ARTWORK: Xuming Du
it’s all in your head MATTHEW DONLAN
I’ve lived with anxiety all my life, and occasionally it’ll come up in conversation. Often, after I mention I have anxiety, people who have no experience of it ask what it’s like. Well, that’s very hard to articulate. How do you explain a pervasive feeling to someone with a completely different experience to you? Before I attempt to answer this, let me first address something. Please, for the love of all that is holy, never tell someone with anxiety (or any mental health related matter) that it is ‘all in their head.’ This is the single most infuriating thing you can say. It’s like telling someone with a broken hand, ‘don’t worry about it, it’s all in your arm.’ I know! That’s the issue! It’s not the location of the problem I need diagnosing, it’s the problem itself I need resolved.
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