I don't tell people about my anxiety to gain sympathy. If I've ever explicitly talked to you about it that means you've either seen me at my worst, where I have panic attacks and spend hours crying, or you've become collateral damage where I've lashed out at you, or ruined plans because I physically could not leave my room without hyperventilating.

I hate my last minute excuse of "I just can't today" as much as you do. Because there's someday's where I can't be around anybody but my family without feeling the need to throw up, and there's also other days where I cannot be left alone for ten minutes without crying and feeling completely alone. And what I hate the most about having two polar moods like that is I can't tell when I need to be alone or around people until it's too late and I'm sobbing.

I'm never going to talk about it unless it's serious. Part of my anxiety is this fear of my emotions not being validated, so I will keep everything bottled up until I absolutely can't anymore. So when you ask me "how come you didn't tell me sooner?", it's because I don't want to bother anyone until I'm in the middle of a melt down and I cannot physically and mentally function.

I always feel like I'm bothering someone. You can tell me all you want that I can go to you for anything, but while you're telling me this, my anxiety is telling me that I'm already taking up too much of your time.

I know what the beginning of my anxiety attacks are like, so most of the time I'm able to keep them under wraps. I know what breathing techniques work for me, I know to repeat the mantra that helps call me down, and I know what songs soothe me. So please don't tell me that the next time I feel an attack coming on to try some breathing technique combined with imagining a beach. If I'm having an anxiety attack, that means I've probably tried everything to stop it, but the attack was too strong and I just couldn't stop it.

If I'm in the middle of an anxiety attack, or one of my 'episodes', the fewer people around, the better. I don't care if it's a room of people I love, I cannot have more than one person next to me. Part of it is the physical sensation of feeling almost smothered, but it's mostly on a mental level. The more people in the room, the more people that are seeing me at my worst, and therefore the more embarrassed I will be. And because I don't like being the center of attention in general, having people around me when I'm in the middle of an attack will only make things worse.

Please don't hold my anxiety over my head. If I plan on doing something, please don't tell me my anxiety will prevent it. If I want to participate in some activity with people, please don't ask me a million times if I'm sure I can handle it. And I understand it's because you care about me, but you have to understand when I go to do these things it's because I'm deciding that I'm not going to be a slave to my anxiety.