Anxiety: a feeling of worry, nervousness or unease, typically about an imminent event or something with an uncertain outcome. Anxiety comes in all kinds of different forms and shapes, it's not black and white, it's a whole lot of gray area, and loving someone that has any type of anxiety is difficult, but love isn't love without fighting and perseverance. It may be hard to be with someone with anxiety, but here are the ways to correctly be there for that person.
1. Try not to get offended.
With anxiety comes the need for reassurance. So please be patient with us, even if it's the 1235254634th time that we've asked you if you're leaving. We cannot control our anxiety most of the time. If we ask you a question over and over again, over a period of the time, there is a very big chance that we've sat ourselves down multiple times trying to convince ourselves not to ask you, but our anxiety wins in the end. We always want to know what you're thinking because we don't want to be blindsided. In a sense, hearing your answer again and again is the only way we can control our anxiety. You may have to repeat yourself over and over and over, but it is never because we doubt you, hearing that you aren't leaving is the only way to calm our overthinking thoughts. You may hate it, but we'll thank you and love you for it eternally.
2. We don't open up often, due to fear, but when we do we open up big.
Opening up to someone is scary to everyone, but when you are constantly scared that every person you let in your life is going to leave you eventually, no matter what you do, it's a little difficult to become that vulnerable to somebody. Even sitting here now, thinking about opening up to someone, becoming so open that they know everything about you, and being your complete self makes me want to go into a full-fledged panic attack. We look to you for so many things, when we're content and our anxiety is put a little to rest. At the moment, everything is easy and we are reassured. But when we're sad and a complete mess, things will get hard. We become dependent because you become the person that we tell everything to, especially when we're so used to keeping it in. With you, we don't have to do that. You are the person we trust when our world gets turned upside down for the tenth time that day. Because you see us so vulnerable and open, we latch onto you and we give ourselves in a way that no other person will do for you ever again, that I'm sure of.
3. Little things can throw us into a whirlwind.
Anxiety takes over your body. It takes over your heart and makes decisions for you that you'd rather make for yourself. Little things like a late or short response can send us into a fury of wondering what we did wrong. Not hearing from you for a couple of days can put us through some of the worst stress of not knowing where we stand with you or what you're thinking of us. With anxiety comes constant overthinking. Every little thing can be put into terrible proportions for us, we can take one simple text and make it into you never actually wanted us.
4. Be patient.
Because we don't open up easily, when we do, it takes so much of us, especially if we're dating the person. And if that ends in a break up, it can be drastic for us. People with anxiety struggle to find themselves again after losing a person they put so much of themselves in. Trusting people is hard and it makes it 100 times worse when someone breaks that trust so easily and leaves after countless of times of promising that they'll never leave. It's hard to let someone in after that because the constant fear of having another person leave tears us apart. But when they finally trust you and open up to you, it'll be a love that you'll never forget. They'll love you more than you'll ever be able to comprehend and once you feel a love like that, it's nearly impossible to find anything better.
