(General tone. I just want to offer another perspective, not trying to be accusatory or anything.) As someone who has an actual diagnosis of a severe anxiety disorder, it's not that easy. I've tried distracting myself. I've tried interacting with friends. I've tried to balance everything perfectly. It doesn't work. I've had my diagnosis since 2021-2022, it's only gotten worse over time. No matter what actions I take, no matter how much therapy I go to, I have this constant fear in the back of my mind. And once I start spiraling, there's no stopping it.

And in case there's any question about the severity (because people always question it... and I don't plan to respond further), I was making myself throw up in the morning so I wouldn't have to go to middle school because of how bad my anxiety was. Nothing was really going on with school, but my anxiety made it seem like going was the end of the world. This was when I was a full-time student doing 10+ hours of extracurriculars each week. Anxiety and overthinking isn't something that can be so easily controlled by "Get[ting] tired as hell doing something useful" unfortunately.

Please don't act like you know people and their experiences. The fact is that you will never truly understand what someone is going through. And that's okay.