Living With Anxiety

Hi guys!

I'd like to touch on a subject that is close to my heart and that I relate to a lot, as I'm sure a lot of others do too. I suffer from a mental illness; anxiety, and then especially social anxiety. People tend to mix it up with being nervous, shy or reserved, but it's so much more complicated than that. I'll break it down for you as best as I can. Please note that everyone with anxiety experiences it in a different way, so not everyone will apply to it in the same way. This is just my story.

Anxiety involves constant overthinking and creating completely unlikely and ridiculous scenarios in my head, but it's hard to stop them. Except for the people that I'm closest with, which is a very small circle, I will always feel anxious around other people. My stress levels will reach an all time high and all I can think are things like; "Is my make-up / hair okay?" "Did I just laugh a little too loud?" "Why can't I think of something to say?" "Oh God, they must think I'm boring." And this list goes on and on with an endless number of insecurities that makes me want to lock myself up in my room forever and not interact with another person ever. Because I'm always that nervous around people, it means that conversations drain the energy out of me. After any social event, even if it's a small informal one, I can't think of anything but crawl right back into bed and sleep.

My anxiety gets worse when I'm alone especially. If I'm hanging around with friends or family, I can manage to zone out the rest of the world. Even though I still get a little anxious, it's still a huge relief to decrease the overthinking. However when I'm alone, I'm suddenly very aware of the fact that I'm alone. There's no one to distract me from my thoughts, so they start building up more and more. This is the reason why I don't like going out on my own.

When a group of people near me bursts into laughter, 9 out of 10 times I'm afraid they're laughing about me. I'm thinking this is because of early years of people openly judging me. I've been bullied and made fun of before, and it inevitably resulted into me trying to act as 'normal' as possible so I don't attract any attention, because that's the last thing I want. If I can just be quiet and blend into the crowd, I think people won't notice me.

Don't even get me started on giving any kind of presentations. I literally want to disappear whenever I'm standing in front of a class and all eyes are pierced on me. I lose my concentration to focus and I stumble over my own words, every single time. I've done dozens of presentations over the past few years and I've still not gotten over that fear. And do not tell me the "imagining everyone in their underwear" trick works, because it does not work for me. In my case, it feels as if I am the one in my underwear.

I think one of my worst habits that I have because of anxiety is that I lie, a lot. I lie to get out of any social events. I lie to not seem like a weirdo. I lie to teachers, to my parents, I even lie to friends. Close ones. It's just that my anxiety builds up and I panic, so I think of an excuse, any excuse. So far, it's never been anything too big or scandalous, but I hate myself for doing this all the time. It's exhausting, and yet I can't seem to stop. I really hope that one day I do.

I'm pretty sure I'm forgetting tons of other things right now, but I feel like I've summarized the main parts pretty well. It's hard for me to explain it in way so that other people can understand what I'm feeling.

Even though I'm aware that it's bad I'm not doing anything about my mental state professionally, like seeing a therapist, I've seen people writing amazing things about it online and it's helped me so far so good. But I'm afraid that one day my bucket will overflow. That one day that one tiny drop that falls into it is too much to carry and that I'll break down. I have seriously thought about going to seek professional help several times, but I would have to talk to my parents about it first. And trust me when I tell you that's going to be one long, tiring, frustrating conversation. I am thankful that I have people in my life that help and support me as much as they can, but they can only do so much. So I'm urging everyone else that struggles, please talk to someone you trust and do something about it. Mental health is something that gets overlooked far too often and it's just a shame.

"Sometimes the quiet ones are yelling on the inside." – Connor Franta

Stay strong always. You're not alone.

Love, Faith