Tell me what anxiety feels like?

She pushes her glasses slightly up the bridge of her nose and looks directly at me. Why do all therapists wear glasses? Is it to see into your soul more clearly?

“Tell me what it feels like when you have anxiety,” she politely asks. She’s always polite.

I fidget a little because I hate this question. She tries to ask it every time I say ‘I felt anxious this week.’ Sometimes I wish she wouldn’t ask me anything at all.

Could quiet therapy ever be a thing? Can therapists one day just be able to read my mind and save me from having to put into words what cannot be put into words?

How am I supposed to tell her that anxiety feels like someone is scraping a chalkboard with sharp fingernails right next to my ear, but the board never seems to end? It’s like the creepy crawly feeling that spurts in your stomach when you see something weird, but the feeling follows you even after the fact. That it feels like making yourself vomit to get all the bad out, but never feeling the release and getting stuck in a cycle of dry heaving. What happens if I tell her?

“Hmm,” I say quietly, “Just…not great…”

But really. How can I tell her that it feels like a constant thunder of voices in my mind that never seem to shut up, stop, or stay quiet, but I’m trying to decode every word? That it feels like the worst things my mom, dad, and best friend could say to me simultaneously, but I keep listening because at some point they’ll have to say something good, right? It’s like getting to the scariest part of the movie where you kind of want to close your eyes, but you never figure out when you should open them so you’re suspended in half fear, half indecision, half the experience. What happens if I tell her?

She clears her throat and looks at me kindly. Even when I’m at my worst, she never judges. She’s good at her job. At least I hope she is.

“Give me a few more details. Or maybe some examples to help me understand a bit more,” she tries to nudge me to speak. It never works.

I look down at my hands and stay quiet. She knows me well enough to know I heard the question the first time. She won’t speak until I do, but I hate the silence. Why does it feel like I can give a wrong answer to these stupid questions?

Can I tell her that it’s feels like drowning in air? Like your chest is always tight and never lets you get an entire breath and instead is slowly suffocating you by giving ½ as much air, ¼ as much air, ⅛ as much air with every passing second. That it feels like the reincarnation of someone saying ‘if you aren’t living, then you’re dying’, but they put 20lb weights on all your limbs at the same time that only they can take off. What happens if I tell her?

She writes down some notes. I assume it’s probably something along the lines of my failure to express feelings or inability to do something or other. I hate when she takes notes. I hate when she ask me questions I can’t answer. I hate it when she waits for me to still figure out what it could be. I hate it when she repeats the question. I hate it that this is the 3rd year we’ve been working together and we’re just getting somewhere. But I also don’t. I just hate being anxious.

What happens if I tell her the truth? It feels like limbo.