What anxiety is to me.

[goldenmight]

I guess I should start all of this by admitting that I’m having an episode as I’m typing this. I’m not sure exactly what brought this on, only that I have a deep desire to inform the love of my life that the way I think is not normal, and that I need him to understand the fundamentals of my craziness. Because I know he doesn’t understand. It comes across every day, in the way he responds to me, the way he acts. He’s confused, I’m sure, on why - to him - it seems like I have a breakdown every week.

I won’t lie and say that it is all my fault. He is a human being with his own issues (and man, does admitting that say a lot about my growth), his own heart, his own mind. I believe he might have bipolar disorder after knowing him for a year and a half now. This brings on its own challenges, however this isn’t about his issues. This is about allowing him a glimpse into the mind of a depressed, anxiety ridden, sensitive girl with very glaring symptoms.

I’m not a poet, but I know adjectives, and I want to try my best to describe what exactly is happening in my mind on a day to day basis and what happens to me when I am in an episode. I hope one day I have the courage to show this to him, but right now this is between me and the page (and maybe a blog for all those that are just as confused as my boyfriend on what the hell is wrong with people with anxiety and depression).

I’m not going to romanticize this. There’s nothing romantic about feeling insecure, and watched, and crazy. There’s no glory in this deep pit I feel almost every day. But there are good days, and that’s the thing I and everyone else needs to understand the most.

There are good days.

There are days where the sun is shining and he looks at you and smiles just right. There’s days where nothing anyone says or does can bring you down.

Honestly, most days start out like that for me. My depression is a symptom of my anxiety. That’s what one of my therapists told me a few years back. And I think understanding where my depression comes from is one of the best ways to help me fight it. But more on that later; we’re talking about good things right now.

Most days I wake up feeling pretty good. I guess this is the thing that probably throws my boyfriend off the most. I am smiling and happy in the morning. I seem pretty normal, and I actually feel like a decent person. But then one thing, just one little, insignificant shrug of the shoulders or a slight frown after something I say will set off the anxiety.

I am pretty good at recognizing the signs nowadays. I mean, I’m not perfect, so sometimes it’ll take me a couple of hours to know that I’m overthinking myself into a panic. I’m also really good at hiding my anxiety most of the time as well. I don’t want to be crazy around the person I love and want to impress the most. So a lot of the times, when I come to him crying or sad or just totally panicked, it’s definitely a shock for him. That’s my fault, I know, but I still can’t allow myself to let him know just how truly fucked up I am.

I tried telling him what anxiety was like before. We were both pretty high and sitting on the porch just talking, and I offered the explanation. I could tell he didn’t truly understand despite being sympathetic. And maybe that was my fault. Talking out loud is still very hard for me (super long backstory that I don’t want to get into) and I’m sure I didn’t explain a lot of it very well out loud.

But this is in paper, which is a safe space for my words I suppose.

So, anxiety. The thing a lot of people believe doesn’t truly exist. A mental problem that quite a few people brush off. They don’t believe it is a handicap, they don’t believe that drugs should be taken, and they don’t believe that it is enough of an issue for someone to completely check out of reality. Honestly, I didn’t want to believe it either.

I don’t want to think of myself as handicapped. I don’t want to think of myself needing drugs just to be okay most days. I don’t want this extra reassurance all the time just because of the insecurities I overthink myself into having. People that know me would say that I’m sunshine, that I am a hard worker, that I can be a bitch but I still freely share my knowledge with others. A lot of people think I am a strong person. And for me to admit that I’m not, not really … yeah, not the easiest thing to do. I’m quite a soft person that works in a corporate position in a warehouse. Yikes to the extreme. I need to be tough. I need to be stable and strong and a good thinker. I need a clear head.

Anxiety is not a clear head.

I am not outlining this to seem like a martyr. I’m just trying to stress the importance of what I need to be for my job and my family versus what I actually am: quite sensitive.

