Living with anxiety is not something to take softly. I have been living with anxiety almost my entire life. It wasn't until I started attending college though that my anxiety got worse and struck more often. The biggest thing for me was thinking that my friends were doing things without me. I couldn't handle the thought of them getting lunch without me or even creating a group message without me in it. I knew I was being crazy but my anxious mind told me that I was being left out, and even now, I am missing out because I freak myself out about my personal relationships. Even if I am physically with my friends, I am mentally in another place. I am constantly worrying about the smallest of things.
The most interesting thing though, is that most people with anxiety worry about strangers, worry about the things that are not constant in their life. But here I am, worrying that my constants would become distant and that distance would worsen my anxiety. As my college career pushed forward, so did my anxious mind. My freshman year involved one or two friends because I was trying to hold onto my hometown friends. Why would I need new friends when I have perfectly good old ones? I lost most of those friends though, and, honestly, I'm okay with that. I grew up and moved away as I had always wished to when I was actually in high school. I met new friends and wanted them to be the people who would always be in my life. But I found that the belief that your college friends would always be in your life is not always right.
With anxiety, friendship "breakups" are just as bad as romantic ones. Not only did I think that my friends were "doing life" without me, I also believed that the loss of friends was my fault. I blamed myself for the distance. What did I do to make these people not want to be my friend anymore? As I've grown older, I have realized that some people just don't belong in your life. This guy didn't trust me or that girl thought I was a "bitch," but really, I was just not the right friend for them and that's okay. You don't have to always be apart of someone's life just because you were for some amount of time.
College has given me more than friendships and education, it has given me a way to reevaluate my anxiety. Friendships can end and you will be left out of activities, but that doesn't mean I am unwanted. I tell myself that my friends know that I work all the time or that I may be spending time with my roommate. I talk myself down. I take a few breaths. Anxiety doesn't have to control my life, and I don't let it.
