Love Never Feels Safe When You Have Anxiety

It is mind numbingly terrifying. Like you’ve been strapped in a non stop rollercoaster that has no intention of stopping. It’s the drop in your stomach type of feeling that feels like it will never end. It’s petrifying.

You are never able to get out of your head.

You scream at yourself in the mirror, why are you doubting yourself. Why are you so insecure? Why do you always have to feel like this? Why. Why. Why.

You are always questioning yourself. Questioning your ability to love. Questioning your worth. Questioning whether or not the ball will drop. Questioning him. Wondering if he’s in this for the right reasons. Wondering if this person is just playing a game. Wondering if your feelings are real.

Do you want a relationship or is it just because you are lonely?

You are in constant distress. And your significant other can see it in plain sight. They try to make you calm down. They try to reassure you that they aren’t going anywhere. They try to ease your anxieties and your nonstop questions.

But how the fuck are you supposed to calm down?

Anxiety doesn’t have an off button switch. Anxiety doesn’t have a time limit. It lives and sleeps inside of your head. You don’t know how to turn it off. And you can’t.

So you suffer quietly inside of your head. You observe what he says and how he says it. You observe the tiny minuscule things that no one else would care to notice. You look and watch and bite your nails. You feel like you are going out of your mind. And maybe you are.

You are falling in love.

But it doesn’t feel safe.

Why doesn’t it feel safe?

You’re so petrified that this love isn’t going to work out. You’re so terrified this person is going to break you just like the others. You’re so scared for your own heart, that you can’t even open up to the person that you are falling for.

This kind of love doesn’t feel relaxed. This kind of love doesn’t feel ok at all. This kind of love doesn’t feel secure. It doesn’t feel comfortable.

Is falling in love supposed to feel like you can’t breathe all the time? Is falling love supposed to feel so distant? So far away? Is falling in love supposed to feel like your heart is going to fall out of your chest?

In the movies they tell us falling in love is beautiful. They tell us that it fixes everything. That it fixes your heart and your brain. But when you have anxiety, it can feel like you are falling out of an airplane without a parachute. When you have anxiety, it can feel the furthest thing from ok. 

You are in a constant state of chaos. Your brain is a constant rat race, a carrousel of doubts and insecurities. And sometimes even falling in love can’t stop your anxiety from shining through. Sometimes, love can’t even save you.

Falling in love when you have anxiety feels jumping off a mountain top without looking down to see what’s under you.