# Anxiety Disorders > Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) >  >  How long have you had anxiety for?

## Fizzy Doom

Is it something you have had all your life??

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## L

As long as I can remember - it's just me, I don't remember not having it but I also didn't know it was anxiety. I never realised that everyone didn't feel that way for a long time.

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## WineKitty

My whole life.  I just didnt know there was a name for it until the fall of 2004.  I thought I was just defective.

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## Arthur Dent

The first time I remember it affected me I was 9, but it has only affect me severely since I was 16, so I'd say 8 years.

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## Coffee

I've had GAD for about 14 years, but its severity fluctuates a lot. I've had legitimately debilitating SA for only 3 years.

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## Koalafan

Ive been shy my whole life but my social anxiety became a serious problem in middle school then it was just downhill from there  ::(:

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## Dane

Some anxiety my whole life but didn't develop severe SA until I was 23.

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## Otherside

I don't think I've had it all my life. I was diagnosed age 12, but I think I had it before that, I dunno though, my parents didn't take me to see a pdoc to get help until the school insisted.

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## Antidote

Since childhood. Clinical SA at 15.

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## FraidyCat

Very young.

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## metamorphosis

I have always been very hypersensitive, even as a child. I would say my SA started to really manifest itself in grade school. When I was going through puberty and the beginning of high school. At the time, I knew nothing of anxiety disorders. So, I thought it was depression. Which, I have as a co-morbid illness. I developed GAD over a longer period of time.

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## James

My whole life.  I always thought I was just hyper-sensitive and/or crazy.  I wasn't diagnosed until a I was about 30 yrs old.

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## Chantellabella

Part of me has had it since about age 5, but with me, it's hard to tell if it was truly anxiety from within or whether I was just reacting to my environment.

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## ohaiicasper

I've had it since I was little, I just never knew what it was. The end of high school/ going into college is when my social anxiety got really bad and a doctor confirmed that I had it.

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## Evo1114

I was diagnosed in November, but I've had it my whole life.  I guess when I was a kid people just called it 'shyness', but looking back, it definitely was much more than that.  I have had very few friends my whole life.

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## mightypillow

It seems I've been this way my entire life. It is who I am.

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## Returned and broken

5 Years.

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## Ont Mon

I've always been shy and quiet, but it only started becoming problematic in 2007. So almost 6 years.

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## moon

My anxiety started last summer while I was pregnant, and got even worse when I had my baby, now it is an everyday thing, I guess having three kids under the age of 5 is too much for me to handle, but I do it, I have medication for when it gets too bad that I can't handle the attacks, usually I get it worse at night so I take meds then, I am not sure why, I think it's because I have to put my boyfriend in charge of the baby who is 6 months old now, and I don't trust him. But part of me knows she is okay and that I will wake up if he isn't awake, I always wake up when he isn't awake, funny how my mind does that.

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## moon

Though my whole life I have been depressed, I remember going to doctors and hospitals when I was just 4 yrs old, about 5 yrs ago I found out I was bipolar, medication saved my life. but the crazy anxiety I have is new and I hate it.

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## Chieve

I would say so when I was a kid. Although its arguable if I have anxiety now. I think as a kid I had anxiety, but now I think I can just be more shy...

I mean it's enough to struggle to get a "hi" out and I mean, I still have no friends, I have a boyfriend, which the only way I was able to meet him was by using an online dating site.

I mean I'm not complaining, being in a relationship is great and is the only thing I ever wanted...but I would also like to have my own friends as own life. My bf has his own life and friends, he's the only person in mine (not including family)...and I wish I had the same

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## shyVr6

Since I was a kid.

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## compulsive

First Memory of OCD , I was about 7/8, so I must be predisposed to anxiety problems. I was shy in high school. I started to get more and more socially anxious because the people in my class where horrible. I pretended to be sick at times because I was afraid of them. I gradually developed social anxiety disorder. I was 13. 

My habit of trying to predict what i did wrong and the outcome (this is major cause of my anxiety disorders) came from those same people. Essentially I had to learn how to predict when I was going to do badly and cry before hand so that I did not have people laughing and sneering at me for crying and then later talking about me behind my back etc.  I had to predict how to So that's where the cognitive part originated. Also people overreacting to me showing emotions in general caused that. 

Essentially they caused my anxiety disorder. 

And then after rumors about me and people in general being nasty, I got depressed too. Which made anxiety worse.

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## WintersTale

I had shyness that turned into social anxiety in 2006. Before then, I was shy, but was able to make friends and have an active social life.

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## Misssy

Um, I'm not sure. 

Probably yes, I have had social anxiety since I was a kid I think. I remember in pre-school having some kind of social anxiety, but I suspect it is something like mild Aspergers that was never diagnosed. I think something doesn't work right in my brain and it only has caused me anxiety as a side effect. 

I don't think "anxiety" is the real problem. I'm not sure though. I never managed to get somebody to help me sort it out. Nobody bothers to diagnose mental illness thoroughly.

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