewe
Answered
05/18/2021

Good Morning Ewe! 

First off I want to thank you for reaching out for help and even having the courage to ask a question to seek an answer for the issues that you have been dealing with thus far. Let's explore performace anxiety and what this entails. Anxiety in most cases is false fears appearing real that we manifest over and over within our thoughts which then affects our behaviors. I sense that you may have had some kind of traumatic experience with perfromance anxiety within the past that has now become a constant thought within your  daily routine such as you mentioned the inability to work a job effectively and communicate with others. Anxiety has led you to overthink things which then leads to obsesive thoughst of failure or the fear of failing when you try to work or accomplish anything. To overcome this fear of perfromance anxiety you have to recognize what your triggers are and combat them with interventions before they start to affect your behaviors. For example, if you know that you have performance anxiety at work, you can practice mock situations at home or during your downtime of being in these situations and practicce ways you would overcome these situations such as staying in the moment, deep breathing, closing your eyes and counting backwards from ten until you reach one. The goal is to overthrow that negative thought of fear enough to remain present focused on the task at hand. Negative thoughts and fears only have power when they become obsessive and affect behaviors. If you can normalize that you have a negative thought then let it flow through your mind and get back to the present task you can overcome it, it's just when it becomes obsessive that it has power to affect you and your behaviors. I would also practice minfulness techniques to help you focus and stay within the moment. Practice and going through these situations will help you overcome the perfromance anxiety by giving you the evidenc that you can get through different stressful situations. Think back to a time when you were able to overcome some form of Anxiety, how were you able to do this. We all have overcome things withn out past be we have to reconnect and draw from those experiences as to how we did it. I would encourage you to focus on small fears and overcome them first as this will give you the evidence as I stated earlier that you can defeat these fears then you'll be able to conquer more fears that you have. I want you to focus on this analogy of what I feel fear is, FEAR: False, Evidence, Appearing, Real. You have no real reason to fear anything and once you make up your mind that you will live by this your life and situation will change for the better. It starts with acceptance and allowing yourself the room to make mistakes.  Also, having a more positive outlook on life and no matter what you face, give it your best effort and learning to live with knowing you did your best. I really hope this helps explain some things around Anxiety and fears as you move forward, Warm Regards!    

(LPC, CPCS)