A Day in My Life with Anxiety

An abnormal and overwhelming sense of apprehension and fear often marked by physical signs, by doubt concerning the reality and nature of the threat, and by self-doubt about ones capacity to cope with it. Also known as anxiety. Well, the Webster definition at least.

For me, anxiety is defined as my state of constant worry of whether or not I'm going to be successful in life, or always looking over my shoulder worrying something might happen to me, or me overthinking every situation I put myself in. Anxiety to me means that I hate drama because it stresses me out, and I flinch every time someone fake hits me or even raises a hand like they might. It means that even when something hasn't happened yet, I come up with 12 different scenarios of the outcome and worry about each one. It means that there is a constant battle in my head of right and wrong. There are many different levels of anxiety and fortunately for me, I'm low enough on the scale that I don't need to take any medications to help me cope, but rather I just need someone to talk to about a problem more often then others. I'm the kind of person who needs someone to tell me I'm being crazy or to stop worrying and I believe them enough to stop. I'm a social person, almost like I'm a closeted anxious person. I like going out and being around people. I like trying new things and traveling. But I don't like talking to people on the phone and I worry if I bother people too much. I question every time I leave my house whether or not I turned my hair straightener off, and I hate seeing the little numbers in the corner of my apps on my phone so I make sure they're always clear (even if I don't respond to the text messages). I lay in bed and create scenarios that would probably never happen, but then I stress and worry about them. It's a never ending cycle and this happens every day.

My very first anxiety attack was about 4 years ago. I was dating this guy and we had a pregnancy scare. I had been dealing with anxiety for a little while now, but when I thought I might be carrying this man's child, I had a full blown attack. I'm talking like heaving into a paper bag in the fresh air kind of attack. I didn't want a life with this man, but for reasons I've explained in other articles of mine, I couldn't leave him just yet. It took me 30 minutes to get my chest to stop closing up and my brain to finally calm down. I haven't had one that bad since then, but I've also hadn't had a pregnancy scare again. Nowadays I just overthink everything.

My day starts like anyone else. I wake up, shower, eat breakfast, brush my teeth, and go about my day. Throughout this whole process though, I'm internally freaking out about the little noises I heard while I was showering, or I worry that my teeth might fall out if I don't brush them long enough. I worry about my weight and if I should have a bowl of cereal or eggs for breakfast. When I leave the house, most times I either wait until the garage door is completely shut or I drive back up my driveway to make sure it did. While driving, I check my mirrors more often than most people. Sometimes I'm making sure that there is nobody following me and sometimes I'm just looking for cops. Nonetheless I'm always looking at my mirrors. Probably more often than at the actual road.

When I get to work I'm constantly looking over my shoulder for someone behind me. My coworkers like to scare me, but what they don't know is that I'm genuinely scared. I like to make sure everything is perfect, from every piece of silverware rolled to making sure we have plenty of back ups in case we run out of food during service. I follow the rules to a tee, just in case my boss is watching and preparing to yell at me for something. I map out every possible scenario of what could go wrong during service and make sure everything is perfect. And then I stress out when it doesn't. By the end of my shift, I'm pretty much exhausted. Not from any kind of physical work, but the emotionally drama the day tolled on me.

Now I'm home, and I take another shower. I don't like kitchen smell of me when I'm going to bed. I lay in bed and replay my day. I come up with many different ways I could've avoided certain problems and then stress myself out about the next days problems. But who knows if they will even be problems. I check my phone about 10 times before I finally put it down and go to sleep. I don't want to go to sleep with any messages still waiting for me.

What a lot of people don't know is that anxiety is not just a mental state, but it will physically harm you as well. The tension in my shoulders, my mood changes very quickly, my heart rate rises and falls drastically. They say that stress is a top cause to many bodily issues. While I'm constantly stressing out all day about whether or not I should've done something or worrying about my future, or watching my back, I'm really just constantly hurting my physical body. I do worry about my mistakes, and their repercussions. I do believe I'm never good enough or that I won't be successful in the future.

Living with anxiety is hard. There is a constant battle in my head of whether or not I should be doing something, or deciding against something I should probably do, or the laws of right and wrong. I'm not saying that I have the worst case, because obviously there are people around me living with extreme forms of it, but I've learned to cope with mine. Music helps me tremendously. Even if I'm listening to a sad song, I focus more on the beat and flow of the music and not so much the words. Reading helps me, writing helps me, exercising helps me. I choose to take my anxiety with a grain of salt and really focus on things that are going to make me happy. I made friends that know and understand and help me through every tiny panic attack and let down. I have family that is helping me find my journey in life. I might wake up every day worrying about how the day will plan out, but I'm surrounded by people who help me daily. And that's the best cure.