Some question what anxiety is, even through it is a medical diagnosis there are some who just do not believe it is so. Today I am going to tell those people what anxiety is and what it feels like to someone who suffers from it themselves. Maybe this will debunk their false thinking.
This is no webster's dictionary definition but it is the one that explains it in the simplest terms, anxiety is a state in which one feels anxious and has constant worries about things they have no control over. Anxiety overcomes many individuals in different ways but it always sticks to it's principles, it always stems from worry. These worries start off small but then your anxiety feeds off them and helps them to grow bigger, making those worries into anxieties. Anxieties that we the suffers have barely any control over and that is the worst part about it all.
Imagine thinking your worst fears or the thoughts you fear the most all day, 24/7 and there was nothing you could really do to stop those worries, well that is what anxiety feels like. Anxiety is a war that we feel we will never win, because it is one inside of us, one that controls our brain and hinders our everyday functions. Anxiety is feeling overcome by a panic you cannot handle and letting it spiral out of control because you knew it was going there anyway. Anxiety is feeling these thoughts and these anxieties coming on a nd having nothing but a set of tools a therapist may have given you to ward them off with. Now let me tell you anxiety is a monster once it reaches you it does not stop it's terror.
Anxiety is something we don't see with our eyes, and that is why people are so skeptical about it, because it isn't a physical disorder, it is all mental. Being that it is all in the mind, people do not see the pain that people suffer, this being said anxiety is all internalized, it eventually comes out, but in a panic mode. When people visualize panic they label it as a mental breakdown or that you are going crazy, it is a breakdown but it does not mean we are crazy.
People hear the word anxiety and group into a harsh category as being a disorder that makes you crazy. One, anxiety is something that no one can help but having it, it is not like we want to have anxiety, and secondly anxiety breakdowns are not dangerous to others but emotionally draining to the individual having one. Next time you witness something you can identify as a panic attack be there as moral support, instead of as a judgmental bystander. Do not just walk by, do something, you never know what that person is going through.
The thing with anxiety is it comes and goes, you can have it bad one day, then not at all the next, and most of the time it comes out of left field. So next time you are judging someone suffering from anxiety check yourself. imagine yourself in their shoes, dealing with something you cannot control, and maybe down the road in your life you yourself will experience anxiety or someone close to you will, and you feel guilty.
To prevent the guilt, act now, educate yourself on anxiety and how real it's effects can be, and next time you feel like downplaying someones illness do not, because you never know, it could happen to you too.
