Living with anxiety is like living with asthma. When you start to have an attack, you stop breathing. You start gasping for air, trying to get as much into your lungs as possible. When you finally are able to get air into you and can breathe, it gets better. But that constant worry that it will happen again is still going to be there.

For me, my anxiety stems from the constant worrying that everything is going to go wrong. Specifically the future. I start to shake and my heart rate elevates. My head and chest start to hurt, and then I have trouble breathing. I get stuck in my thoughts, and once it happens, there’s not really getting out of it. Not too long ago, I had someone call me a “walking panic attack,” and if that’s not accurate, I don’t know what is.

Living with anxiety is also being told that your illness isn’t real. I have had friends, family, and even a doctor tell me that my anxiety wasn’t real. Living with anxiety is hard enough, so having the people in your life tell you that it’s all in your head makes it even harder. My first semester of college, I was so anxious all the time about meeting new people and experiencing all of these new things, that I was having anxiety attacks almost every day. I went and talked to a counselor on campus and they prescribed me anti-anxiety medication immediately. Around Christmas, I stopped taking it. This was the worst mistake I could have made. I thought that I was in a much better mindset and that I didn’t need it anymore. I was a wreck for weeks. And I had no idea why for the longest time. I would ask myself, “Why is this happening? I was doing so much better.” When we went back to school in January, I went and met with my counselor again. She had me start taking my medication again, and things started getting better from there.

Anxiety isn’t something to joke about. It’s a real illness, that many people suffer from and don’t even know it. Whether it be test anxiety, or even from meeting new people, it’s still real. Just because you can’t see something, does not mean it isn’t there.