A confession
I have anxiety.
This is not light and easy for me to admit.
When a crisis comes, it makes me feel less.
I feel like I’m not enough, not whole.
It’s a tiring and energy-consuming process.
I’m not talking about that nervousness we all feel when we’re waiting to hear from a job offer or about to go on stage or have sex with a new partner for the first time.
It’s not the same as feeling overwhelmed because you worked 90 hours last week or you’re about to take a big step - move cities, buy a house, break up.
These can certainly be triggers for an anxiety attack, but they are also pretty rational reasons to have a certain, even high, level of worry.
A person with anxiety disorder, however, when going through a severe crisis, might experience the same level of worry when making mundane decisions.
For example, not long ago, choosing what to have for meals, what underwear or socks to wear, what to do with my free time, felt like they were life-changing decisions to me.
At moments, it felt like having a banana instead a croissant for breakfast would forever impact my life and the consequences of that one decision would never, ever be able to be undone. I felt the same when choosing pink socks over white ones, and had a complete meltdown when I couldn’t find a bus home.
And while my brain thought all of that, it also clearly and matter-of-factly knew that none of those thoughts were rational or true - even if it wasn’t strong or trained enough to manage it at that point, yet.
It’s exhausting.
I’ve never felt so tired, so drained, so depleted.
(And I’m one the lucky ones, a what’s called highly functional).
I know it’s hard for some people to understand it.
It’s hard for me too.
It’s fucking difficult for me to accept that I don’t always have control over my body and my mind.
It’s okay if you don’t get it.
I appreciate that you’re trying.
And please, don’t feel like you need to fix it. You don’t.
I just need you to understand that in this moment, situations that I’d normally embrace might be a bit too much for me.
I might need to say no to things.
I might act a little out of character.
If you understand that - and show that you do-, it already helps. A lot.
Because right now, I feel fucking broken.
It hurts.
Physically. Mentally. Emotionally.
I’m working hard to learn how to better deal with this.
It’s hard.
It’s exhausting when your body and mind are in conflict.
It’s excruciating when your mind is in conflict with itself.
Sometimes it feels like I have no energy left in me.
Sometimes it feels like this feeling will never go away.
But the intensity will eventually subside.
It might take a while, and it might never fully pass, but it will lessen.
It always does.
That’s what keeps me going.
So bear with me while it doesn’t.
I need the space to be not okay.
I need the space to feel that it’s okay not to be okay.
I need the space to heal. To relearn being me.
