What No One Tells You About Anxiety

Breathe. Just breathe.

I repeat the words over and over and over again in my mind. No. No. No. Another command I must force myself to obey. The thoughts are overpowering every day. They never stop, always lurking in the crevices of my brain. I am never okay, never at peace, never able to stop it. There are only small moments that I don’t hear them whispering lies to me.

Living with anxiety, depression, panic disorder…is hell on earth. No one understands and I wouldn’t wish this on anyone. They see the facade I act out every day and assume I’m fine, but there is not a day or a minute, or even a second that I don’t feel trapped.

There are things that you don’t want to tell anyone, things that haunt you so much that you can’t even speak the words aloud for fear of giving them any kind of power. When I wish them away, they only get stronger, louder, and even more deceitful. It is a daily struggle and sometimes I’m too weak to fight. I don’t want to talk about it because that makes it real. I want to ignore it and hope it disappears.

The only problem is that is never does.

The worst part is that you can’t escape it because it lives inside you. It is you, a part of who you are, and that is the most difficult part of it all.

I want to scream. I want to run. I want to feel everything and nothing at all.

There are days when I am so exhausted, but not from working or exercising like normal people. I am physically and emotionally drained from combating these thoughts in my mind. At times, I am in another world and I zone out. I talk to myself constantly and I over-analyze every. single. thing until there is nothing left.

Sometimes I don’t want to get out of bed. Sometimes I don’t want to talk to anyone. Sometimes I just want to be alone. Sometimes facing the world is too much after I’ve had to face myself.
For once I want to win. I want to stare into my soul and tell it to do what I want. I want to be in control. Control is the core of anxiety. The need to control all aspects of life and even death. Because life and death cannot be controlled completely, anxiety kicks in and tells me I’m suffocating.

I would give anything to stop it.

I would give anything to breathe without thinking and to be happy -truly happy- and not just distracted for a brief moment.

Everyone is going through a battle and sometimes you would never guess it. Be kind. When someone’s mind is their enemy -they can’t afford to have any others.