Anxiety

From the earliest I can remember, I’ve had bouts of anxiety and OCD. Even at the age of six, I remember thinking to myself why and feeling afraid to ask my parents why I felt the way I did.
Anxiety is a game of rational versus irrational thinking.
Especially having anxiety from a young age, it can be challenging to decipher what’s real from fake.
I discovered this only a couple years ago. After years of not so great therapy, I found someone who I could connect with. We had real conversations and she was able to piece together why my bouts of anxiety were the way they were. A lot of my anxiety as a kid went unsolved and simply ramified into adult fears.
When you’re a kid nothing seems impossible. You’re afraid of ghosts and demons, the boogie man outside the door, and a creature living under your bed isn’t so out of the ordinary.
And then you grow up. Ghosts and demons become self-esteem or success, the boogie man becomes all of your fears, and the creature living under your bed becomes anything that could make your life come crumbling down.
Over time you begin to normalize irrational thinking.
You begin to get so good at hiding the panic attacks or holding in the tears when things get to be too much.
But you shouldn’t have to. And maybe that’s when your anxiety hits rock bottom — when you realize you’re so good at hiding the thing that’s taking control of your mind and body.
The creature under your bed that you were afraid of when you were 5 is now taking over you.
You want to steer away from talking about it out of fear people will ignore everything else about you — your humor, your personality, your hopes and dreams — and solely focus on the thing “wrong” with you. You’ll be thought of as crazy or out of control. You’re so good at hiding your anxiety that the idea of telling someone about it, makes you think you’ve lost the battle.
But not telling people is part of the problem and part of the stigma. It’s not healthy.
I’ve always thought I’ve been open about my anxiety until I thought about it this way: I don’t like telling people about it because I know I can keep it inside and steer clear of their negative thoughts or reactions. I can keep people from knowing that part of me. I can keep people from feeling sorry for me. I know because I’ve done it for the last 16+ years. I bundle things up into such a small package that the people closest to me don’t even know what the other portion of me is coping with. When I open up, I feel like I lost. Like I put my feelings on someone else.
This tactic isn’t coping, it’s hiding. And it’s only plaguing the stigma against mental health even more, because I, a person with anxiety is feeding it.
Many of us, if not all of us, have anxiety to some extent. We will have bouts of anxiety throughout our lives and some of us will deal with it on a day to day basis. Anxiety, like all things, is never static, but it’s fluid. It ebbs and flows and puts on disguises we would never recognize and often refuse to recognize.
The real challenge is recognizing it and taking off the mask.
And while I wouldn’t wish anxiety on my worst enemy, I’m also thankful for the things its afforded me, that I would otherwise maybe not quite get. Blessings in disguise, I guess.
Gratitude for the simple things — the good days, when you’re mind isn’t trying to find problems to fix, and for overcoming the bad days. A sunny day, but also a cloudy day. My friends and my family.
Empathy. Anxiety is like having a sixth sense that a majority of the time can help you understand, listen, and learn from others; recognize when something is wrong, when something is off. The other part of the time its the annoying voice in the back of your head trying to ruin your peace.
The basic things that bring happiness — often things taken for granted, bring about pure gratitude.
The feeling when everything is okay.
And that’s something we can all connect to. We all strive to be happy and feel okay, to be loved, and connect to some greater purpose. It’s what makes us human.
