Anxiety is not like it is in the movies. Anxiety isn’t something that can be cured with a warm blanket and a “girl’s night” watching movies and eating ice cream. Anxiety is a mental illness that no amount of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream is going to fix. Anxiety is often misunderstood in everyday life. People who misunderstand anxiety say that they are anxious because they have a big test to study for or a meeting with their boss or a deadline coming up. That isn’t what anxiety is; that is just general worry or stress. Anxiety is a severe mental illness often times having no trigger at all. The way people talk causally about someone or something “giving them anxiety” always strikes a chord with me. In my opinion, if people really understood what it was like to have to battle with anxiety on a day-to-day basis like I do, then that joke would immediately stop.
No two people can experience the same thing when it comes to dealing with anxiety and anxiety attacks. But there is usually one thing that all people who suffer from anxiety can agree on, and that is that they do not know how to tell people what they are experiencing. For me, anxiety makes it difficult to tell people how I am feeling at any given time because I am afraid of being judged, even by someone who I consider a very close friend. My anxiety is this small nagging voice in the back of my head making me question myself and inducing feelings of self-doubt, making me feel like everything I say to people, whether I am telling a story or I am just talking to someone, is a lie. Anxiety is that small voice in the back of my head that whispers “what if” about things that are not even a problem. Anxiety has the uncanny ability to make a problem in my life where there isn’t one and there doesn’t need to be.
Something that people do not understand about anxiety is how frustrating it is. Those who do not suffer from it do not understand how debilitating it is. An anxiety attack can last from a couple hours to a couple days, but the length of time really does nothing to lessen the blow it will have on the sufferer. Anxiety is erratic and able to be triggered by anything at all. Everyone has different symptoms during an attack. For me, my heart-rate speeds up and I start to feel a burning sensation in my stomach and in my chest. When I was younger, I would describe it to people saying that it felt like my heart would flip upside down in my chest. The sad thing is people have become so good at concealing their symptoms during an attack that they can be suffering through one and the people around them would have no idea.
If you have a friend who suffers from anxiety, do not, under any circumstances, tell them that “It will be OK.” Because, for the sufferer, that does not seem possible. Sure, it will stop eventually, but during the throes of an attack, the sufferer needs someone to just sit with them and listen to what they have to say and tell them that even though what they are feeling is scary, it is valid, it is real and it is important. I am lucky enough to have two amazing people at my school who always help me through my anxiety attacks and never fail to offer words of advice.
The most recent thing that a good friend of mine told me is that you have to think about your panic attacks like your backstory. Every superhero has a backstory that is not always pleasant, and there is always a point in the storyline where the hero feels ready to give up and let their bad circumstances get the best of them, but they never do. They always get back up and keep fighting, regardless of how hard it is. If they can do it, why can’t you? You should always be your own superhero, even when things get hard. Look at having to suffer through an anxiety attack as the rough part of your backstory. Just remember that although it is hard, it will pass. Maybe not today or tomorrow, but it will.
There is a very cliché quote that 2012 me used to say all the time, “Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass, but instead it is about learning to dance and sing in the rain.” Although your rainstorm may be very hard to get through, I promise you that you will get through it, and you will be a better and stronger person on the other side.
