In today's society, we try to overlook a lot of our hardships. It's easy to get overwhelmed. It's easy to let things spin out of control and watch life's mess unfold right in front of you. So we sit, staring that mess blankly in the face, doing our best to ignore it, and try to continue on with our lives. As a young woman in college, I have dealt with a fair share of messes that I would prefer to forget. But it's almost harder when they are always in your mind, and the worry never leaves your side

We look like normal people on the outside, so maybe that is why no one pays attention. Many of us walk the world with these little ghosts in the back of our minds taunting us wherever we go. But on the inside we are fighting this constant battle that will never be conquered, and there's no easy way to escape.

I face anxiety everyday. When I'm walking to class, talking with a friend, or sitting in my bed all alone, it's everywhere I go. Although I don't show it on the outside, the fear and worry are there nudging me on the inside, like an itch that never goes away. Constantly on edge, never comfortable with what will happen, anxiety consumes you until it becomes you. Eventually it's all you ever know.

You don't realize how bad anxiety is until you're stuck with it.

Girls like me have a different way of looking at the world. We build these walls to protect ourselves and push others out when we don't feel safe. Anxiety changes us. We love differently because the fear in the back of our minds forces us to over think every fine detail until we can ensure everything is safe. It's hard for others to love us because we seem distant and no one understands, but it's almost impossible to explain what's going on inside our heads. The ghosts of our past continue to haunt us and shape us into the people we are today, but we have deeply rooted trust issues that make it hard for us to let anything in.

And we have good reasons to be so anxious.

Fear of the unknown, fear of betrayal, fear of being left alone after being hurt time and time again from instilling our trust in a person who we thought was good and safe and pure. There are things that have happened to us in the past we have endured to cause us to keep our guard up. We learn from the past to protect ourselves because we don't want to be left alone in the dark again. We shake things off like it's not big deal, but once it's there, that fear never leaves our side.

Anxiety makes it so we are always on edge, even the simple "we need to talk" sets us off. The fight or flight instinct kicks in and we fight to protect ourselves, because it's all we know. We present ourselves as confident and collected, like we know exactly what we want and how to get it. We don't want others to worry, because we value others happiness and well being before our own. We continue to go about our daily lives as if nothing else is wrong because it's the only way we know how to live. We are cautious and guarded, and sometimes people just do not understand why we are different.

Girls like me are trying their best to make it through even when we feel like we are drowning. We are learning to love and to be more open, but anxiety is not something that ever goes away completely. We push ourselves forward and do our best to make it through each day. Despite all of the fear and panic we live with, girls like me put one hundred percent into everything we do. I promise once you give us a chance, we love deeply and openly, because it's the way we would want to be loved.