On Anxiety

The tight feeling in your chest.

Your heart beating at double the usual pace.

I don’t know if I need to throw up, or eat something, or exercise the shitty feelings away.

I would not wish these feelings on my worst enemy.

Anxiety is a word that is thrown around far too often and not taken seriously enough. In the third grade I remember biting my nails until they were down to nothing because I was so scared I would be called on during math class. In middle school, I remember fighting back tears before lunch because eating in front of other people was enough to make me feel nauseous. In high school, I remember having my car on campus and having to leave halfway through the day because I thought my heart would beat out of my chest.

Anxiety is not a joke. It is not made up. It is not asking for pity or needing accommodations or something to ignore. This is not something that I asked for or chose. Instead, anxiety is a result of how my mind is attempting to deal with the tough life experiences.

Now that I am in college, my feelings of anxiousness look different. I can sit through a class without thinking I am going to have a heart attack. I can go eat with my friends without wanting to go exercise it off later. But that does not mean that the feelings still creep up throughout my day-to-day.

I think the point of this is that it is okay to not be fully healed. Something I want to try and work on is accepting that there are going to be days where it feels as if I have made no progress. But those are the days where you have to push even harder in order to get where you want to be. It is okay to be sad and it is okay to not feel good all of the time. Your progress is measured by how you cope with those feelings and making through another day.