Growing up, I was always nervous.
In elementary school, I loved musicals. Everyone had to audition, even the fourth graders, so one afternoon, I stepped onto the altar (stage, for our purposes) to sing. The moment I got up there, my hands started shaking uncontrollably. Sweat slipped down the back of my neck, soaking into my white blouse. When the director asked me to say my name, I couldn’t process what she was saying. “What?” I asked, to the amusement of the other kids. “Your name, Faith,” she repeated, kindly. “Oh, yeah,” I whispered, my face burning. At the time, I didn’t have a word for what I was experiencing. Now, I do: anxiety.
According to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, anxiety disorders affect over 40 million adults in the United States each year, making them the most common mental health condition in the country. Among college students, the numbers are even more striking: a 2023 report from the American College Health Association found that over 75% of students reported moderate to severe psychological distress, with anxiety ranking as the most common concern.
Still, statistics don’t always make it easier to recognize when it’s happening to you.
I wasn’t very hungry in high school, but I didn’t think much of it. During lunch, I’d tell my friends I had to use the bathroom, grab my lunchbox from my locker, and quietly throw most of it away.
The National Institute of Mental Health notes that anxiety disorders are often accompanied by physical symptoms – fatigue, muscle tension, nausea, and disrupted eating patterns – which can make them harder to identify as symptoms of anxiety and easier to dismiss.
According to the National Eating Disorders Association, nearly 30 million Americans will experience an eating disorder in their lifetime, and anxiety is one of the most common co-occurring conditions. Research suggests that up to 60% of individuals with eating disorders also struggle with anxiety disorders, often with anxiety appearing first. Among college-aged women in particular, disordered eating behaviors (skipping meals, restricting food, or feeling intense anxiety around eating) are far more common than we tend to acknowledge; studies estimate that over half of college women report engaging in some form of disordered eating behavior, even if they don’t meet the clinical threshold for a diagnosis.
Data from the American College Health Association reports that over 30% of college women have been diagnosed with or treated for anxiety compared to lower rates among their male peers, and even more report experiencing symptoms without ever seeking help. There are a lot of reasons for this, and none of them are simple. Researchers point to a mix of social and biological factors: higher societal expectations, pressure to perform academically and socially, body image concerns, and the emotional labor women are often expected to carry in relationships and everyday life. The American Psychological Association also notes that women are more likely to internalize stress, meaning it turns inward (into worry, rumination, and self-criticism) rather than outward.
By the time I reached college, anxiety had become woven into my daily life. I couldn’t sleep. I was always cold. My thoughts grew louder, harsher: “you’re not good enough, you’re falling behind, you have to do more.” One day, coming out of class, I nearly passed out; a friend caught me before I hit the ground. “You have to stop this,” she demanded. Then, softer: “This isn’t sustainable.” She was right.
Junior year, I couldn’t ignore my anxiety anymore. I wasn’t just not hungry: I was repulsed by food. Eating made me sick; the smell of cooking made me nauseous. What I had once brushed off as stress became constant, physical pain. The National Institute of Mental Health notes that anxiety disorders frequently manifest through gastrointestinal symptoms – nausea, loss of appetite, and chronic stomach pain – while research cited by the American Psychological Association suggests that the gut is especially sensitive to prolonged stress, with chronic anxiety disrupting digestion and appetite regulation.
Eventually, I caved and saw a specialist; during an endoscopy, doctors found an ulcer eating away at my stomach lining. My gastroenterologist crouched beside my hospital bed and looked me in the eyes: “If you don’t stop worrying,” she insisted, “this is going to turn into something much worse.”
Lying in that hospital bed, it hit me all at once: I had been running a mental marathon my entire life with no breaks and no finish line. When I started crying, my nurse assumed it was a side effect of the anesthesia; she handed me a bag of oyster crackers and sat beside me while I ate. I emptied the bag.
Healing didn’t happen overnight. And if I’m being honest, I don’t believe it’s a process that has a beginning or an end. There’s a version of healing we’re often sold that’s quick, aesthetic, and easily packaged, but in my experience, it doesn’t work like that. There is no single routine, no perfect system, no one-size-fits-all solution.
Healing, for me, has meant getting to know myself as separate from my fears, letting go of the version of myself I thought I had to maintain for the sake of others, and realizing that I don’t need to reinvent who I am to be okay: I just need to stop deserting myself. Research from the American Psychological Association has found that higher levels of self-compassion are associated with significantly lower levels of anxiety, depression, and stress, particularly among young adults; studies by psychologist Kristin Neff further suggest that people who practice self-compassion are less likely to engage in harmful coping mechanisms, like disordered eating or chronic overwork, and more likely to build long-term emotional resilience. It sounds small, almost too menial to matter, but learning to treat yourself with kindness can be the difference between surviving your life and being able to live it.
Anxiety is not something you can ignore into disappearing. It doesn’t go away because you’re high-achieving, or busy, or “doing fine.” According to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, only about 1 in 3 people with anxiety disorders receive treatment, often after years of managing symptoms on their own. Among college students, that gap can be even wider: data from the Healthy Minds Network shows that a majority of students experiencing significant anxiety symptoms never seek professional help, despite reporting high levels of distress.
Part of this issue, I think, is how easy it is to hide, to keep performing, to convince yourself that if you can still meet deadlines, show up to class, and keep everything moving, then nothing is really wrong. But anxiety doesn’t measure itself against your productivity; it doesn’t disappear just because you’re functioning. It waits, it builds, and eventually, it demands to be heard.
So if you recognize yourself anywhere in this – whether it’s in the shaking hands, the racing thoughts, or the skipped meals – listen to that. Talk to someone. Take it seriously. Give yourself more grace than you think you deserve.
For a long time, I lived like I was hovering above my own life: always anticipating the next thing, the next mistake, the next reason to be better, faster, more. Anxiety kept me suspended there, in a kind of constant motion that never let me settle. Learning to live with it hasn’t meant making it disappear; it has meant learning how to come down to earth. To return to my body when it feels easier to leave it. To eat, to rest, to listen, to stay. To accept that I am not a project to be perfected, but a person to be cared for.
And maybe that’s what healing really is: not a transformation, not a finish line, but a quiet return. A softening. A willingness to meet yourself where you are, instead of where you think you should be.
We are all carrying more than we let on. So if you can, be gentle: with yourself, with the people around you. Because the ground is still here. And we can find our way back to it, slowly, together.