No ideas yet on an alternative to the word anxiety that fits. For myself I've noticed that I tend to use other words to describe how I feel. "I am feeling anxious" can at times work, but not completely, and I really use that word more often when communicating with health care folks.

As for feeling like you don't belong in this forum, well.......if I played amateur armchair shrink for a moment......I'd ask if you are feeling like you don't belong in other parts of your life too. You could ask yourself also why you don't belong. Is this about worthiness, are you not feeling worthy of something?

Maybe it is okay that the word doesn't work for you, maybe you are being prodded to research more, maybe having someone firm up a diagnosis would help. Maybe you do have anxiety but it isn't quite yet time for you to focus on it. Maybe you fear something will happen if you accept it.

*Smile* Feel free to spank me if I am getting carried away here. Okay, something else to share, I have the same issue somewhat with the Dissociative forum, sometimes thinking that cause I don't have DID, but do have other forms of the disorder, namely depersonalization and derealization, that I really don't truly belong in the forum. Maybe I will be found out and exposed, ridiculed, told that I have betrayed the trust of the -real- people who belong there. Etc.

Yet, truly, I do know I am fine there and elsewhere. The issue of belonging and not belonging though is indeed huge for many of us.

You belong in this forum if you wanna. I can even formally welcome you.

Sarah