Ever since I can remember, I’ve been an anxious person.

When I was a kid, I was definitely more introverted and fit the expected mold of someone with anxiety. As I got older, it got better, or I suppose less noticeable. I learned how to internalize it better, channel my nervous energy into something more manageable like tapping my foot, playing with the rings on my fingers, or braiding my hair. Stuff less noticeable than a full on panic, something that would help me with my anxiety.

My anxiety isn’t something that even I notice all the time consciously. It comes and goes like a wave, but it’s always bubbling under the surface waiting to explode. I love being around people, I love making them laugh. I’m a loud person with a bubbly personality. I tend to hide it so well that even my best friend forgets I have social anxiety. Sometimes I don't really like being around people, even the people I love the most. I typically really don't like meeting a group of people without knowing about it beforehand, without giving myself a chance to mentally prepare. It's not that I don't want to meet new people, I do! Just on my own pace. My anxieties tend to accentuate when my depression is especially difficult. Some days are really hard and I do nothing except isolate and retreat into myself. I try not to show it though, answering questions like that are not my forte.

It’s really frustrating honestly. My anxieties have sometimes been invalidated, even by other people with anxiety, because “I don’t look like I have anxiety.” But what the hell does that even mean? Anxiety is incredibly different for everybody who struggles with it. There is no right or wrong way to have or display anxiety, nor is there a mold that people with anxiety should fit. It is possible to crave being around people but simultaneously have it cripple you on the inside. This stigma that follows anxiety needs to stop because it is incredibly toxic, demeaning, and harmful to everyone who suffers with this mental disease. It prevents people who need the help to not seek it out, to make them feel like they don’t deserve the help “because other people have it worse”.

Not many people understand, or try to understand what happens inside my head; that just because I'm not physically displaying my discomfort that the room doesn't start to feel small, that I don't suddenly become hyperaware of every move I make, like I don't instantly want to retreat back to where I feel safe, comfortable. My anxieties are real, they are valid, and they are a constant struggle. Just because I tend to be extroverted doesn’t discredit the battle I, and many others go through.