It all started when I was a toddler. One second I would be sleeping soundly and the next I would be screaming, crying, eyes wide open. My parents had no idea what was going on or what to do. After all, this hadn't happened with my older brother. Each night I would repeat this pattern and every morning I would wake up with no knowledge of what had happened the previous night. However, this soon developed into a fear of going to sleep altogether, and pretty soon I was put on anti-anxiety medications. Years later when I entered elementary school new signs of my anxiety disorder began to show themselves. Panic attacks were my new norm and I lived in fear of when the next one would strike. I was at the mercy of random attacks, seemingly triggered by almost nothing. Now I'm in college, and while my panic attacks are far less frequent, my anxiety is still there. The only difference now is that I don't let it define me.

Now all of this might seem kind of random, but I use it as sort of a preface to explain why you might catch me rolling my eyes or exhaling rather annoyingly when I come across some picture or video online that glamorizes anxiety. My disorder is not a statement; it's something I've struggled to overcome and accept my entire life. Characters with mental disorders on TV are popping up left and right, and while it's great that we're opening up that conversation, are we doing it in the right way? These characters often show only one side of the illness and are more often than not inaccurate in almost every projection of the disorder itself. My disorder is not an artistic photo of some depressing quote scrawled across a wall and posted on Tumblr. No, it's sitting in your friend's bathroom trying to fight off a panic attack as a room full of people get ready and excited for formal. It's successfully and quietly handling a situation only to exit that bathroom and pretend you weren't doing anything more than just fixing your hair. It isn't like the movies or TV shows and it's time to stop acting like it is.

If you want to know what anxiety is really like, ask me or one of the other 40 million Americans who suffer from the disorder. The truth is, like with any other mental disorder, it is a real problem. Don't assume that my anxiety disorder is just another phrase to describe me or anyone else who suffers from it, because it is so much more than that. So if the photo at the top of this article is what drew your attention or is somehow the way you perceive anxiety, or any other mental disorder, please consider what I've said, because no offense, but you've probably got the wrong idea.