What Makes Your Anxiety Even Worse, Based On Your Birth Order

First Born

As the first born child, your anxiety is lesser than the rest of your family members. Because you were the first child, you got plenty of attention and never had to deal with separation anxiety with your parents. You also have higher self esteem than your other siblings because you got to know what it felt like to be loved first. While you are usually mentally stable, your anxiety can creep up when you don’t expect it to in regards of being a good role model. You hate feeling out of control, because all of your life you’ve gotten used to getting your way. Anxiety is not something that you tell people about because your confidence is so high. Yet still, the anxiety that plagues you follows you everywhere. You always want to be the best of the best, and that’s a toxic way to live. You need to learn that perfection isn’t real, and no one is going to achieve that level of control and power.

Middle Child

The middle child is usually more insecure than the first born and the youngest. You have never been first and you have never been last. Since the middle child is usually viewed as completely different or the odd one out of the family, your anxiety levels are at an all time high in most cases. Because you’ve never felt like you had a voice with your family and friends, your anxiety manifests socially. You got less attention growing up, so you are always overthinking about saying the right thing at all times. You want so desperately to feel loved and to feel like you are cared about, because all your life you haven’t been the center of attention. Your anxiety gets worse in any kind of social setting, especially at parties where you don’t know that many people. No wonder there’s such thing as ‘middle  child syndrome’.

Youngest

As the youngest, you were showered with attention in your younger years. However, as you moved out of your parents house and began adulthood, you realized how cruel real life can be. You put a ton of pressure on yourself to be the very best, but you fail to live up to your expectations. Because your parents were always counting on you to be the best out of your siblings and outshine everyone, you feel like a failure the majority of the time. Your anxiety shows up with your grades, with your career, and with your personal life. It is always looming over you like a dark, angry cloud. Not a day goes by where you don’t feel like you’re taking the wrong path in life, and as a result your anxiety pushes through in a really powerful way.

Twin

As a twin, your anxiety is always at a all time high. Growing up with someone who has the exact same DNA as you is incredibly stressful on the both of you. You are being constantly compared to your other twin, and it can be really damaging to your self esteem and your confidence levels. Most twins have high anxiety because they are always trying to out do the other person. Each twin has their own talents, but people constantly like to put you into boxes, in order to decipher who is who. It’s not always a walk in the park being a twin, and if one twin has anxiety or another mental illness, it’s pretty likely the other twin will have it too.

 Only Child

As a child you were spoiled, showered with praise and compliments. But as you got older your parents put a lot of pressure on you to do them proud, to be the best, and to do the most. Because you don’t have anyone else in your family to talk to other than your parents, your mental state was affected. While your anxiety isn’t as bad as if you were a twin, it gets worse when talks about your future is mentioned. You were always supposed to have an exact plan of how your life was supposed to pan out, but you feel more lost than found. You also isolate yourself frequently, because you’re so used to being alone. This isolation could cause your anxiety to get worse as time passes, because you aren’t used to social interactions as much as people who do have siblings.