Hey there, friend. I know we don’t actually know each other, but isn’t there almost an instant friendship when you meet someone like yourself? And I don’t mean someone who loves Italian food just as much as me or shares the same distaste for the New England Patriots. I’m talking deeper--someone who is a lot like you because the ongoing, never-ending battle that rages on within your mind also rages in their own.

What I’m talking about is that neither you nor I can go a day without our dear old friend anxiety popping its incredibly ugly, tormenting head to say hello. You know it well, of course. What’s it like for you? Does it feel like you just can’t catch your breath some days? Like your mind is your enemy, not your friend or even a part of you? I mean, there are days when it can be difficult just getting out of bed and days when you just want to be alone because you are simply tired of trying to put on a façade for the people around you.

These people probably know you regularly deal with anxiety, but I am willing to bet they don’t completely understand it. Sure, they listen when you talk and give you sympathetic smiles as they hold your hand. They’re your friends, after all. It’s their job. When you finish pouring your soul out to them, though, the reactions are more of the same.

You’ve probably heard “What do you have to be anxious about? Just get your mind off things,” or “Quit worrying so much and just live life!” enough times that you can’t help but roll your eyes as the words leave their lips. Yeah, sure, let me get right on that… They are just being, in their eyes anyway, positive and encouraging. They are trying to coax you out of the deep hole your mind has dug and thrown your body into.

But haven’t they realized that if it was that simple, we would have done it for ourselves by now? I don’t know about you, but I’ve been living with GAD (generalized anxiety disorder) since I was diagnosed in January 2011. If the solution to this problem was as simple as their suggestions, I wouldn’t have wasted the past five years of my life fighting this. Long gone are the days of feeling like a normal person. I almost forget what it’s like to not be like this. Do you remember?

Believe it or not, there used to be a time when we didn’t think this way. We were able to “just live life,” and we experienced anxiety at a healthy, normal rate. Better yet, we always knew why we were feeling anxious in that moment. Maybe we felt jittery and nervous before an exam or maybe our hearts raced and our stomachs turned inside out when we would have to speak publicly.

But now it’s like our minds are constantly telling our bodies that we are in danger, kicking off the infamous “fight or flight” response. We know it’s silly. We know there isn’t really any danger to us. Nevertheless, it’s like our brains JUST.DON'T.CARE. You’ve heard the saying “mind over matter,” haven’t you? Probably pretty frequently. But what do you do when your mind is the matter? How do we try to override what our minds are telling our bodies to feel?

People like us have something funky happening with our brain receptors. They fire off at random, telling our bodies to panic when there is nothing there to even panic over. And these misfiring messages are like thunderstorms popping up on a sunny day. Out of the nowhere. Completely unpredictable. I think that’s why people like us are often scared to say we are having a good day. It’s like we worry that if we admit such a thing, the sentence alone will send us into an anxiety-ridden hell. Anxiety over feeling anxiety. Ironic.

What’s worse are the times when there is literally no reason to feel anxious... yet we still do. You know exactly what I’m talking about, don’t you? You know I’m talking about those days when all is right with the world but your mind decides to run at 1000 miles per hour, making your body feel anything from jitters to straight up exhaustion. Exhaustion. Do you ever have a day anymore where you don’t feel tired? You get some sleep at night but wake up feeling like you got all of five minutes’ rest. How do we expect to feel rested when our minds are always running—always running to the worst outcome, worst scenario possible?

If you’re really like me, you wonder how you can even have friends or relationships. I mean, we drive ourselves crazy most days so how do we not drive those around us to feel the same? Somehow, for some reason, they stay. These people are God-send and we need to lean on. Like I mentioned, they may not fully understand what we deal with. God bless them, they try. But until a person begins to experience anxiety on chronic levels, they really cannot completely understand. Their minds don’t attack them the way ours do. They still have hold of the reins and control the majority of their thoughts and emotions.

So maybe we can learn from them. Instead of them sitting down and asking us what’s wrong, maybe we need to start asking them what’s right. We have anxiety, but that doesn’t mean anxiety has us. We don’t need to let it define us because Lord knows definitions of chronic anxiety disorders are often synonymous with “crazy” or “unstable.” But we aren’t either of those. We are individuals who, quite honestly, learned to care just a little too much.

We don’t want to admit it, but we care about what others think about us. Conversations with a person can run in our heads for days afterward, replaying over and over to see if we said something stupid or wrong. Did that conversation ruin their opinion of me? And we care so much about our friends and family that we worry about their health and safety every day.

But none of this is a reason to feel ashamed. Yeah, you know as well as I that anxiety is hell--plain and simple. Yet perhaps we can look at this differently. Maybe we can learn to see some of what accompanies anxiety as a gift rather than a curse. People like you and me are some of the most empathetic and understanding individuals, and though we have burdens of our own, we often thrive and find fulfillment in helping others carry theirs. We’re a weird kind of breed if you will, but maybe the world needs more of us.

I’m not talking about needing more anxiety—God knows there is too much of that already. Maybe, if you believe everything happens for a reason, we struggle the way we do so that one day we can use this experience to help fulfill our purpose on Earth. We make great doctors and nurses and we make wonderful teachers. And, of course, we all know God only gives His hardest battles to His strongest soldiers.

So, my dear, as the old saying goes, it can’t rain forever. The thunderstorms rolling through the plains of our minds will someday turn into clear skies, leaving us feeling strong and whole again. In the meantime, let’s continue to try to build our own strength and lean on each other for support when we need it. A little prayer certainly doesn't hurt either. Whatever you do, just don’t give up. After all, life is short. So I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of wasting another minute of it living inside the land of my imaginary demons. And besides, we all know just how beautiful everything can look after a thunderstorm.

Strength, courage and serenity,

Erica