Living with Anxiety

For as long as I can remember, I have always lived with anxiety. It feels as if I am in a rocking chair. Although my body may be moving, I am not actually propelling forward. It prevents me from being able to go out and enjoy the things that I should enjoy doing at twenty four years old. Things like going out, meeting with friends, meeting with family, etc. I have also always been shy. I guess you could say that the two seem to walk hand in hand with each other.

But what does anxiety actually feel like? How can it be described so that other people can understand? For each person who suffers with anxiety, the symptoms are all different. They do not present themselves the same way. Personally, for me, it makes me feel so overwhelmed that I have trouble doing simple things. Things like thinking, sleeping, and eating. Sometimes I do not even know where my anxiety is coming from or why it began to show itself. One minute I am fine, and the next I feel like I am drowning. I cannot breathe, I feel sick to my stomach, and my head is a tortured jumble of messy and horrific thoughts and emotions. I cannot keep my ducks in a row once my anxiety kicks in.

Here is an example of how my anxiety works. A few years ago, I had to get on a plane and fly down to Florida for a funeral. I cannot get onto a plane without having a panic attack, let alone make it through security without having a complete breakdown; tears and all. When I reach security, I start to feel as if I cannot breathe. When I got to the terminal where my gate was, I was sick to my stomach and ended up locking myself in a bathroom stall until the last possible second before boarding. The strange thing though? Once I was on the plane, I was completely fine.

Although anxiety affects different people in different ways, it takes a lot of strength to live with my disorder. It affects every aspect of my life and I fight with my demons every single day. Sometimes I win and sometimes I love, but it is just the way life has to work. Over the years I have learned that stress, anxiety, and depression all play hand in hand. It is caused simply by trying to make other people happy. I have always had a nasty habit of putting other people before myself, and that is where the problem lies. I like to help others, even when I do not know how to help myself. Even when I cannot help myself. Other people always come first, no matter what.

I would not dare to call myself or anyone else weak, simply because this kind of anxiety would tear any person apart from the inside out. It would eat you alive for the rest of your life. After all, you should not condemn someone based off what they are going through inside of their own heads. At the very least, attempt to imagine yourself in their shoes. Every one of us is a human being. Simply said, we are all human. That fact is a reality that we must all contend with every day of our lives. For as long as any of us lives, that will never alter.

So my advice to you my friends, is this: extend a helping hand and show some compassion for those around you. Treat other people the way you would want them to treat you. You can never truly know how many demons a person is fighting or how much pain they are capable of holding in. Trust me when I tell you that people with anxiety will appreciate the patience you show them when the panic attack is over. The best thing you can do is remain as patient as you can and support them through it.