Have you ever seen a movie or show where there is a fake rain cloud hanging over someone's head following them around wherever they go? That is what anxiety feels like, except so much more complex. Anxiety feels like you have a constant thunderstorm whirling around within you. No, a hurricane. It weighs you down and you lose control over your life. It controls your every thought and action. Your emotions are not truly your own because no matter how hard you try, you can't evade the weight that puts pressure on your chest, making it hard to breathe. If I could describe the feeling of anxiety to the best of my abilities, I would compare it to the feeling of panic you have when you start falling back in your chair. However, instead of lasting for a split second, it is a constant feeling that you can't shake.
Anxiety makes you insecure. It makes you feel like you're always being watched. It makes you feel like you constantly have to watch your back in case someone simply taps you on the shoulder and greets you. You sit alone and plan out responses to interactions that may never even take place. You often put off or avoid leaving your room if it means having to face people. Leaving the house becomes a process. You pace back and forth towards the door for minutes, sometimes hours just trying to push yourself to turn the doorknob. As you pace back and forth, you take deep and heavy breaths trying to build up the courage to leave while every possible reason not to leave swarms around in your head. After an attempt to leave, you end up sitting back down for half an hour before trying to leave again.
It makes you overanalyze every single situation for no good reason. However, your mind can make the smallest of reasons incredibly huge to you. You feel like you're drowning. Even when you try to search deep within you for some rational thinking, your anxiety consumes your thoughts in an immensely overpowering manner. You lose all sense of who you truly are. You lose your identity. You have no control over the person that you are. You think that everyone is going to leave you. If someone sends you a text that appears just the slightest bit different than usual, you instantly assume that they are done with you or that you did something wrong. You question the smallest of interactions. If someone says hi to you and you say hi back, you constantly think about what you could have done differently for hours after it.
You have so many overpowering emotions that you believe no one could understand- so you keep them to yourself. You don't even try to explain why you canceled the plans or why you were late to class or why you skipped three meals because you couldn't bring yourself to leave your room. Every single movement you make requires huge amounts of courage, strength, and effort. Anxiety is not glamorous.
Having anxiety as a college student makes every day an uphill battle. You wake up each morning with the pre-existing burden of knowing that you're going to have to face the same obstacles you do every other day. You wake up knowing that you have places to be and things to attend but the journey of getting out the door will be a commitment in itself. As a college student, social interactions are inevitable and you can't avoid them, and in the real world in general. The truth about anxiety is that every day requires perseverance, even when you seemingly cannot find it in yourself. It is being trapped in a mind that overpowers you. It is surviving. Every single day is an accomplishment and so we keep fighting.
