I will start off by saying I am not sure whether this issue I have is a result of my anxiety for certain. In fact, I'm almost inclined to think it isn't an anxiety thing based on the the way it all began. At the same time, I can't deny that I have really bad anxiety and that it certainly can't be helping.

So anyway, almost 10 years ago, I started noticing that I would have trouble remembering words and putting together words into sentences even when I could remember them. It started out with randomly not being able to remember the name of something. The earliest example is when I was trying to text a friend that I wanted to use the elliptical machine at the gym after class, and I sat there staring at my phone because I couldn't remember the word elliptical. Then it got much worse, and I began struggling just to put sentences together. I could no longer throw together essays for my classes in a few hours. I had to begin them weeks in advance.

I went to a lot of doctors for this issue. I had MRIs and blood tests galore. They never found anything, so they told me it was anxiety. Maybe it was, but it was definitely bizarre that I had no issues with anxiety before I began experiencing this issue.

Over the many years of dealing with this issue, I have undoubtedly developed anxiety, though. I used to doubt whether I truly had an anxiety disorder, but there's no denying it now that I have extremely frequent panic attacks.

The thing about language difficulties is they affect every area of your life. Think about how many things you do require the ability to use words. Talking with friends. Scheduling appointments. Going to job interviews. Talking with customers at work. Typing on internet forums like this. Typing up a bio on a dating site. Writing a resume. So yeah, having difficulty with these things made me develop really bad social anxiety, which I believe then progressed to generalized anxiety. I became a recluse because being in public where I had to talk to people was embarrassing and exhausting. People think the reason I don't date is I'm a loser or a secret lesbian or something. The real reason I don't date is that dating requires a lot of talking, and talking is terrifying.

I'm sorry, I have rambled so far off from my original question. I guess I just want to say that it's hard to know how much of this is due to the anxiety I have and if it could actually all be anxiety. I know I engage in behaviors that definitely don't help because of my anxiety. For instance, I feel like I never really just listen to people when they talk or just read anything for the information conveyed anymore. Now I am constantly hyper-focused on the actual wording people use and thinking how amazed I am at how effortlessly they can just put their thoughts into words whereas I never would have been able to come up with those words. It's really hard to explain. One example is when I'm watching interviews. Someone will be asked a question and then just jump into a really eloquent, well-articulated answer, and I'll be sitting there thinking, "Gosh, I would just freeze and stammer if someone were to ask me that question right now because, even though I have thoughts on the topic, I literally cannot think of how I could put them into words." Then I get depressed and anxious over the fact that I could never give a public speech or do anything that requires me to be able to quickly answer people's questions like be a teacher or a politician. I've had full-out panic attacks because of doing this. It's an obsession. So given how hyper-focused I get on others' words, I do sometimes wonder if maybe this entire problem of mine is actually just rooted in anxiety and if it would go away if i could learn to just stop obsessing over the idea that I have lost my articulateness? I'm sorry if that makes no sense.

I know some people will see this post and say that I obviously don't have language difficulties because my post is mostly really coherent. It's honestly frustrating when people say things like that to me because here is the thing: this problem doesn't (or at least hasn't so far) affect my ability to know what a grammatically correct sentence sounds like. It's not that it causes me to sound like a stroke patient when I do manage to speak or write. It just causes me to have a lot of thoughts I never voice because I couldn't find the words or to take an insanely long time putting thoughts in writing. All you see is this end post, not the 3 hours it took me to write it or the 50 times I had to use thesaurus.com because I could remember a word kind of similar to the one I wanted to use but not the actual word or all of the mid-sentence pauses i had to take to figure out how to complete the sentence I was trying to say.

I'm sorry, this got 10x longer than I anticipated.
tl;dr:

The question I really wanted to ask was:

Does anyone have severe issues remembering words or putting their thoughts into words due to their anxiety? Has anyone found any relief with this issue through medication or therapy? I can't afford therapy, unfortunately, but maybe someday I can.