Anxiety: a thread
#SickNotWeak

Anxiety isn’t just chest pains, crying, and or the inability to relax.

It’s driving to the store only to sit in the parking lot for 20 minutes before turning back around, without even going inside.

It’s getting a text message and forgetting to respond promptly, so instead of responding, & explaining you were busy, you leave the notification there for days, weeks, months, getting a knot in your stomach every time you scroll past it or every time that person’s name comes up.

It’s hearing a noise and planning in your mind where you’ll hide, what doors you’ll lock, and how you’ll secretly call for help if someone broke into your house.

It’s deliberately destroying your relationship with your partner, & looking for any reason to attack, or lash out at them, several times a day, just to get a reaction. Even if it's nothing but a negative reaction, it's still better than being invisible, better than NO reaction.

It's always questioning if they love you, setting up situations or scenerios to test their loyalty or devotion. Sometimes exaggerating how much they hurt your feelings, or how sad you are because of something they did.

In hopes that it will remind them to say sorry, or show you how much they love you. But mostly needing to hear it because you find it so hard to love yourself in that moment.

It’s putting off washing the dishes until there’s no clean dishes left to use, but then feeling overwhelmed by how many dirty dishes there are to wash, so you just leave them to pile up another day.

It’s understanding that what you’re worrying about is often irrational, and not as extreme as your reaction warrants, but not being able to control your response is your reality. Often times, it means you CAN’T understand that what you’re worrying about is irrational

Anxiety isn’t just chest pains, crying, and the inability to relax. It’s taking everyday parts of life and intensifying the excitement or fear they result in, times a thousand, to the point that they seem impossible to face.

Some days are more manageable than others, and it’s on those days I try to remind myself that I CAN get through whatever anxiety throws my way - and so can you
#SickNotWeak