My previous article was about some of the things that no one had told me about having depression. This time, I will be continuing the conversation on mental health issues by talking about my experiences with anxiety.
There are a ton of things about having anxiety that no one will tell you. For example, something that no one ever told me about anxiety is that I have it.
I was diagnosed with anxiety very recently, only a few months ago, and the diagnosis alone has shed quite a bit of light of certain aspects of my life. For example, it is apparently not normal for your heart-rate to skyrocket when a server walks behind you in a restaurant, or while walking next to roads, or merely while in the midst of a conversation about something inconsequential with your best friend. Yet these, among other things, are all very regular experiences for me.
I've felt my heart leap into my throat for unknown reasons more times than I can even put a number to, and I have had to flee events, spaces, situations, etc. more times than I am capable of counting. This has been my life for as long as I can remember, yet I never knew that this life and this fear was not the same for everyone. Even now, it seems absurd to me that not everyone is at least nervous (if not even somewhat petrified) at the idea of going to a new location, or even somewhere as casual as the grocery store.
But no, it is not normal to feel that tingle of fear that leaks down my spine at almost every situation that I feel I do not have enough control over.
The fact that I now am so used to feeling afraid that these moments of elevated heart rate barely even register as abnormal made my therapist take pause. I have apparently lived with anxiety for long enough that living with fear has become my "normal", meaning that my anxiety must have developed when I was quite young. This revelation only goes to show that mental health issues do not exclusively affect people only after they have lived through enough experiences to justify these "abnormal" emotions and reactions.
I have no discernible reason to have anxiety - no really traumatic life experiences stand out as single sources of where I got my anxiety, no single sources of fear or reason for me to be afraid.
Yet here I am: I have anxiety.
I did not know that anxiety can hide for years without you ever knowing about it, silently but certainly affecting every aspect of life.
I did not know that anxiety can manifest even in young children, developing just as their small bodies do and within their growing minds.
I did not know that anxiety can affect even people like me, with apparently very ordinary lives.
These are things no one tells you about anxiety.
These are things that I had to learn by myself, and things that I am still learning how to compromise with the reality of my own life experience.
Nobody told me that anxiety isn't always fearful shaking and panic attacks. Nobody told me that sometimes anxiety is a buzzing LOUDNESS that is somehow overwhelming, despite being no more than a thing in your mind. That sometimes it is a blurring and a bouncing of your emotions and thoughts until you can't possibly keep up with what is happening in your head, let alone outside of it. That such buzzing loud overwhelming thoughtlessness can be one of the most frightening things in the world.
Nobody told me that anxiety isn't constant. Nobody told me that I would have good days amid the bad ones. That every now and then, a day in a week or a day in a month or a day in a blue moon, I would have all of my thoughts clear and rational and untainted by fear or thoughts of "but what if?" That I would be able to order my food or make a phone call without my throat clenching shut and my mind filling with certainty of disaster. That some days I would feel safe.
Nobody told me that once I was diagnosed with anxiety it would feel like being gifted with another sensory organ, suddenly able to pick up on and discern entirely new aspects of my life. Nobody told me the power that I would feel at the ability to think to myself, "Is this fear rational, or is it your anxiety trying to take over?" and then being able to continue carrying on in my actions with the knowledge that even if I still felt the fear, I didn't actually have anything to fear.
No one told me that I would also feel my understanding of my life flipped upside down, because if the way I have been experiencing the world is because of a disease, then what does that mean for the validity of my life and who I am? How can my own experiences and understanding of the world be right and valid if it is so heavily influenced by something that is so wrong?
Nobody told me that there would be a part of me that feared getting better, because who would I be without anxiety? Without this parasite that has somehow been such a constant throughout my life? Who would I be without the constant vigilance and my guard being raised for the red flags that I KNEW would eventually appear? What if I let my guard down and suddenly something bad happened because I stopped paying attention because I thought the fear I felt was nothing but my anxiety? How do I tell if my fear is real?
Nobody told me that I would begin to question which parts of my personality are "real" and which parts of me are the anxiety. No one told me that I would fear the answer. Will I ever be able to say I am better, if these parts of me developed through anxiety are still a part of me once I am "recovered?"
No one told me how scary anxiety can be, even (and maybe especially) after I knew about it.
But what people have told me is that there are plenty of people who live happily with their anxiety. They have told me they even start to feel safer. That those good days that I used to find - unexpected yet welcome - could become my normal day. That I can be my own person, separate from my anxiety, and I can grow, and be happier, and feel safer, and be confident even when I am not completely certain of my sense of control over a given situation.
These are the things that people have told me, and these are the things that I remind myself of.
Nobody told me how scary anxiety can be, but I hope that this article might make you feel a little less afraid, and a little more ready, and a little more understood.
I am not an expert. I still do not know everything, and my experience is my own. I in no way represent any sort of majority, nor do I speak on behalf of everyone out there suffering from anxiety. But I know now that I am not alone in my own experiences, and I hope that whoever is reading this, if you need it, maybe now you can know that you are not alone in yours.
