Imagine going about your day. Everything's perfectly fine, when suddenly your skin begins to crawl. An electric charge buzzes beneath your skin. Your heart pounds in your ears. Your bones ache, your hands begin to shake, and it feels as though the air has been sucked out of the room. Imagine going days without getting any sleep because you just can't get your thoughts to stop racing, despite your exhaustion. When you do sleep, you wake up in the middle of the night covered in sweat, tears streaming down your face. You try to calm down to analyze the source of your terror, but nothing makes sense.
Picture diving into a pool, breaking through the water, then making your way back to the surface. You long to catch your breath, to suck in that precious oxygen, but you inhale too early and your harsh lungs fill with water. You begin to choke and sputter. You try to breathe, but your lungs are failing you. You start to think you'll never come out on the other side; you're going to drown.
That's what my anxiety feels like.
Now let me tell you what it looks like.
Perfectionism. My anxiety looks like an honors student with a 4.0 GPA. A high school student who is part of every club and extracurricular she can possibly fit in her already tight schedule. My anxiety looks like a young 20-something who excels at work and always does the "right thing." A girl who diets and exercises and successfully sheds weight until she reaches her ideal body image. A young professional with glowing recommendations discussing her strong work ethic and abilities. The girl who will mold and re-mold herself to fit in with her peers until everyone likes her.
Most people who look at me and the life I lead would never know I was diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder with co-morbid depression last January. They would never in a million years guess that I rely on a little white pill swallowed down with a gulp of water each night to keep my panic attacks at bay.
Sometimes it feels like my life is one giant contradiction.
How can the successful grad student also be the scared little girl curled up in a ball, crying herself to sleep? How can I be both the fearless friend and the girl hyperventilating in the shower? How can I be so joyful and boisterous, full of life and laughter, then suddenly find myself with tears streaming down my face, wondering how things got so hard? High-functioning anxiety isn't a medical term, but maybe it should be. I
have an, at times, crippling mental illness, but I still manage to hold
down a fairly successful life.
I'm not alone. Research shows a strong correlation between high-achieving personality types and anxiety. It makes sense. The race to be perfect, to be better and best, is daunting. I place more pressure on myself than any outside factor ever has, and others like me do exactly the same. The fact of the matter is you never really know what someone is going through. The picture we present of ourselves to the outside world may be entirely different from what's really going on inside.
We don't like to talk about anxiety and other "invisible illnesses." We make them just that, invisible. I hid my mental illness for years for fear of being judged. We are so quick to treat our physical ailments. To offer treatment to our physical bodies in myriad ways. You would never deny a cancer patient the treatment necessary to give them a chance at a better life, yet we balk at the idea of someone needing a serotonin inhibitor to combat the chemical imbalance in their brain.
That's the stigma. That's the reason I was able to graduate college with honors without anyone ever knowing how many times I cried myself to sleep in my dorm room. That's the reason so many people suffer in silence, accepting their illness as a crappy card they were dealt without ever seeking help or treatment. It's easy to look at someone who is outwardly depressed, who doesn't ever leave their house and cries at the drop of a hat and say that they need help. But what do you say to the girl or guy who goes out with their friends and holds down a job and goes to school three days a week and just seems to do it all so effortlessly?
We cling to stereotypes. Happy people don't get depressed. You don't have anxiety; you just have a lot on your plate right now. It's just one panic attack; it'll pass.
Like everything else in this world, no two mental illnesses look the same. Anxiety and depression present themselves in different ways, and every person's experience in different. I can only speak from my own, but I hope my words might help someone experiencing something similar.
The most important thing I've learned is to remember that you're not alone. There's always someone in your corner, even when your mental illness tries to convince you there's not. My GAD has taken a lot away from me, but at the end of the day, I can look at everything I've accomplished, and I can't help but be proud. Having a mental illness is just part of my experience as a human. It doesn't make me broken or lesser; it makes me who I am.
Just remember this — everyone is fighting a battle you know nothing about. Maybe it's a chemical imbalance or a broken arm. Regardless, if you find out someone you know is struggling, lend a helping hand in whatever way you can. This world could use a little more love and acceptance.
