Anxiety Feelings Sometimes When On Internet

Does anybody else here suffer from mood swings or anxiety or anything like that?

I find that I get things like that often when I come on the internet, particularly if I go online and none of my chat friends are online and there’s not much going on any of my message boards. It’s like if you ring up a friend because you really need a chat, but then they’re not in. My mum says that it’s all perfectly normal and part of the human condition. I absolutely hate it though.

I have to be careful that it doesn’t get a hold of me, because if I let it then I can end up in a right state, sometimes almost getting like a suffocating anxiety feeling, and I start pacing around and don’t know what to do with myself.

I do try to get round it by writing my feelings and thoughts down on my computer in a private diary space. Also, I think using Brainwave Generator really helps too, especially my Serotonin relaxation preset.

Also…

I recently realised that I was spending far too much time on the internet, going on every single evening to do nothing inparticular, so I decided to suddenly cut down on my internet useage (I have done many times previously, but for some reason my net useage really got out of hand very recently), by agreeing with myself to only go online at weekends.

This Saturday was the first time I went online since last sunday. I felt great during the week. I would come home from work, and then spend the evening doing something non-internet-related, such as making music, or even going swimming. I felt great. Then I came online Saturday afternoon, and started getting those anxiety feelings.

I don’t know quite what it is. I’m perfectly happy by myself when I’m not on the internet, but if I’m on the internet and nobody is about, it really upsets me for some bizarre reason. I can’t quite work it out. I don’t know, maybe I’m expecting too much from the internet, you know, expecting all my net friends to be online and there to be loads of messages in all my message boards, and then when I find there isn’t any I get these horrible feelings.

Even when I say that I only use the net at weekends now, I don’t use it all weekend at all. I went out shopping yesterday morning and I went out for a lovely walk this morning with my social walking group.

Also, it could be related to that Seasonal Affective Disorder thing, because I notice I felt like this a lot the exact same time of year last year, yet through the warmer months I felt absolutely fine!

Anyway, I feel much better now for having got all that off my chest. Now I’m going to relax to my Serotonin Brainwave Generator preset and hopefully that will calm me down a bit.

Ed.

Sorry, but that doesn’t sound normal to me, unless it is less than i think it is. I have never experienced anything like that before. I wonder if it is a type of loneliness. Do you feel lonely when no one is online? When you go on, do you have important things to tell them or is it just idle chatter? It could be less than it sounds, but it is good that you feel good now that you have changed your lifestyle. I actually don’t even have a chat program so maybe i am the wrong person to be talking to.

I think you first experience anticipation when you’re logging onto the internet, wondering what sorts of entertaining people and posts will be available there. When you see that there is nothing, you get disappointed, and then bored. But I believe that this is exacerbated by you already feeling down at the time you are getting online (you just don’t realize it because it is masked by your anticipation of entertaining things online, you hope the entertainment will boost your mood).

So you already feel down, and when your hopes to solve it by being entertained online are thwarted, you feel more let down. Then you start feeling anxious, like, “well what else is there to do?”

You might be addicted to the internet and internet communications. I used to be sortof like that. I was always in a gaming clan chatroom. If people weren’t there I would get bored and mess around created an IRC bot and talking on AIM. As funny as it sounds you might have an addiction. You should try to limit your time online. say you are on 6 hours a day. Try to specify shorter periods of time that you will be on. If your normally on from 6PM to 2AM make yourself only get on from 7PM to 1AM and keep on shortening it. And pick a hobby that doesn’t envolve the computer. Anything you like to do will work. I used to go out and drive around for an hour or so because it calmed me down and gave myself time to think about life. A hobby is an essential to keep you away from the computer.

OK, I’m going to suggest the exact opposite that everyone else here has suggested.

Make better use of your time online!

In the quiet periods when there is no-one to chat to, why not learn something new? For example, start to learn Photoshop, web design, PHP. Make your own website. Find an idea…write up a plan…implement it.

It could be a site about internet addiction?!

Your time spent working out the coding, making the graphics, finding content and publishing and updating it can take up a lot of time. You may realise there is some aspect of web design you are good at and can focus on that.

The internet needs YOU!

Fey~ :eek:

Honestly? Sounds like you’re just bored. Don’t worry what others do, do what makes you happy. If being online makes you uneasy (which is most likely just because you feel like you’re being useless/waste of time, we all get that from internet use), then don’t use it. Come back to it when you feel ok with your life and social standing.

Thanks for you people for replying with your ideas. They all seamed to make sense in their owns ways.

Don’t worry, I feel absolutely fine now. I actually suddenly realised something - that I hadn’t written in my diary much lately. You see, about a year ago I started writing a diary of my thoughts and feelings and stuff, and I found that it made me feel great to do that. I had neglected it recently. Now I am making much more of a point of writing in my diary as often as I can. Not just my thoughts/feelings about things, but also about how my day went and things like that.

I have felt a million times better since I started making a big effort to do this again, and now I make sure I write in my diary before even thinking about coming on the internet. Tonight I didn’t feel any kind of sadness or anxiety or anything when I came online.

Also, I’m continuing with other things I had already started to do recently, such as trying to only go online at the weekends (and even then, only in the evenings, after I’ve been out for the day), plus also making a list during the week of things I want to use the internet for, so that I can make better use of my internet time (as I say, this was something I had already thought of).

So don’t worry about me, I’m great. What I wrote should probably really have just gone in my diary, because I was in the process of figuring things out for myself anyway. But I do appreciate you people taking the time to reply. Thanks. :wink:

Today I went for a nice walk, and during the week I went swimming twice in the evenings and had a great time. I might be going ice skating tomorrow.

:happy:

Ed.