Lily’s Anxiety Explained — What Does It Feel Like?
You know when you wake up in the morning, feeling all relaxed, energizes and simply happy? Well, Lily always had a hard time with that. In fact, she had a hard time with all the simple things that usually come easy to people. Like singing while brushing your teeth and having a clear mind. Like kicking back with a glass of wine on a Friday night while watching Friends and not having this feeling of heaviness on your chest. Like going to bed and simply closing your eyes and sleeping.
The hardest part is usually coming to an understanding of why you’re feeling the way you’re feeling.
In all her 24 years of life, Lily thought that she just had a lot of stress in her life, caused by external factors. She would try to deal with those and make those go away. But then one day she realized that a lot of the people around her keep telling her that she overthinks, takes things too seriously and that she should just be chill.
Then another understanding came to her mind — maybe I’m a difficult person who can’t let the little things go? So she would try to bring positivity into her life, work on her self worth and when those things didn’t work, she decided that medication could be a solution. Nothing too serious, just some calming pills before going to bed.
The thing with medication for the nervous system, is that the minute you stop taking them, you go right back where you started.
As she continued living her life that seemed so perfect yet felt so unsettling, she turned to meditation, self-care routines and healthy eating. And I got to say, Lily really enjoyed meditation — it was like finally someone explained how and why her brain works the way it does.
She realized that because of her constant overthinking, the issue of being physically in one place and mentally in another all the time, she was so far away from her own reality that she didn’t even notice things that were happening right under her nose. Meditation helped her be more present and aware of her thoughts.
They say when you’re aware of something, then you can start controlling it, then you have power over it.
Well, it’s not entirely true, but it was a good starting point for her.
So she would practice self-love and live a healthier life, until this wave of thoughts, emotions, unsettling feelings of hopelessness and uncertainty would hit her right in the middle of her day.
And the thing is that she would have no reason for it, everything was okay. She would stop for a second and evaluate the situation — so, I’m sitting comfortably on my couch, I’m fed and I’m warm, everything is okay. In fact, nothing has changed in the last 10 minutes. But for some reason, all the worries of the world seem to be over her head now and all she can do is scream or cry.
Crying was always her choice because screaming would scare the world. She would start talking to herself, explaining herself that everything is still okay, analyzing her own thoughts and emotions. But for some reason, nothing could save her at the moment.
You see, when anxiety hits you, it usually hits you hard. And it usually hits you right in the brain.
Then it slowly starts to move across your body, increasing your heart rate and kind of making you want to throw up.
Lily could close up, cry on her own, pull her hair, she could also open up and try to explain her feelings and her state to others — but it wouldn’t matter which option she took, her brain was already foggy, her understanding of the reality was already changed and hopelessness was the only thing overtaking her mind.
In fact, if she took the second option and talked to someone who does not understand what anxiety is, well then it would all be worse.
It’s true, the ones who have never experienced anxiety, can never really understand it.
There comes a second, where everything feels useless and you lose the point of it all. Even if you try and take yourself out of that environment, the feeling stays with you for a while. And when you’re at that point, it gets kind of scary, you know?
She tried to remind herself that these times come and go, these feelings are not constant. That’s the thing with anxiety — it’s not depression. Lily could feel super happy, energized and full of hope towards the future one day, and then lose it all the other.
She would get anxiety once or twice a month, but those could go on for days and that was the horrifying part. But then, they would pass. And so every time she would be like a saint human being, she would promise herself and that she wouldn’t go back there ever again, and if she did, she would remember that it all will end.
Lily’s brain was powerful. It could take her to great places, places she never thought she would be able to go. It could also destroy her. She couldn’t help but think about all the others out there, who felt the same, a little less or a little worse. She just wanted to gather them all together and give hugs, as if taking the pain of others would take herself away too.
Anyway, anxiety. It’s a tricky thing. It makes people isolated. It makes them go a little crazy. It also makes them think too much, so much that it should not be allowed for one to think. But just like with anything else in life, Lily gets to live with it and that’s okay. She just keeps on reminding her that it’s not constant, in fact nothing is constant, everything is always changing. She will have good days, and she will have bad days. And maybe one day, she will actually be content.
