When I tell someone that I have anxiety, it seems like everyone’s first instinct is to say “oh, well doesn’t everyone?” And the answer is simply no. Not everyone has anxiety. While everyone might have worrisome thoughts and feel anxious at some point in their life’s, actually having an anxiety disorder is something very different and more complex.

Since I was 10 years old, I have had generalized anxiety disorder. Growing up, I thought it was normal to have an anxiety disorder, which included frequent anxiety attacks. I believed that most people faced frequent spurts of panic for no good reason that left them in tears and unable to move. I thought it was normal to get so worked up over school, work, or my preferred sport at the time that I would start shaking and quickly lose focus. I thought it was normal to let these anxious feelings override my everyday life and eventually lead to a state of utter sadness that seemed impossible to get out of.

Society has romanticized these feelings of anxiety and have somehow made them seem normal. Well let me let you in on a secret, while worrying about things is a normal thing, having an anxiety disorder is not at all normal.

I need people to understand what I mean when I say I have anxiety. I need people to understand that it is not infrequent worrying that causes infrequent stress, but it is worrying every day to the point of chaos. There is a quote from a man pictured by the Humans of New York, and he says that anxiety “is the indescribable fear of nothing”, and that description is so relatable. Anxiety is sitting in class, laying in bed, or standing in a crowd and suddenly starting to panic. The panic has no reason behind it, other than the disorder that is trying to take over your life. It is panic that causes shaking and hyperventilating and stress to the point of tears. It is nightmares that invade your mind every night while you are trying to rest, and the panic that comes during the day when you begin to remember the nightmares. It is the inability to understand that this panic can lead to spurts of depression that can leave you wanting to stay in bed for days just to escape the worrying and fear. It is the absolute chaos of the mind.

Now of course, there are good days that occur in between the harder days, and throughout time I have learned to deal with my anxious feelings much better. This is not at all a call for pity from others, this a call to make it clear to people that when people say that they have generalized anxiety disorder, they don’t mean worrying over trivial things. They are talking about something much more critical than that.

I need people to understand this, and I need society to stop telling people that don’t yet understand their problem that what they are facing is “normal”. So, if you feel yourself going through some of the feelings that I have been describing, please reach out for help. Because you, my friend, do not need to be living in the chaos that anxiety can cause.