Everyone experiences anxiety. A little anxiety is even considered natural and even…good. You see, anxiety is necessary for our survival. Our heart beats faster, our palms begin to feel clammy. We may perspire and our cheeks flush a bright pink. You might experience a few of these symptoms as your body is preparing itself for “survival mode”. Emotions like fear, anxiety, or embarrassment send signals to the brain and body in order to protect itself.

Anxiety becomes a problem when it expands outward from basic survival mode and creeps into everyday life. Worrying excessively about minor problems, turning worries into more intense concerns than a situation might warrant. (Like walking into a room full of people (scary), to overthinking about something you said 24 hours ago that no longer pertains to this very moment and you’re starting to make yourself sick over it because you’re convinced that you’ve given the wrong impression.

Of course there's no way that I could possibly list all of the situations a person with anxiety can feel anxious about but I’m trusting that if you’re reading this that you have a good understanding of what this is all about. If you can pick one thing from the above paragraph that's heavily predominant, it’s that people with anxiety care. We care a lot. We care too much. We care just enough. Not just for our own sanity but for yours, too.

So many of us want to rid our anxiety, which, speaking from someone who has a lifetime of GAD which stemmed from PTSD (Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) I know, lots of letters. Sometimes it gets in the way. It’s not needed 100% of the time and yes, it would be peachy keen for it to pack up and leave for vacation or thrust itself into heavy traffic and never return. As in good-bye. As in gone.

GONE.

I’ve been doing some thinking and there are so many written articles out there about the maladaptive effects that anxiety has. How bad we struggle from it, how it can negatively effect our social habits and our ability to be successful. But what if anxiety is really just our friend? Stay with me, here.

I’m about to straight up flip the negative upside down and bring out the light in this subject matter. Yup, you, my friend are about to read a positive article about how people with anxiety can actually make the best of friends…and not only the best of friends, but we would probably make great spies too seeing that we’re hyper aware of our surroundings. Let that settle in for a minute.

I’ve discovered a lot of reasons why people who have anxiety make the best of friends. Let me share them with you below:

When we love, we love to the nth degree.

Love and friendships are no joke. It takes a lot of time and commitment for us to create connection with another human being. Regardless whether its simply platonic friendship or romantic partners. We typically don’t have huge friend groups, so the intimate circle that we do have is our lifeline. It is our foundation. We are in it for the long haul, because buddy, if you get us and still want to hang out, my lord you’ve got a PFL. I’m not sure if that’s a thing but I just decided to abbreviate it for “Person for life”. Don’t ask.

If you come to us with a problem, we won’t judge you.

We understand that everyone has lessons to learn and experiences to have in order to grow and expand as people. We’re humble enough to know that your mistakes aren’t any better or worse than our own. And to be perfectly honest, we know what it feels like to be judged because we incessantly do it to ourselves internally all day long! So we’re certainly not going to subject you to that same load of crap.

Our observational skills are on point.

Most of us are hyper aware of our surroundings to the point where we can enter a room and create a blueprint of it in our minds. The closest exits, the people, all of the various scenarios that could arise etc. We’re the ones that spot the deer in the road ahead of time, notice the potentially hazardous random luggage left in the corner of the lobby, and are too anxious to go do anything considered risky so your chances of police encounters significantly decreases. Basically, stick with us and if anything messy happens you’ll be perfectly safe.

We are understanding and empathic.

Being the sensitive superhero’s that we are, if you have any problem we’re always there for you. Did I mention that we’re also great listeners? We are hypersensitive. This applies to both our own feelings and your feelings too. When we see you suffer, we suffer alongside you. We see you hurt, we hurt too. We feel it within us, we sense it, we are familiar with the pangs of human suffering…and we will be there for you.

We are brave.

Despite being notorious for staying in on Saturday nights to avoid a potential social disaster with our peers, people with anxiety are some pretty darn brave people. We live day to day borderline obsessing over the little things. Sometimes this incessant worry can overflow into a full-blown panic attack and they never come with an ETA. They just happen. They happen in the grocery store. They can happen in the middle of a conversation with your boss. They can happen in the classroom while your seated in the middle of everyone and your legs begin to feel like lead when you get up and try to leave. This stuff is no joke. When the war-zone is inside your mind it’s an entire different ball game. We build our strength and resiliency off of our quiet suffering.

So, in its entirety, people with anxiety really do make the best of friends. We really do want to hang out. Our nervous ticks can actually be pretty entertaining, and we know how to not get murdered (like I said, we’re always on the look out).

We are basically the best.