We All Have Anxiety, Right?

Anxiety. a little nervous disposition, some extra worry, maybe a heightened stress level from time to time. Everyone has anxiety now and then. Right?

Wrong.

So, what do I mean when I say I have anxiety then? Let me try and explain. For people with anxiety, every day normal situations which require minimal or no effort to the average person take an immense amount of trying on our part. Things which come so easy to you, or the next guy, create an inferno of worry, stress and panic for us, throwing us into a hyper-state of sheer disarray which goes from 0-500 in 0.5 seconds. This makes even the simplest of tasks, as small as walking into a room, our Everest, affecting friendships, relationships and even our careers. This is something we carry with us at all times, like an extra person on our back. We cannot get away from them and they never want to leave. They are like a wrestler in a ring wanting to constantly fight us, so we have to be ready to fight them. ALWAYS. And this is pretty exhausting; the constant battle with an invisible fiend who is relentless to the core.

This invisible fiend is not just a weight on our shoulders, who tires us out and leaves us in physical pain; no, this guy is a never ending voice in our ear, ready to shoot us down at every opportunity. "Having a good day? NOPE.... not on my watch girlie!" Our buddy anxiety rules the roost, and he has other plans for our mindset, because let's face it, rational thinking and normal behaviour would be just too easy.

Living with an anxiety disorder is by far the hardest thing I've ever had to endure, it has cost me so much good in my life; people, jobs, opportunities. The list is endless. There are days where it decides i cannot function, and then that day is a write off. My body and my mind won't allow me to carry out the simplest of interactions. So I'm stuck in my ring with my wrestler, being beat to a pulp and left exhausted once more. The Thing is though, it's not something people can see. I have been battling with my friend anxiety for so long, I'm a pro at hiding my scars. But then again, my wounds are not physical. My heart is not physically beating out of my chest, my bones are not physically breaking, my eyes are not in fact, falling out of the sockets and steam is not physically coming out of my ears from the drumming in my head. This is an invisible illness and so I suffer on in silence. But even though you cannot see these injuries, you can bet your life I feel them. Anxiety forces me to overthink, meltdown, not believe the things my loved ones say and second guess the things they do. It forces me to convince myself that people hate me, that they don't want me around and that I'm worthless. It steals my self esteem, my confidence and it makes me cry over the smallest of things. It makes me needy, angry, controlling and hard to be around.

The worst part of all this is the total awareness of how I am acting and knowing how irrational my behaviour is, but not having even the slightest bit of power to do anything about it. And so the cycle continues. People leave me because they don't understand that this is a disorder and not a decision. Do they not understand that is this not drama and attention seeking? Do they not comprehend that if I could run away from this and never come back I'd be off in a flash? And so comes the fear of letting people in, of getting close enough to be hurt again, both by friends and potential partners, because the minute they are close enough, my burden becomes theirs, I am handing them a life sentence; thing is though they have a choice. They can hand it back and yet again I'm on life without parole on my own. So it is a very worrying and select process, figuring out who to trust and who to keep away from. As if this isn't enough to deal with, my friend anxiety likes to throw some bonus prizes into the lucky dip I call life, including chronic fatigue, migraines, muscle and joint pain, pins and needles, shortness of breath, insomnia and digestive problems... OH! and my favourite; the impromptu fits of rage and panic attacks! let's not forget those, no, let's wait until we are in a room full of people having a great time and throw one into the mix! What joy!

Despite all this though, the one thing I will say that is positive from this disorder, is it makes me so much more thankful for the people in my life who love me and have always stayed around... As few as they are, they are all that I need to get by; they keep me sane in a world full of confusion, and for that I will always be grateful. So if you have someone in your life who suffers from this illness, please take some time to get to know what they go through everyday, the constant war they are fighting in their mind and figure out how to help them (and you) cope; please know that if they could step away from this for even one minute and make life with them easier, they would sell their soul to do it. And please remember in the dark times, that they love you so much more than you could imagine and they are eternally grateful for your strength and selflessness in sticking by them, and seeing them for the person they are and not the illness they live with. It's not an easy task to live with a person with anxiety, and I salute anyone who does it. Love and light to all of my mental health warriors, and the absolute legends who support them in their quest for freedom.

Much Love,

Ciara xx