Living Despite Anxiety

Living Despite Anxiety

Apologies in Advance

By Tyra Cockney-Goose

How do you explain to people that you never really relax? That no matter what you do, you’re always on edge for what appears to be no reason?

I mean, sometimes there is a reason, but not always. I can’t even count the times I’ve sat in my room worrying about literally nothing. I’m not expecting anybody to understand, because it’s silly and illogical to worry about nothing, but I do anyways. I seem to always have two completely separate parts to me, logical and illogical, that are constantly arguing with each other, but the illogical side often wins.

Before you pull out your certificate or degree in psychology and call me crazy, I don’t literally think that I am made up of two entities. It’s more so an illustration of how I like to think my brain works.

My logical side observes the situation and carefully plans out what to do and say, while the illogical side of me thinks that everything is on fire. The illogical side of me imagines billions of germs when somebody reaches out for a handshake, and the logical side sees the same thing.

I don’t know many instances in my life where I am completely worry-free. That may seem sad, which it sort of is, but I’ve been doing this for the past 18 years of my life and it’s the only way I know how to live – no, yup, this is about as sad as it sounds, but it’s true. I don’t often open up to people, but when I do, the one thing I often hear echo back is, “Wow. You are so strong.”

A disclaimer: if you are empowered by being called strong, then you do you. I’m not dissing calling people strong when they go through difficult situations, but it’s not my preference to be called strong. I don’t think there is anything “strong” about being so afraid of talking on that phone that you don’t answer when it rings for three consecutive months (a true story, by the way). I don’t think that there is anything wrong with being or admitting to being weak. There is this idea in society that you have to be strong and put together all the time, but I believe that it’s okay to admit that you aren’t okay (sorry, I hate clichés as well, but this gets my point across).

People have shamed or labelled me as rude for being anxious, like it’s something I can control. I’ve been shamed for being too anxious to do something alone, like going into a store, for ignoring phone calls, for not smiling or saying hello to people when I walk past them or on bad days when I’m so anxious I can’t speak. I never mean any harm, but people take offence to it and I often feel genuinely bad about it. Some days I just can’t handle life.

Most days aren’t so bad, but it starts to hurt when people attack me for it. The amount of times I’ve heard, “You just need to grow up,” or “Stop acting out like this, yesterday you could do it” or “You were fun yesterday.”

But the one that stings the most is, “You are ruining the fun.”

I’m not sure why that hurts more than the rest, but it does. I feel bad when I ruin the fun, but standing up around people or socializing sometimes – oftentimes – makes me want to vomit. (Another disclaimer: this isn’t about any specific individual or group. Nearly everybody says things like this to me, and if you have ever said anything like this to me, I don’t hold grudges, so please don’t think I hate you or anything.)

I guess my sympathetic nervous system just doesn’t work like a normal person’s – it thinks that standing in a line at the store for checkout is a reason to activate the good old “fight or flight” response (and I also think that they added “freeze” to that fun alliteration).

Another thing about anxiety, maybe it’s normal, but you worry about what everybody thinks of you and you constantly think about whether or not you offend people. If you know me, you know that I apologize a lot. I obsessively do my best to make sure that I don’t offend people.

Another thing about anxiety, maybe it’s normal, but you worry about what everybody thinks of you and you constantly think about whether or not you offend people. If you know me, you know that I apologize a lot. I obsessively do my best to make sure that I don’t offend people. I am terrible at reading body language, so I never know if people hate me or not, and because my thoughts always spiral and I overthink, I usually think they hate me without probable cause (just refer back to the logical and illogical parts of me).

Tying ideas together isn’t my strong suit, so I’m going to bluntly and awkwardly shift into talking about constantly worrying. I worry about silly things like, “Is this red sweater I’m wearing too intense and bold for me to wear in public?”

I usually just try to refrain from wearing any colours or styles that are too eye catching. I enjoy having little attention, like a quiet, totally not buzzing, fly on the wall.

Once, I tried to wear my hair in a style that I thought, and some of my friends and family even told me, looked good: the double bun. Was it bold? Yes. Did I regret it the second I left my house? Yes. Did I still like the way it looked and kept it in? Yes.

I definitely got some double looks because I normally wear a boring ponytail. I could tell that some of my peers didn’t think it looked very good. I kept it in despite that, because I decided I was going to be brave and not care what anybody thought of me for a day. You know, and then replay the whole day in my head and become embarrassed about it every day for the next bajillion years.

Sorry for being disjointed with my thoughts all over the place (see, I apologize for everything), but although I’m a bit hesitant to bring it up, I still think that it’s important because I want to be as transparent about anxiety as possible, which must include the ugliest parts of it. And what I’m referring to is panic attacks.

I won’t go too much into detail, but they suck. You hyperventilate, you feel like you are going to die, even if the situation isn’t dangerous, and you sweat. (I’ve considered taking the sweating part out, but since I’m trying to be real about this, I’ve decided to leave it in – I mean, I’m already hanging a bunch of dirty laundry, so what’s another really sweaty shirt?)

They don’t always happen like that. I’ve gotten pretty good at what I call “silent panic attacks.” I mask the hyperventilating and I can often even hold a conversation without anybody noticing. Like I said earlier, I have 18 years of experience (imagine me putting up double finger guns and winking). They suck, but they pass.

I hope that if anybody were to take anything out of this, it would be to just understand. I get it if you read this and you want to “fix me,” but it’s not really what I’m asking for. I also hope that I don’t get pity out of this, because it’s the last thing I want. I don’t see myself as struggling with anxiety. I live with it, despite it.