Anxiety affects millions of people on a daily basis, myself included. For those who don’t struggle with anxiety, the idea of it is something that some are unable to completely grasp and understand. I decided to share a Sunday in the life of my anxious mind and how it’s not always obvious when someone lives with anxiety.
Sunday Morning:
“Wake up, WAKE UP. You can’t sleep in any longer! What if you miss out on something?!”
“Are you sure you want to wear that? Does it look a little too....old lady-ish? What if people stare? Just throw on something you always wear.”
“No make-up? Really....what if you see someone you know? You look a little sick...and your skin could use some cover up.”
“Time for breakfast...gotta choose something on the healthier side so I don’t feel guilty all day.”
Mornings like this have proven to be the hardest for me. There are some days where I wake up and I feel so panic stricken that I want to avoid all responsibilities, texts, and plans to stay in bed. The times where I force myself out of bed, normally results in me over-�analyzing my outfit and makeup decisions for the day, which sounds superficial, but it goes deeper than just that for me.
Sunday Afternoon:
“Was I overly friendly to that cashier?”
“I can’t believe I just saw them....do you think they thought I was rude? I was just in a rush, I hope they don’t view me differently now...maybe I should message them...but then what if they didn’t think I was rude and now my message just makes them think I’m weird?”
“I should go to the gym, but I hate seeing people I know, I wonder if they judge me...”
“I’m just going to go home and do some homework until the stress makes me so anxious that I shut down.”
It’s not a normal day without at least one of these thoughts entering my head. For me, my anxiety causes me to stress the interactions I have with individuals and to feel overwhelmed by simple decisions, like if I should go to the gym or home instead.
Sunday Night:
“Time to lay in bed and recap my day over and over in my head until I start thinking about things from the past like...”
“Two months ago I made this mistake, but what if history repeats itself and that’s my downfall every time? What if I’m just not cut out for certain things like love? I mean after analyzing the exact moment things fell apart and my actions, I would have to say that...”
These endless thoughts provoked by my anxiety surrounding not being good enough and being too much or too little for others haunt my night routines 8 out of 10 times. Bedtime normally results in not only recapping the day, but if I have trouble falling asleep because of the day I had, it then leads to analyzing past mistakes and incidents. That’s what anxiety does though, it builds up inside of you and causes this explosion of thoughts that you think about so intensely, making the situation 100 times worse.
If you take anything away from this, I hope it’s that those with anxiety don’t want to be that way. They don’t want to spend their days wondering if they’re enough or if every move they make is okay. Anxiety sucks, there’s absolutely no denying it, but one thing I’ve learned is that it’s made me more aware of other people’s struggles. Since I know the burden of anxiety, it has allowed me to understand other’s issues as well. While I wish there would be a day where mine would magically disappear, I know that’ll never be the case so I have learned to handle this love-hate relationship.
