Hi, i'm new here. I have read through the posts and thought I might add my two cents.

Lately I have been having a stressful time, and have wondered wether I am going through my first bout of anxiety. (i am in my early 20s) throughout my whole life I have never smoked or done any drugs, and limited my alcohol intake to perhaps one or two glasses of wine per week. This sensibility is mainly due to my sister developing schizophrenia after doing drugs. I swore when I was a kid that I would never smoke or do drugs and have been successful.

Five weeks ago I was at a friends house and he poured me a glass of rum. I don't drink high content alcohol, so I took one sip (perhaps half a teaspoon) and decided it was vile and didn't drink anymore after that. However, after that my "friend" started joking about how there were drugs in the drink. He was only joking, but it still scared me. (needless to say, I didn't appreciate his sense of humour)

i started to worry about might what have happened and have been feeling anxious ever since. For the first two weeks I slept terribly at night (between 3 to 5 hours total) and awoke perhaps three or four times during the night covered in sweat and with a pounding headache, a pain in my chest and butterflies in my stomach. During the day I was afraid when I was in a room by myself. Thankfully i'm sleeping slight better now (6-7 hours), awaking only once at night and the sweating has gone. I still have a headache every day however, and find that I have to go to the toilet very often. I still can't stop worrying about the the future, and every now and then the butterflies in my stomach (feeling of fear) return. I'm either worrying that the symptoms I haver are because i'm going to get schizophrenia like my sister or worry about the the future and that i'm going to fail in the future (become terrible father or something like that).

It seems that a stressful event may have triggered off anxiety? Is this a common occurance? My doctor says that i'm "on edge" at the moment and in time I will relax and that I just need to be patient.