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What exactly is anxiety?
No, I am not going to give you a lecture that you can most likely take on a college campus. I am going to give you the run through of what anxiety is based on a person’s experience with it her whole life. And that person is me.
I have known I have had anxiety since I was in high school, although after I told my parents my concerns with it, they confirmed that they were afraid that I had had it since childhood. Now, being a sophomore in college, of course, it has gotten worse.
Why?
My safe place had to be turned into a small dorm room that does not provide me comfort unless I surround myself with soft objects and no lighting. I no longer have the support I had from my family because they live one thousand miles away. I am not in charge of my own medical care, which is super confusing when you are going the mental health route, and things that normally would not faze me have turned into triggers.
But anxiety is more than feeling nervous. I am one of those people that get very suspicious when someone says that they are getting anxiety over something, because I know what it feels like, looks like, and even sounds like. (Yes, I am one of those people who take mental illness very seriously. It is not a quirk in your personality. It is a crutch to most people who have it.)
You feel like you are having a heart attack. It is almost impossible to breathe normally, your vision can get blurry, you can lose feeling in your arms and legs, and that panic can turn into a manic episode, which I have had before. And those are the most common symptoms of a panic attack. If you are lucky (sarcasm) you experience manic episodes, which are way worse and way more obvious and scary.
Social anxiety is most common amongst people our age now because of social pressures from our peers, elders, and society. Social anxiety means not wanting to draw attention to you in any way possible. These are some prime examples of what social anxiety is, thanks to tumblr:
Anxiety, like I said, is a crutch. It is a worrisome, small version of yourself that lives in the back of your head telling you not to do something, or not to be too obvious, or to keep from doing something that will make people look at you. Anxiety is not just about feeling nervous or scared; those words speak for themselves. Anxiety is much more physically limiting and demanding than those feelings.
Imagine being in a classroom, right in the middle, and not being able to ask to go to the bathroom because you do not want to interrupt the teacher. But then you get to the point where you really have to go. Now you are fidgeting around, quietly and barely noticeably, so you can hold it. But then, someone else asks to go to the bathroom, and the teacher happily obliges.
“Why couldn’t I do that?”
Now you don’t want to ask the teacher because you will get denied or told to wait for that person to come back, which is embarrassing to you. But then if you ask to go after they come back, it seems like you were waiting for someone else to do it before you and the teacher will make a remark about everyone going to the bathroom, which embarrasses you as well. So now you have to hold it until a while after the other person came back so there was no connection between their potty break and yours, and being allowed, for you, is a major accomplishment. YOU WENT TO THE BATHROOM!
Anxiety disorders are the most common of all mental health problems. 1 in 4 adults will have anxiety in their lifetime, whether it is genetic (like mine) or has been developed by some kind of experience (also kind of like mine). But there is help for people with anxiety. There is hope for people with anxiety. And there are others who experience the same things we do, and there are ways to combat those feelings of fear, nervousness, and aloneness. There definitely are ways.