Living With Anxiety

Lets get one thing straight: all anxiety is different.

This story is about my anxiety and only some people, or none, may relate to the struggles I have. That’s completely normal.

I was officially diagnosed by my pediatrician in September, though I had been having panic attacks since last February. I think the reason it took so long to take action was because my family was worried about me being put on medication. Anti-anxiety medication is easy to become dependent on, and my parents didn’t want me to be on it for years if I didn’t need to be. The whole reason I was put on pills was to help my sleep, and if I wasn’t sleeping my body wasn’t healing. Anxiety not only impacts your mental health, but can impact your physical health as well.

Most of my panic attacks would occur at night when I had way too much time to think about all the things that could go wrong in my life. Sometimes I’d even have to sleep in my parents room because I was afraid I was going die.

It became too much for me and my parents so they finally took me to the doctor.

After going over my symptoms he concluded that I had an anxiety disorder and that I was, in fact, not dying.

I was put on Lexapro and then we found a psychologist in the area that could help me through talk therapy.

At first I was unsure about seeing a therapist. How could anyone talk to a complete stranger about their deepest fears and dark thoughts? Nonetheless, I was willing to do anything to get more sleep and be happy again.

It’s only been a short while since beginning medication and therapy so I still have many problems in my every day life.

1. Every social interaction is exhausting.

Don’t get me wrong, I love people. I like to chat among my peers and make friends. The problem is that I can’t always act like I want to. I have to seem happy and kind because who wants to hang out with someone that’s grumpy and pessimistic all the time? No one. Being someone that just wants to hide away in a dark hole most days of the week, acting happy takes a lot of energy and makes you even more exhausted than you already are.

2. Literally the smallest ache anywhere means you’re dying.

I can’t tell you how many hours at night I’ve spent googling all of my symptoms just to be told I have three types of cancer and nerve damage. That’s all obviously very unlikely, and any rational person can see that, but anxiety makes you unrational. So of course you believe it and make your panic attacks worse.

3. You’re constantly haunted by the thought that everyone secretly hates you.

I’ll be having a normal, causal conversation with someone and if they even once look the slightest bit uninterested you automatically assume you’re being annoying and they wish you’d shut up. So then you do. But then you think that they think you’re being rude and ignoring them. There’s just no way you can win. Either you’re annoying or a bitch.

These are just the few things that bug me the most everyday. I haven’t even gotten to the part where I have to check under my bed every night or in the back of my car before I get it. I’ll save all that for another time.

The point is that even though I feel like I’m dying, I most certainly am not. Not yet anyways. There are many people just like me. The smallest things that happen everyday could be considered a struggle for some. It’s important that we understand that something could be easy for us, maybe we don’t even think about it, but for someone else it could cause them a lot of stress. Since we are all humans and should know how to be empathetic and respectful, we should act on it. No one is expected to understand what it’s like to have anxiety, but everyone should be sensitive about it.

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