For years, I have struggled with anxiety and did not even know it. It was not until recently that I was diagnosed with not just generalized anxiety, but also social anxiety and a panic disorder. It is difficult to describe to someone who functions just fine in their everyday life what anxiety actually feels like on a daily basis. It is easy to use words such as debilitating or crippling to describe anxiety but that does not even begin put into perspective what a person with anxiety feels on a daily basis.
Anxiety feels like your brain has drained all of the energy out of your body, even before you get out of bed. It usually starts in the morning; most mornings I lack the strength to even make it out of bed. I lay in bed worrying about all of the possible circumstances that could go wrong or that could make me nervous or the confrontations that I have to face throughout the day and slowly but surely, I feel physically drained. My energy is already gone before my feet even hit the floor in the morning. Most of the time I just roll over and hit the snooze button 10 times in order to avoid all responsibilities. This is not because people with anxiety are lazy or irresponsible, it is because we worry... a lot. All of our worrying builds up stress and tension in our body and makes us feel physically and emotionally drained and we cannot really help it.
Anxiety feels like your mind is constantly on fire. People with anxiety tend to over think and over analyze everything. Every little detail and irrelevant thing suddenly becomes big, important, or scary in our mind as we over analyze it, as if it were a missing piece in an unsolved murder case. The over thinking makes us feel constantly restless, stressed out, and distracted. It feels as though our brain is running 100 miles an hour and cannot figure out how to slow down and walk for a few minutes until it feels like it is about to explode.
Anxiety feels like your stomach is always tied in knots. We are constantly worrying. Large crowds, driving, talking to people we know, talking to people we do not know, knew situations, familiar situations all cause us to feel anxious and ultimately makes us a nervous wreck. It is as if our stomach keeps twisting and turning and will not stop until we feel calm and safe again.
Anxiety makes you feel like you are a burden. This is something that I have always struggled with; constantly feeling as though you are in the way and that your wants or needs are less important than everyone else's. It is one thing to feel like you should put others before yourself, but when it gets to the point where you are shaming yourself and feel like you are not valuable on a daily basis, that is when it feels like you wish you were invisible.
Anxiety feels like there is always a voice in the back of your head telling you that everything will go wrong. This metaphorical voice sometimes feels like it may never go away; constantly reminding you that everything makes you nervous or anxious or that every time you go to the grocery store or to a party something bad is going to happen or everyone will not want you to be there. It constantly keeps you worrying and never stops talking.
Anxiety makes you feel paralyzed. Sometimes in an overwhelming situation, you feel as though you will never make it out alive, as if you are stuck and cannot move. Your brain stops working right, your heart feels like it stopped beating, you cannot breath, cannot move, cannot speak and all you want more than anything in the world is to get out of whatever situation you are in, but you can't.
But the most important thing that anxiety is, is a liar. If you are battling with anxiety you are not worthless. You are not weak. You are not a coward and most importantly, you are not alone. These are all the things that anxiety makes you feel, but it does not define you. Listening to your anxiety will not make it go away. My motto has always been one simple words, "Fight." Fight hard, fight now, fight tomorrow, fight every day and do not quit until you can say "I have conquered anxiety and I did not let it defeat me".
