Imagine this. It's noon on a perfectly good day. You got off to a good start, had plenty of reasons to smile throughout, and life feels like it's going smoothly for you. The sun is shining, the sky is blue, and the birds are signing.
But, there's a shadow that's been lurking behind you. It looks like you, but it's so much more sinister.
It creeps over you suddenly without warning.
Your palms get sweaty, your heart starts beating out of your chest, and the whole, beautiful world immediately looks really bleak.
The sun still shines, she sky is still blue, the birds still sing. But you don't notice anymore.
Your face heats up, your breath quickens and gets shallow. Somehow even the air feels heavy. It's like you're running a marathon but you can't take a step forward.
That's an anxiety attack.
Sometimes you don't even know why it's happening.
Living with anxiety is having almost no control over your thoughts, actions, and feelings. No matter how many times you tell yourself to "just breathe, everything is going to be alright," you never really believe it, because maybe this time is the time that it isn't alright. Maybe this is the thing that ruins everything.
Anxiety is a deafening voice in your head that constantly questions every action you take. It blurs the lines between real and not real, and it's easy to get caught up in truly believing that you are a terrible person, or that you can't do anything right, or that everyone dislikes you for some reason. The question "what if" is on a constant loop with no off button. There's almost no way to tell if the feelings you're having are true or if they've been placed there by the anxiety monster.
Living with anxiety is a constant battle. Weeks will go by when your sheets will feel like they hold the weight of the world and getting out of bed is too hard, much less doing anything that isn't forced upon you like social activities or schoolwork.
The longer time passes while anxiety is winning, the worse things get and the darker the world seems. This can make you feel like a bad person because you know the sun is shining and the world is bright, but you can't seem to enjoy it because you're obsessing over other things. Small things pile up and become big things, and sometimes you tell people about them and they don't understand and then you feel worse.
You are not alone. You are not wrong or broken because you feel this way, and you are certainly not alone.
People with anxiety can't control it. They aren't making it up, overreacting, or being over dramatic. They are fighting an uphill battle every single day, and the best thing you can do for them is to love them through it and try to understand.
