Life with anxiety isn't a walk in the park. It's hard. People try to understand, but they can't unless they suffer as well. Anxiety is feeling overwhelmed. It is overthinking anything and everything. It's the feeling when your stomach drops and turns; the feeling of not being able to breathe. Anxiety is feeling nervous or worried about both the known and the unknown. We certainly don't ask for this.

We would love to be without it. Anxiety makes you feel like a burden to everyone you meet. It makes you believe things that are ultimately untrue, such as the fact that no one likes you. Anxiety is deceiving and suffocating. It doesn't allow you to live to your full potential. This is an inside look at what those with anxiety hear, in their heads or out loud from others, and think every day.

"Just breathe," they say.

"Everything will be okay."

But what if it's not?

What if I lose everything I've got?

"Just stop thinking so much."

"I think you're exaggerating just a touch."

I'm sorry. I just can't help it.

It's not that I'm trying to throw a fit.

"You're just making things up."

"Why do you get so weird when I ask you, 'What's up'?"

I really do struggle, and I know you don't understand.

Unless you go through it, I don't think you ever can.

"Stop being so dramatic."

"Why can't you be more phlegmatic?"

I'm sorry. I can't control my feelings. I can't hold them in.

They control me, and they get under my skin.

"Stop saying what you don't need to mention."

"You're just looking for attention."

Do you really think I want to be like this?

I just have too many feelings to dismiss.