You’ll never understand what it’s like.

You’ll never know the feeling of someone grabbing your lungs and using them as a stress ball or the feeling of your legs going completely numb.

You don’t know what it’s like to feel the way I do or understand why I react a certain way in different situations.

When I tell you I am having an anxiety attack, I don’t want you to ask me “why” or tell me I need to calm down. I don’t want to hear that you know how I am feeling because you don’t.

You have no clue. The slightest of things could throw me off and have me break out into what I feel is the most uncomfortable pain in my life.

Don’t tell me I’m being dramatic and need to catch my breath because, if I could, don’t you think I’d want to breathe by now? I don’t choose for this to happen; it just does.

My body just turns against me and gives me warning signs by pounding on my heart, and if I don’t catch it at the right time, I feel as if I am shutting down.

Don’t hold me when I cry because I already feel like the walls are falling in on me. I can literally feel my chest caving. The last thing I want is to be squeezed more than my body is already doing to every organ in my body.

If you want to do anything to help, just sit there with me. Sit there and wait for me to come back and listen to what I have to say.

Understand when I tell you that it just came about and there was nothing that even triggered it; sometimes it just happens and the best thing you can do is believe me.

Please don’t judge me when these sort of things happen. Accept me for who I am and all my flaws that come with being in my life.

Act the same and don’t think that you’ll ever be the reason for my anxiety because, frankly, you’ll never have that effect on me.

It's okay to not understand and, honestly, I hope you never do.