It was new for me – the feeling. Hard to explain really because I hadn’t had a name for it. “Officially” I still don’t.
It’s the feeling of my face buried in my red floral bead sheets.
It’s the feeling of my fingers tapping a song I’ll never know against the hard wood of my dining room table.
It’s the feeling in my chest – a balloon about to pop. Pin dangling above. Waiting to drop.
I was never an anxious child. Or I was, depending on who you ask. My grandmother remembers me always being calm – sitting through horror movies no five-year-old should have been watching and never, never worrying about monsters under the bead. My father remembers me only worrying about what others thought of me; saying I would change my outfit for school time after time until I settled on the first one I had on – nothing unusual. But me – I remember a lot more. Things that have only come so clearly into focus in the past few months of my life.
The first sign – the first moment I realized was off as it was happening – was when I was fifteen. I was going to marching band practice. When we got there I refused to get out of the car. My cooler was too big. I couldn’t possibly bring it. I told my parents we needed to get a new one. Because no one else had coolers with wheels and I was going to be the only one and if I was the only one then everyone would look at me and if there were looking at me then they were judging me which I did not what to happen, thank you very much, so we had to go home and get the small cooler so I could go to practice and no one would look at me and I would be fine. Fifteen minutes in the car outside of the school. I was in tears by the end of it, pulling my sandwich out of the ice and shoving it in my bag as my parents told me I was overreacting and my mom made some comment about how maybe it was my time of the month. I felt a weight in my chest all practice that I just couldn’t shake. It only left me after I had slept that night.
I haven’t been diagnosed with anxiety, let me make that clear, because having mental health services is a privilege some do not have so readily available, but at this point in my life I know I have it. Moments like that one with the cooler used to happen maybe once or twice a year. Now they happen every week.
When I tell people I have anxiety I usually get one of two responses: a nod of agreement – some gesture of understanding; or a raised eyebrow, maybe a tight-lipped nod – that’s the moment I know someone doesn’t believe me. And I get that because some people don’t see anxiety for what it is. And it is a lot of different things. It’s not always hyperventilation and a quick pulse – it’s different for everyone. It’s not any one thing. It’s so many things.
So when my friends, family, strangers doubt me when I say anxiety I always want to tell them what anxiety looks like.
It’s me with my headphones in on a crowded train. My head leaning on the foggy glass. My breath in time with the tempo of whatever song I am listening to.
It’s me at 13 crying on the way to high school, begging my mom to let me take the day off. Because school means I’m growing up and growing up means getting old and getting old means dying and I don’t want to do that.
It’s closing out job applications because I just can’t bring myself to hit the submit button and allow someone the chance of rejecting me – because if I don’t apply I can never be unwanted.
It’s obsessively tapping my fingers on a table, desk, seat, bed, pencil, notebook, phone, other fingers. One two three four five one two three four five. Over and over and over. Never stopping unless someone is bothered.
It’s crying on my commute to my new job because change seems like a mountain I will never reach the top of.
It’s the nervous laugh I do when I don’t know how to act.
It’s calling in sick because I can’t bring myself to get out of bed.
It’s driving for hours as my thoughts go over all the ways I can potentially fail in my life. With every thought a new path unwinding – a new ending imagined in record time.
It’s cancelling plans with friends because the balloon in my chest might combust if I leave my house.
It’s writing a list of reasons why I am anxious.
It is so many things.
