Anxiety doesn’t discriminate, it doesn’t matter who you are. Anxiety doesn’t care about your background, your race, or your ethnicity. People with anxiety are struggling with this disorder behind closed doors, because to us there is nothing worse than for someone else to see us fall apart. A doctor is not a cure for this all the time, but having alone time or a pair of ears to listen to us are some important things that show us we are unconditionally loved.
1. Social gatherings and events are hard for us
Going to parties or going out for the night on the town is one of our worst night mares. We overanalyze everything in that moment. “Where are we going? How many people will be there? How many people do I know that are going to be there? Where are my escape routes if I get an attack?” These are some of the questions that race through our minds when someone asks us to go out. If we turn down your invite, honestly it is not because we are trying to avoid you or we don’t love you, it just may be the fact that the party and the night on the town can be overwhelming to us. We would rather see paint dry than be put in that situation.
2. By the end of anxiety filled day we are physically and mentally exhausted
When we spend majority of the day overanalyzing everything and having small “freak outs” throughout the day nothing is more appealing to us than a long long nap. Keep in mind that those who have anxiety are constantly living in a hyper-tense state. Of course this means our blood pressure and heart rate are through the roof. Be kind to us if you see that we are tired and cranky it most likely does not have anything to do with you it’s just the anxiety.
3. Not everybody with anxiety experience or have panic attacks.
Panic attacks are never pleasant, some of us actually 1 in 75 people according to the American Psychological Association will have a panic attack. People who have panic attacks usually feel chest pain, shortness of breath, nausea and fear of losing control. Panic attacks are pretty quick to happen and yes they are not life-threatening but they certainly feel like they are. Keep in mind that there is not much that you can do when a person goes through a panic attack, but by being there for that person means a lot.
4. We don’t all need medication to cure our anxiety
The most common question people with anxiety have is why aren’t you being medicated. Well it’s not quite that easy. Keep in mind that what works for cousin Billy who has anxiety might not exactly work for the rest. Some people respond well to medication and others may actually have other severe responses to the medication.
5. Trying to understand our own anxiety gives us anxiety.
Thinking about our own anxiety gives us even more anxiety. We try to understand why we are so different from the rest. It is very difficult to understand why you are one of the people who overanalyze everything, and have all these symptoms while the rest of the population seems to be doing fine.While most people concentrate on their day with simple questions such as what shoes am I going to wear, we think what will happen if I have a panic attack in the car, or in class, and if we do how can we distract ourselves from getting panic attacks.
6. We aren’t anti-social, we’re just fearful without an easy-to-give explanation.
It’s not that we don’t want to have a social life, trust me we really do. When it comes to explaining why we can’t be around certain people or why we want to hide in a little small hole so no one notices us is not because we don’t want friends. Honestly anxiety causes us to overthink everything there is not a thing that is not unturned in our brains and sometimes it’s easier to just ignore it in general and not put yourself in that position than constantly be in a state of anxiety.
7. We understand that our thoughts and feelings are irrational.
We know we sound a little crazy when we are trying to explain how we are feeling, but when we do try to explain how we feel we get stuck. Although we understand that our thoughts and feelings are irrational at time we still have a difficult time believing and thinking in rational terms. “But what if that 10th grade math test really did cause me to get a C in my biology class?” Seriously we analyze everything.
