What It's Like to be Anxious (Like Me)

The first time I remember having anxiety was age six. One day, I got it in my head that my teacher wouldn’t let me go to the bathroom if I needed to go, which would then result in my having an “accident” in front of the class. There was no reason to make this assumption. It’s just something I started thinking about one day, and before I knew it, the panic had spread. I remember asking my mom “what if Mrs. Rockhalt doesn’t let me use the bathroom and I pee in my chair?”

Six years old is also when I learned the two-worded question “what if?”

From there, worrying became as compulsive as my need to blink.

When I was seven, I learned about AIDS, so naturally, any time I got sick, I thought I had contracted the virus. As a result, I didn’t want to visit the doctor’s office for fear of being told that I was dying.

At the age of nine, I went on my first trip to Disneyland and drove my mom nuts with questions like, “what if I don’t like Splash Mountain?” “What if I get sick?” “Does this ride go fast?”

What if? What if? What if?

By 6^th grade, I convinced myself that I would get sick at school and not be able to get in touch with my mom and go home if needed to. I worried so much that I actually made myself sick. I spent a good half of that year in the nurses office as a result.

Now, at 27, I think I am much better than I used to be back then, but I am not free of anxiety.

I worry about being liked by everyone from the random barista at Starbucks to close family members. I worry about losing my grandparents on a random Wednesday. I worry about never finding happiness. I worry about literally going insane from how many hours I spend in my head. I worry about dying. I worry about not living. I worry about the pain in my breast that the doctor says is nothing. I worry about being a shitty, neglectful girlfriend because I’m too busy worrying about the relationship I am in to enjoy being in it. I worry about not finding a job that I love. I worry about settling.

For me, having chronic anxiety means an invisible suffering.

On the outside, I look like I have my shit together, and I do for the most part, but inside, my mind is constantly moving between 10-15 different scenarios.

I may tell myself something like these thoughts are not true, just ignore them and then 10 seconds later I’ll worry about having to tell myself the aforementioned statement and think, well, if I am having to tell myself they aren’t true, then they must be true. Trying to convince yourself of something means that whatever you’re thinking must be what’s truly in your heart.

This goes on for about 25-30% of my day, everyday.

Here’s a better example: last year, my boyfriend went on a fishing trip to Alaska, leaving me at my apartment alone for eight days. Being the introvert that I am, his short absence felt like a vacation for me. I got home from work and immediately took off my pants, ate chips and guacamole for dinner, and wore the same T-shirt to bed every night.

It was magical. 

Then, around the sixth day of him being gone, my mom text me to ask if I missed him. I stared at the text for two minutes, then looked at myself laying in the center of my bed at 2pm watching “The Bletchley Circle” on Netflix, and realized I didn’t miss him.

 I text my mom back and said, “Yep, I do” (even though it was a lie) and immediately started to panic.

Well if you don’t miss him then maybe you don’t want to be with him. He’s been gone for almost a week and you’ve barely talked to him, yet you don’t miss him at all? Maybe you want to be single. You’ve had so much fun sitting in your apartment like this all week, maybe you want to make it more permanent, I started saying to myself.

It took me a full week to calm myself down. During this time, I had to tell myself that not missing him while he was gone wasn’t an indication of my overall feelings toward him.

Having anxiety is different depending on the person. Some are so debilitated by their anxiety that they can’t even leave the house. Some need medication to help silence their loud thoughts. Others talk about not being able to have a consistent sleep cycle.

Luckily, I have never felt like I couldn’t leave my house or sleep because of my anxiety. I have tried medication, but it made me feel like a zombie.

For me, anxiety means constantly second-guessing my decisions and myself. I can put my worried mind to bed, but if I am not constantly hovering over it like some helicopter parent, then ten minutes later the doubt creeps in.

Anxiety means never fully appreciating the moments I am in because I am too busy chasing after the ones that have yet to come.

I remember this one time my boyfriend and I were listening to old songs from my iTunes and we started dancing around our apartment and singing at the top of our lungs. We even got the cat involved in our shenanigans. I was singing and smiling one moment, and then in the next, it was as though I had left my body and was watching myself, thinking, this won’t last forever.

In that moment, anxiety was like a cold, hard slap to the face.

I have anxiety about two major things in my life: abandonment and endings.  

After being alive for 27 years and living with anxiety for 21 of those years, I am fully aware of where my anxiety comes from. I know that the reason for my anxiety about abandonment comes from my father leaving when I was little. It’s a tangible piece of evidence for my anxious mind. It says, “This has already happened once. It can/will happen again.”

But I’d also like to say that I think my anxiety has grown to the size it is today because of messages from society. As living, breathing bodies, we are told exactly how we should think, feel, and act everyday. These messages come from television shows, magazines, religion, and most recently, lists created online.

You know the lists I’m talking about. The ones that say “15 Ways to Know You’re in a Happy Relationship” or “15 Ways to Think About Life”. There’s a “top 15” list for everything these days.

Reading through those lists can make even a well-adjusted person feel like they’re messing up. And while sometimes I find the lists to be good, most of the time, they just reinforce this idea that if you aren’t living life according to someone else’s “top 15”, then you’re doing something wrong.

And if you’re like me, then you don’t reach out to other people in your life to find out that they are also not living up to someone else’s “top 15”. If you’re like me, you assume the problem is yours to suffer alone, and that isolation that you create where you tell yourself you are alone in this, there is something wrong with you is where the anxiety plants its deep roots inside of you.

The other day I was dealing with one of my anxious thoughts and decided to talk to my girlfriend about it. I told her that I felt alone and different when it came to this particular experience and she wrote back and said, “I feel that way a lot of times too.”

That simple reply from her felt like my body had been wrapped in a warm blanket after months of standing out in the cold. I have always thought that because of our differences, there could be no possible way she felt the same way I did.

I’d like to say that I am a lot better than I was even just three years ago. I have been able to recognize my anxiety for what it is, which is a big step.

Therapy has been the most helpful for me. During one of my sessions, I said to my therapist, “I mean, if I keep having the same thoughts, doesn’t that mean they are true?”

He laughed and said, “That’s part of the trick your mind plays on you. You can’t believe everything you think, even if the thoughts are recurring.”

You can’t believe everything you think, even if the thoughts are recurring. This is now my mantra on the days where I lay in bed chasing my worried thoughts.

I have also started to come clean about my thoughts to those closest to me without fear of judgment.  I used to think I was burdening people with my problems, especially my boyfriend because of how often I worry about our relationship, but I am starting to see that by talking about it, I am seeking to change my behaviors, which benefits him, too.

Whenever I do talk about my anxiety, I just ask that people listen and don’t tell me “just stop having anxiety” or “worrying is SO bad for you.”

I know worrying is bad for me, and if I knew how to stop doing it, I would stop. Telling me that my thoughts are dumb or bad only helps to exacerbate the problem by making me feel more alone.

Last night I finished a vision board that shows all of my hopes for myself in the future. 

Here's my board

I told my boyfriend, “in the future, I want to be these things.”

He told me, “you have to start being them now. Putting them off for the future just gives your anxiety permission to continue taking up space in your life.”

At first I thought, easier said than done. But now I think he might be right.

I may always have to work harder than people who don’t have anxiety to redirect my thoughts, but I think it’s a far better alternative than allowing my thoughts to control my happiness.

So I’d like to start practicing gratitude for the things I have in my life and the things I want. I’m hoping that combined with communication, acceptance, and ignoring other people’s “top 15” lists, it will make a difference.