I always try my best to come across as a bright, happy person. What I display on the outside is completely genuine. I am generally an outgoing person who is thankful for the life that she lives. I am happy, but at the same time, I live with something that many people don’t understand.
I remember when I first started to notice how bad it was. I used to be unable to be in rooms with many people unless I had a friend to cling onto. I had a difficult time talking to people. In my head, all I could hear were debilitating thoughts telling me how worthless I was, or how much the few friends I had hated me.
This is what intense anxiety looks like.
For many years, anxiety literally kept me from living a normal life. Making friends was almost impossible because the pit in my stomach kept me from talking most of the time. I fought very hard to get out of this vicious cycle, and I failed many times.
After battling myself vigorously, I joined a sport and stuck with it. Within a matter of months, my anxiety seemed almost non-existent. I had friends who made me feel more secure about myself, and as a result I became a very extroverted individual.
Some people need medicine or therapy to help maintain their anxiety — but I hated therapy and I didn’t have the guts to talk to my parents about getting medication. Fortunately for me, I was able to maintain my anxiety with one thing: running.
The dopamine produced when running is the reason why my anxiety was alleviated, and it became very therapeutic for me. Additionally, being busy, setting goals, and having loving friends were huge factors in my improvement. But unfortunately, even though my anxiety is not nearly as bad as it used to be, it never completely goes away.
Living with anxiety is like fearing that you’re going to drown 24/7. To those who have never experienced anxiety, this is very difficult to understand. Many people think that anxiety is when someone is “just being nervous,” when in reality it is a silent demon that plagues our mental and physical well-being.
Although I conquered most of my anxiety, I still live with one of the most hindering factors — the paranoia. All I hear in my head most of the time is the worst case scenario. Anxiety always makes you think things like “your friends hate you,” “they think you’re annoying,” “you’re a horrible person.”
Even though I have grown so much, I still live with this every single day. I have a fear of opening up to my friends because I’m paranoid that all I’ll do is annoy them. I feel like a constant burden to most people. I assume that people think and say the worst of me. Because of this, it causes bouts of depression every now and then. The paranoia drains me and makes living a normal life about a thousand times harder.
Some days it feels like my mind is burning. I start to over-analyze every little thing and jump to the worst conclusions. It’s difficult to focus when your mind is in a constant frenzy. The thoughts weigh on your heart and mind and leave you exhausted.
It makes you feel like a constant burden. You fear that you’re annoying your loved ones with your problems or even just your existence. After every social gathering you go home and hate yourself for feeling like you’ve said all the wrong things. You don’t want to tell anyone because you don’t want them to think you’re just a ticking time bomb that might explode at any moment, so you isolate yourself.
At my worst, anxiety makes me feel like I’m a storm. It serves as a catalyst for everything that follows, like the anxiety is the lightning and depression is the thunderclap. Feeling this way makes you want to push everyone away, because you don’t want them to get caught in your whirlwind.
One of the worst parts is knowing deep down inside that a majority of your worries are completely irrational. You know that everyone doesn't really hate you, yet you still worry. People tell you over and over that you're just being paranoid, and you know that, but the anxiety still doesn't go away. This doesn't make our anxieties any less valid, but it's frustrating to constantly be worked up over nothing.
Anxiety disorders are the most common form of mental illness in the United States, yet talking about it openly still makes many people uncomfortable. As a result, only about one-third of those with anxiety disorders receive treatment for it. Personally, the stigma surrounding it makes it incredibly difficult for me to ever mention it to anyone, even those closest to me. If you’re anything like me, you might fear being judged or you don’t want the sympathy.
But the fact is that we can’t ignore the suffering. I have been able to manage my anxiety, but it is still debilitating even to this day. Some days it’s so bad that I feel like I’m being suffocated by all my negative thoughts. It’s terrible when you have every reason to trust those closest to you but you still have an overwhelming fear that they don’t really like you at all.
If anything, however, anxiety has inspired me to be a more compassionate and loving person. When you’re constantly living with so many fears and insecurities, you want to do all you can to make sure that those you love never feel the same way. Anxiety has taught me to let my friends and family know that they’re never a burden to me, and that I’m always happy to talk to them about absolutely anything.
Regardless, those suffering from anxiety disorders still do lead happy lives. Even though I feel like I’m drowning some days, they never cast a shadow over all the other days I feel thankful to live the life that I do. I’m surrounded by amazing people and opportunities every day, and I hope others can find a silver lining as well.
