How Anxiety Is Sabotaging Your Love Life Without You Even Noticing

Anxiety. It causes you to isolate yourself. It causes sweaty palms and awkward conversation. It makes you feel like you are going mad. It makes it hard to breathe. It makes it hard to live.

Anxiety can effect every aspect of your life, love life included.

Anxiety makes you overthink every detail. It makes you freak out over every minuscule thing. It makes you fret about the smallest of arguments or conflicts. It makes you feel like you aren’t good enough. It makes you feel like love isn’t even worth it, because it’s just too damn hard for someone like you.

Even before the first date, you’re already on high alert. You tear out your closet, flooding your room with clothes you don’t even like. You stare at yourself in the mirror, questioning yourself. Questioning everything.

You try on way too many outfits, not happy with anything. You open up the fridge, needing something to take the edge off. Except this isn’t normal stress or nervousness. This is anxiety. You need a god damn valium to calm yourself down because you’re already on the verge of a panic attack.

You just want to cancel.

And then the first date happens. You call your friends, asking them if it would be rude to turn around, to go back home, where it’s safe. Because this isn’t safe and your body knows it. They tell you to chill out. They tell you to clam down. To breathe. But you can’t. You can never just breathe.

Your hands shake as you open up the door to the restaurant or bar. Every single cell and bone in your body is screaming at you to not walk forward. Every single muscle is telling you no. Leaveleaveleave.

It’s only a first date. But for you? It’s a freaking marathon.

You get through the date. You should be feeling relieved, right? No, not even close. Now your brain is flooding your mind with what ifs and questions and nit picky things that don’t even matter. Did you talk too much? Should you have talked less? Did you ask enough questions? Did you notice your shaking hands and shaky voice? Did he notice how you didn’t touch your food?

It was only a first date. But you’re exhausted.

Anxiety is a monster. It’s a beast. And no matter how much medication you take, no matter how much you talk to your therapist or meditate, it still lives on. You can’t just make it stop. You can’t silence the screams. You can’t shoo away the demons inside your mind.

Anxiety makes love harder than it should be. It turns love into something scary. It turns love into a red flag zone. It makes you think you will never be good enough for anybody. It makes you not want to even try.

Anxiety makes you feel like you aren’t lovable. And it’s not your fault. It will never be all your fault. But I promise you, one day, you will meet someone who soothes your demons. One day, you will meet someone who doesn’t make you want to flee or run. One day, you’ll meet someone where it just clicks. One day, you’ll meet someone who will understand your deepest of emotions and feelings.

And one day, your anxiety won’t be the thing that will overtake your mind and your body. One day, love will take it’s place.