You know how most women, when they are on their periods, get very touchy with their emotions? You know how they cry, or get mad at stupid shit, or generally are very much a rollercoaster with their emotions? Think of that and everything that comes with it, but every single fucking day.

To me, anxiety is like hallucinating. The things that I am thinking are not real. The emotions I am feeling are just reactions to these simple gestures that do not mean anything negative. I see people look at me and immediately my thoughts are spiraling into, “Why are they looking? Is my hair messed up? Are they hearing my thoughts?” These questions I ask myself have no real basis in reality. They are looking because they happened to glance my way. I am just a normal looking person. My hair may be a little messy, but isn’t it always? No, they can’t read my thoughts. What am I, ten?

Anxiety is knowing that your thoughts are absolutely crazy, but believing in them anyway. Anxiety is making up situations in your head and working yourself into a panic because this fake scenario you set up doesn’t seem quite so imaginary anymore.

I think and I think and I think and I panic and I panic and I panic, and then I break down. And it was just a shrug of someone’s shoulders that set it off. The problem, more than anything, is that I care way too damn much about what other people think of me.

I can’t separate reality and my thoughts easily. I can’t seem to control how much of myself I put into someone else’s actions. Anxiety, to me, is a very selfish handicap. And it drains me and makes me feel guilty for putting myself through this and forcing it on another person. That person was just being themselves and I took whatever they said and gave myself a panic attack, forcing this response onto their shoulders. And I hate myself for it.

A lot of what I feel is hate, as well. All for myself, if I’m honest. I don’t believe myself to be a good person, most days. I work hard to prove to others that I am a good person, but deep down there’s a lot of hate for myself.

And that’s the worst part. If I just loved myself and put myself as an equal to others, a lot of this wouldn’t be happening in my mind I’m sure. I mean, the overthinking and hallucinating would still be there, but it wouldn’t be as strong and I’d be able to pull myself out of it a little better. But I don’t, and therein lies the problem.

I hate myself. And I believe that others do, too. My anxiety makes me think they only keep me around because I’m useful. I cook. I serve. I can help with computers and make some cool art. But they all truly despise me, right? No one wants to deal with an anxiety ridden, depressive, needy little girl.

And even admitting this in paper makes me feel guilty as well. Because forcing my issues on someone else makes me hate myself more. And reacting the way I do because of the hate I feel for myself just feeds into this purely chaotic cycle of instability.

I take drugs for this shit now. I have to, or I’m almost always a minute or hour or day away from breaking down and forcing others to be strong for me. I just want to be strong myself, you know? I want to be capable. I don’t want this. I don’t want to hate myself, and I don’t want others to hate me. I want to be happy and enjoy life without feeling like I’m on a stage with people ready to chuck tomatoes at me. And the worst part is, these people aren’t going to throw tomatoes at me. Because I’m hallucinating this.

Because anxiety is not based in reality. And I think more people need to be aware of this. Reality is real, and normal people live in it and see people like me and think that we live in reality, too, but just don’t want to own up to the fact and want to be lazy and have people be sympathetic for a made up mental disease.

But just because I don’t live in reality doesn’t mean this disease doesn’t. I’m genuinely fucked up, I need help, and when other people don’t understand it makes me feel like I’m alone.

I feel like I’m drowning, every day, because I look around and I see contempt for something that I have no control over, and then I have contempt for my own self for going through this. I feel lonely, every day. And I force myself onto people because I don’t want to feel alone anymore.

[gerg]

Hi,

I hope that putting this down on paper has been a positive thing. You did an extremely good job. I know this because I have felt the same way for my entire life. It is a powerful and cunning disease. I got relief through therapy. My therapy was based on Rational Emotive Therapy. I do a lot of self study to supplement the skills that I learned there. One thing that is helpful is the study of perception, there is a really good book on the subject. RET teaches that things are not good or bad, it is the view that we wish to take of them that makes them so. Our self talk becomes our reality, therefore I must constantly challenge what I am saying to myself. I see these efforts as being my cunning and powerful tools that allow me to fight and win a lifetime of battles.