Anxiety...
One simple word can mean so many different things to a person. It can bring fear or sadness. People endure different obstacles every day and anxiety is one of them. Something so simple can flicker anxiety causing a breakdown in the middle of the grocery store, studying for class, or even as simple as reading this article.
Anxiety is never exactly the same for people; though it is inevitable. Many like to describe it as your are drowning in a lake, and everyone is watching you. While we emerge in this feeling, it strikes us, and we wonder, where is the help? Is there even any help?
People walk around with a new struggle every day that we know nothing about. At that very moment we encounter someone, could they be having an anxiety attack? We will probably never know. While it might not look like it on the outside, their insides could be tearing them apart. Anxiety gets triggered by so many different things and it can be something new every time.
How do we avoid it? Unfortunately, when anxiety is severe, it is so hard to avoid. It is our worst nightmare, and indeed it is a mental illness. But calling it a mental illness seems like we are trying to receive attention. It is the struggle between people knowing we have an "illness" or giving a cry out for help and facing possible rejection or support. The two seem very likely when you struggle with something so capable of controlling your life.
Every day people play off anxiety like it is nothing, or they try to at the very least. We play it off for many reasons: fitting in, work (no one wants to hire an emotionally unstable person), or so your family does not gossip about it. People knowing about anxiety only seems to make it worst. You are already anxious enough and freak out over little things to begin with, what will people think of me if they know I have anxiety? It is a constant back and fourth battle in our minds. Once people know, they really don't care, or they try to help, almost too much...
Then the question strikes from someone without anxiety: "What about medicine?" Well, relying on a simple anxiety pill probably won't make me feel better, and do I really want to rely on pills to make my day better? It seems a little unrealistic for me, personally.
Nonetheless, knowing anxiety is a real thing is crucial. People suffer from anxiety daily. It becomes more and more "popular" throughout people as the days go on. Some people find out they have anxiety after not knowing for 18 years of their lives. The horrid ache in your chest and the drowning feeling never seems to get easier. In fact, it only seems to get worse. It makes you question many things.
So when you meet someone new or even encounter someone you know, give them a smile. You never know what someone else is going through.
