Being in college is hard. Being someone in their early twenties is hard. Being a woman in our society is hard. Add anxiety to the mix and it's almost too much for one person to handle. People who don't suffer from anxiety have a hard time understanding us sometimes, but there are a few things we really want you to know (but don't always have the means to tell you.)
1. We're not always sure how to act.
There are a lot of unwritten social rules that dictate how we as functioning humans in a society act in various situations. You probably act different around your good friends than you do around your professors or boss, for example. But for people with anxiety, these situations lead to a lot of overthinking about how to act, and often times we might come off as cold, shy, or even boring, when that couldn't be further from the truth. So please, have patience when you introduce us to new people, we might come off as super awkward or even antisocial at first (which is completely untrue, I'm personally an extrovert but many people describe me as "shy"). This doesn't mean we don't want to meet new people or hate your friends, just that we might not give the greatest first impressions.
2. Too many options can seriously stress us out.
Basically, we're extremely indecisive. This could be the simplest of decisions, like where to eat and what to wear, but for some reason our brains treat it as a life or death situation. Please don't get frustrated with us when we can't make small decisions like these, sometimes we truly don't care where to eat for dinner. Sometimes we do, but we're too busy being giant balls of stress that we don't know how to tell you. And when we're trying to make bigger, more serious decisions, please don't make them sound overly simple, because to us, they're not. The amount of decisions we now have in life is actually a main cause of why so many millennials suffer from anxiety (when we don't have a choice, we can blame it on something else. When we have a choice but something goes wrong, we only blame ourselves). This is coming from a girl who has had three different majors over three years at college, and would probably change it again if it weren't too late, so yeah, pretty indecisive.
3. We can't always explain ourselves.
When we're stressing out about something and potentially on the verge of a panic/anxiety attack and you ask us to explain "what's wrong?", we might not be able to. Even if in our heads, the answer is completely clear, it's like there's a block in our throats that just won't let us explain the problem out loud. Then we just sort of gesture awkwardly and probably cry and wish that we could just tell you telepathically, but alas. Most of the time, this just makes the situation worse, and I apologize for all the crying that might ensue.
4. Telling us to "just calm down" unfortunately doesn't work.
Having anxiety is not the same thing as simply feeling anxious. Everyone feels anxious sometimes, be it before taking a test or getting ready for a first date. Anxious is an emotion, a feeling. Anxiety is a condition, one which can't be calmed by some deep breathing or other simple relaxation tactic. Anxious is temporary, anxiety is often chronic. Telling us to "calm down" will do nothing but make us feel worse (you're confirming that we aren't normal, we can't just calm ourselves the way everone else can) nd potentially enrage us. We might have our own ways of dealing with particularly strong bouts of anxiety, so just let us work it out and be there to support us.
5. We constantly worry if we're annoying you.
The smallest thing can make us think that you hate us. And then we want to ask "do you hate me?" but also don't want to further annoy you by asking and we just sit and stress and wonder and- yes, it's all in our heads. But it feels very real and leaves us constantly critiquing literally all of our social interactions. Seriously all of them, I've criticized myself after mildly awkward conversations with my Starbucks barista that weren't even that awkward before.
6. Because of this, we need constant confirmation that you don't hate us.
Small texts and physical affirmations are all it takes, really. But without them, we go home and worry for hours upon hours if we did something wrong, if you're never going to call or text us again, when really we're just overreacting. And please dear God do not open a message on Snapchat and not reply with at least an emoji, to do otherwise could cause immense mental pain and anxiety.
7. We're always playing out ridiculous scenarios in our heads.
Sometimes good ones, but often it's us worrying about something entirely illogical. Seriously, if you forget to text us that you made it home safe after a night out and don't pick up your phone the next morning, we might be freaking out that you died.
8. The anxiety can come in waves.
What I mean by this is that sometimes, we are completely fine and almost "normal." Other times, we can barely bring ourselves to interact with others and can't stop worrying for more than a minute. The entire year of 2016 was a strong wave of anxiety for me, making all sorts of things more difficult. But previous years, some people might not even know I ever feel anxious. It can be months, weeks, days, we can't really control it. The things going on in our lives at the time are probably a strong factor. Just please don't think that we're "cured" of our anxiety during a good wave, and please deal with our stressful selves during the bad ones.
9. We really appreciate you.
For all the reasons listed above and more, we know that we are extremely hard to deal with. We sincerely love and appreciate anyone who accepts our quirks and still puts up with us, so thank you.
