Living with Anxiety

I’ve had anxiety even thinking about writing this blog. This blog was definitely not something that I had planned on writing, as not many people know this part of my life. I’ve always been a worrier, so bad that I will often allow myself to waste a day consumed by my thoughts. I will honestly, at times, sit there and over think a situation that has happened, jumping to conclusions that are usually incorrect. I’d never suffered from anxiety until about two years ago. It got quite bad, to the point that I had to be signed off work for a few days. I wanted to write this so that people can understand some of what I and so many others go through and a bit of awareness to anxiety.

So what is anxiety?
When I’m at my lowest I will avoid any situation that means meeting up with others, or in other terms, socialising. Now I’ve only ever been to this place once and it’s somewhere I want to stay far away from, if I can. At the moment I love seeing my friends and some of them understand me a lot more than others and they just, get it. Another aspect of anxiety is “grumpiness”. I have a severe case of RBF (resting bitch face, for those that don’t know), which means that I look grumpy at the best of times. I can’t help it, it’s just my face! On a serious note, when I am going through a wave of anxiety I will stop communicating as much and just keep myself to myself. Whilst other see this as rudeness, this is not the intention as quite often I’ll paint a smile on and pretend there’s nothing wrong. It can be exhausting. I can become grouchy and snappy and end up upsetting people that I never intended on upsetting. I will feel like everyone is against me and trying to pick faults with me all of the time. When really that’s not the case.

Image from healthyplace.com

The people around me, know me. They know that I’m not a horrible person, that I’m a hard worker and very career driven. All I’ve ever wanted to be is successful. So it hurts me if ever I’m coming across as a Moaning Mertle! I mean don’t get me wrong I live to moan practically, but there’s a difference between moaning as banter and moaning because life is pretty crappy. I’ve explained to my close ones how I can be so they know how to handle me and to not take it personally. I know that everyone has stress, but it’s how you deal with that stress that separates you from everyone else. Unfortunately I will often let stress rule my life. I am certainly by no means a “weak” person and I rarely ever cry, but when I do, you will know that there’s somethings wrong. Sometimes I’ll get anxiety attacks, I’ll sit there whilst my heart races and I’m worrying and worrying that something bad is going to happen. People think I’m a negative person, but I’m not. I’m actually quite positive, but I just worry a hell of a lot which comes across as being negative. I suppose I’m always trying to set myself up for the worst case.

Things to remember…
You can’t just tell someone with anxiety to cheer up or look on the bright side because to them there is no bright side at the moment. You can’t say to someone that they have this that and the other, so what have they got to be anxious/stressed about. There isn’t a person specification for anxiety. You either have it or you don’t. Anxiety is so much more than just worrying. It’s something that often controls how someone acts because usually they’re over thinking every aspect of their life. It’s important that people understand that anxiety is a mental illness and shouldn’t be taken lightly if someone says they suffer from it.

Images from https://app.emaze.com/mobile/@AFZWFQFI

End note
All I’m saying is that if you know someone with anxiety, sometimes all they need is a chat to reassure them. Feeling uneasy all of the time is not a nice feeling. That’s all I’ll say for now on this subject. I would love to know your thoughts on my blog, please comment below.

Thanks for reading, bye for now.