It makes sure I'm always on time.
If I don’t have class until 2 p.m., you better believe I will be showering at 10 a.m. and out the door by 12. If I make plans with friends, I make sure to clear my schedule the entire day to stay focused and enjoy time with them. When I take tests, I calculate how much time I have left before I have enough time to do another task before my following class. My anxiety works as my own personal clock and reminder.
It turned me into a storyteller.
With thoughts and different ideas forming in my mind a mile a minute, you'd be surprised how well I could tell a story. How much detail I could provide. My anxiety keeps me up at night just to formulate and perfect these scenarios (most in which, I wish I never had.) to make sense of them. To validate them.
It's the personal cautionary sign that I was unwillingly granted.
Walking down the halls past dozens of unfamiliar faces is already tough enough. Imagine feeling as though every single one of them was staring at you. Seeing through you. Recollecting every terrible thing you've ever done and judging you for it, when in reality, they may have never seen you before in their entire lives. My anxiety is a caution warning wherever I go.
CAUTION: That check-out line is packed. Go to the self-check out.
CAUTION: The cashier is giving you dirty looks. Obviously, avoid her.
CAUTION: Make sure you have enough change. You don't want to hold up the line fumbling in your pockets.
It intertwines with my relationships.
Be it romantic or platonic, anxiety is there. My anxiety is that really annoying helicopter dad that won't let his daughter date the nice boy that cares about her because he feels like he's up to no good. My anxiety determines my relationships before I do. It reminds me who is good for me, who cares for me but at a distance and who I should just stay clear of. It reminds me that not everyone has their best intentions with me. It reminds me that people will hurt me. That people will devastate me.
It has built this unbreakable wall.
As I am expanding myself, meeting new people and trying to enjoy little things in life, it is there in the dark. Gathering. Building. It is building up every defense mechanism that I have ever developed and it will keep building that wall up, just waiting for everything to go to shit. It makes me realize that this is the only way to get through everything in order to survive. To just keep building.
It put me on a pedestal.
You might think my hair looks nice but I will be feeling like I literally look like trash and should never attempt at any hairstyle again. My anxiety does not just work as a means of judging myself. It puts me in the spotlight. I am the star of my own personal meltdown. I am in the light and everyone sees every single flaw that I have. Every pimple multiplies and burdens me. Every awkward laugh makes me uneasy. I am made self-aware to the extreme and sometimes, I am melting, suffering, in anguish but no one sees. Just anxiety.
Living with anxiety is like being followed by a voice your entire life, using its power against you to make you defenseless but tells you it's for your own good.
