When I was younger, I tried to be everything all at once. I wanted to see everything all at once. I wanted to be on a platform of the earth with everything all around me. With happiness holding me so tightly I was being choked by it, with the world in the palm of my hand so close to me I could hold it. When I was younger, being everything all at once seemed to be such a great idea. No cares. No concerns. No fear of being held down by a force that sometimes chokes me over the happiness that should be holding me. A force that now is so close to my face I can hear it breathing down my neck every time I decide on to focus on something. A force so strong that it can crush the earth in the palm of my hand with the slightest touch.
WELCOME TO MY ANXIETY PARTY.
Anxiety, by psychiatry terms, means a nervous disorder characterized by a state of excessive uneasiness and apprehension. So the uneasiness I feel when I make a turn and the car behind me follows me for a mile, is my anxiety party. So the uneasiness I feel when I talk to people about myself, is my anxiety party.
Living with anxiety is like living with the worst roommate possible. Even when you leave the apartment or dorm, it follows you like a lost dog looking for food. It makes the days so incredibly long and the nights so incredibly short and restless. I go to bed thinking about the inevitable and I wake up imagining that the inevitable is going to happen. Anxiety has captured and consumed my whole day and controls what gets done during that day. All I think of is what needs to be done, how it needs to get done, why it didn’t get done, and why my sleep is affecting what I didn’t get done. It never leaves you. You could try to shake it off and move on but no you can’t. You carry that shit to the grave.
Having anxiety is like being on a roller coaster that never ends. You can reach the top and watch it all slide down hill and all shit hit the fan at once. My anxiety starts at the base of the roller coaster. My legs turn into cement and start to slow like weights are forcing them not to move. It then elevates to my stomach as it churns and aches with the fear of forgetting my phone on the table in the restaurant I just had dinner in. It gets higher to my chest as it tightens and closes because my breathing pattern is too fast to keep up with. And then it peaks at the top. My brains reaches a level so eradicate and dangerous, I lose control of my emotions and let the twists and turns of the ride take over my body. My anxiety party effects my whole body and mind. My anxiety party is a party when I am alone in the corner, watching the world move so quickly past me I can’t bare to slow it down. My anxiety party has slowed my will to leave my home and go out and make friends with the world. I am alone during my anxiety party.
But you should never be alone during yours.
I can see my world without going to my anxiety party and that world is so beautiful. That world is full of me being able to leave and go out and not afraid of the car following behind me, not afraid to talk in a class that has people in it that I don’t know. The world is so beautiful and full of color and people living without anxiety, who go out and see what the world has to offer. If you have anxiety that shakes your core, let it shake your core but know that you can makes someone's core shake. If you have anxiety that controls your emotions, let it make you happy or sad because their is a person out there that can turn your sadness into happiness.
Don’t let your anxiety stop you from seeing a future without it. I have seen that future and it is so beautiful.
Lila
