This isn’t going to be well formatted; this isn’t going to be perfectly written. This is simply me writing down everything that frustrates me when it comes to anxiety and panic attacks. Anything that comes to mind right at this moment. I don’t know if anyone will be able to relate to any of this, but I’m going to write it anyway. It’s not so happy and wonderful but it's real, and I think the world needs a little more honesty anyway.

First, to the people that don’t get it and don’t even try to understand it: I mean what the hell? All other illnesses get attention, but when it comes to mental health there are still people that think I am just “nervous.” If I was nervous and not anxious, I wouldn’t be trembling, crying, screaming, panting, dry heaving. So go educate yourself before you go to someone with anxiety and tell them something that is bull crap and make them feel insane.

When people say, “That gives me so much anxiety” in a joking way, it’s not a joke. I go through nights with 3 or more panic attacks. I pace around my room as if it’s going to help. I text at least 10 people asking if they are awake just to make me feel less alone. Just when I feel like I’m doing well, it comes back. It has followed me for years and it gets worse when I feel like I have no one, when I feel like no one gets it.

I recently started talking to an old friend who gets it and it feels right. I understand that I can’t expect people to think about how things they do affect me in really, really harsh ways but it’s hard not to. Friendships can be so difficult, especially if they don’t understand. Being excluded from something leads to the most irrational thoughts: “They don’t like me. No one likes me.”

Change is extremely hard for me. Something as simple as rearranging my room can flip my world around. Anxiety and panic attacks are extremely painful some days, it is so hard to get up out of bed in the morning and go to class. I know I can be extremely irritable when I am anxious, but that is mostly because I am so mentally exhausted. I am so tired of calming myself down over and over again.

I just realized that paragraph was all over the place, but what the hell I’m gonna go with it. My mind is messy and for once I’m not going to try and fix it.

I am so tired of trying to explain this to people that may just never get it. The best way I can describe it is this: Think of a situation where it feels like you might die. It feels like that. It’s so hard to not push people away because I depend on others so much and that’s because anxiety makes you feel helpless. It’s not something that’s particularly curable. People say there are things that I have not done to help myself which makes me so angry because I have been trying and working as hard as I can to make this go away.

I know I can be okay and I know this is not forever, but when you go entire days feeling anxious, it’s easy to think that this is how you’ll feel forever.