Earlier this week I read an article titled "This Article Was Written Mid-Anxiety Attack." (If you want to read it, I'll link it here.) The intent of the article was to inform people about anxiety attacks and what it's like to go through one. This got me thinking about my personal experiences with anxiety, and how I wish more people understood what I go through on a daily basis.

The thing is that not many people understand how an anxiety disorder works, and those that do are usually the people struggling with it. My point in writing this is just that I hope it shows more people what it's like to be me: a girl living with intense anxiety, while still trying to live my life.

It's like it never leaves me. I'm stuck in a constant pain, a constant fear. A fear of what? I have no idea. Whether it's a deadline, a physical threat, and irrational imaginary fear, or meeting someone new. I live in a constant fear. Its suffocating. I don't know when my anxiety started, but it's been with me for as long as I remember. It follows me everywhere I go, and so there's always something new that I'm stressing about. A simple task like going grocery shopping sends me into a tizzy. Normal people do normal things, but for me those normal things push me to my breaking point. Today my friend asked me to pick up her shirt from her friend's house, and I cried about it. That simple task shouldn't have bothered me so much, but it did.

My anxiety is the worst in social situations. One of the main things that I wish my friends could understand is that when I go to a party, or really any social event, I am scared to death. Telling me "there's no reason to be scared" or "suck it up" or getting mad at me will only make it worse. I get that you get frustrated with me, but trust me, I am frustrated too. It honestly doesn't matter what the situation is, there is a 90 percent chance I am freaking out about it. This brings me to my next point...

To the people that just go with the flow and never have a set itinerary- I am envious of you. I always have to have a plan. No matter what I'm doing, no matter how far in advance it is, if I don't have a specific itinerary I literally can't function. I'm that girl that always asks a million questions, and asks the same questions twice, just to make sure that I have all the information that I could possibly have. I know it must get annoying when you're on the other side of that, but it makes me feel so much better.

If you haven't already noticed, I've apologized a lot in this article. I constantly worry about making people happy and not pissing people off, and that's one of my biggest downfalls in life. If you're one of my friends or honestly anyone in my life, I constantly need your approval and validation that you don't hate me. Because if you don't constantly tell me that you like me then I'll assume you don't. I wish I wasn't like this and I try incredibly hard to not think that way, but it's still always in the back of my mind. It makes any type of relationship hard and it's been the reason behind many fights within my friendships. I can fight it all I want, but I'm very dependent on people when it comes to this, and it's really hard to live my life when I think that people constantly hate me.

Another thing that I cannot stress enough is that I can't control it. I know that sometimes I have an anxiety attack at the most inconvenient times, but a lot of times I don't even know what triggered it, therefore I can't stop or avoid it. Anxiety follows me everywhere I go. I do my best to contain it, but sometimes it crawls out of me for everyone to see. I'm sorry if you're around when that happens, but please just bare with me.

It's also really important to know that when you're talking to some with anxiety about anxiety, there's a good chance they will get very defensive. I don't mean to get so defensive when people try to talk to me about it, but a lot of times I feel like whoever I'm talking to is downplaying what I go through. When a person is having an anxiety attack, the very last thing you should ever do is tell them that it's not real or that they should get over it, or that they are stressing you out. At the same time, I know that when you try to relate to us you think that it makes us feel better, but saying "well I mean sometimes I get nervous when taking a test" to someone who freaks out about everything kind of makes them feel dumb. I appreciate if you're trying to help, but sometimes all it does is make things worse.

Anxiety is a part of me. You can take that how you want it. Some may say that means I've let it overcome me, but I say that's me acknowledging my struggle, and working to overcome it. Each day I find a new way to cope with this and each day I learn a little bit better how to adjust my life to reduce as much anxiety as I can. But at the end of the day, anxiety is a real thing that lots of people struggle with. It doesn't make these people any less of a person or any less capable, it just means that sometimes we need a little extra patience.