Have you ever had the type of dream where
you wake up and you feel like the earth is spinning too quickly? You look
around your dark bedroom and you feel like you’ve just had an out of body
experience on an outlandish adventure, and you can’t quite believe that what
you just felt in the dream didn’t happen in real life. Sometimes the dreams are
pleasant- maybe you flew across the world in a day and saw the seven wonders
that took your breath away. Sometimes the dreams are dark- maybe you just spent
the last three days being chased by a bug-eyed mad man with a knife and a foot
fetish…
Regardless of what the dream entailed
specifically; you wake up and something just doesn’t feel right. Most people
calmly get up and get a glass of water, or take a few deep breaths and go right
back to sleep. These types of dreams and those types of heart pounding feelings
only happen occasionally after all. For me, these feelings happen all the time.
It doesn’t matter if I’m awake or sleeping. I constantly feel like the world is
spinning a little too quickly and like I can’t get a grip on what’s happening.
It’s been like this for my entire life. My heart is a wild horse galloping
aimlessly through an open field with no plans of stopping. It just runs faster
and faster no matter what. I can’t control it.
This of course causes the adrenaline to
race through my veins and into every inch of my body. I can feel it spreading
as my pulse gets even quicker, my skin becomes greasy and slick, my fingers
tremble, and knees become nothing but contorted muscles that use to be. My
breath comes quickly, but try as I might I cannot under any circumstances seem
to catch it. It’s like trying to catch every raindrop falling from the sky on a
stormy day into one bucket- hopeless and completely impossible.
Having anxiety is like having a
large rock tied around your waist by a string. Most of the time that rock
weighs you down and makes you feel like you’re drowning. Your lungs burn; your
head starts pounding, and you thrash around in frantic attempts to save your
own life from a situation that may not be real. Other times it simply sits
there keeping you anchored to real life. Your thoughts are cautious, every
possibility is carefully combed over, and every action is well thought out. Regardless
of its implications, it’s a nuisance and not something anyone would voluntarily
want to live with.
It's a nuisance and not something anyone would voluntarily want to live with.
Can I reiterate that? Great. Thanks. One more time...I want to
make sure you understand.
No one who genuinely has
anxiety wants to live with it.
So here's an idea: Don't ever
assume someone is "faking it" for attention. Someone accused me of
faking it several years ago, and it took me a really really long time to get
over. I was at a youth conference my senior year of high school and was sitting
in the middle of the row between a dozen or so people. I was sitting there
listening to some speaker begin his sermon and my hands started to get really
clammy. My ears started ringing. My head was pounding. My heart felt like the
viral video of the gorilla at the zoo pounding on the glass over and over
again. I looked around and knew I needed to leave before it got worse. I was
afraid that if I moved then everyone on my row would think something was wrong
with me. I was afraid that all the people sitting behind me would be aggravated
that I was blocking their view for the twenty seconds that it took for me to
leave. I was angry with myself for feeling so lousy and anxious in the middle
of a youth conference for Pete’s sake! So I sat and tapped my fingers and felt
my legs shaking. I couldn’t hear a word the man was saying, and the only thing
I could think about was how badly I needed some fresh air before my head
imploded. I leaned over to one of our chaperones and told them that I was
having an anxiety attack and needed to step outside. This individual asked me
incredulously if I was serious, and when I made it outside they told me I was
being ridiculous.
Duh.
Dude. I know that.
I KNOW that.
I know I’m being ridiculous.
I know you can’t possibly understand me because I don’t understand me! I know that leaving a quiet, safe place to
come outside in a hyperventilating mess of tears over nothing at all doesn’t
make sense to you! I KNOW it doesn’t because I can’t even comprehend it myself.
So yeah. I’m being
ridiculous. Thank you very much for your mighty words of wisdom.
Now of course, in this
person’s defense. They didn’t know any better. They kind of just assumed the
whole “tough love thing” is how lifelong issues were resolved and taken care
of. Fair enough. And yeah, a 17 year old girl standing with her arms folded and
a scowl on her face for no apparent reason? If I didn’t know better I would
assume she was messing with me too and trying to get out of sitting in a
crowded room for longer than necessary. So I get it. Honest mistake. Slip of
the tongue. It happens.
This particular situation and
ones that happened before and after came up again. And again. And someone
eventually asked me why I felt like I needed to pretend to have anxiety to
obtain attention from others. I haven’t ever been physically punched in the gut
by another human being before, but if I had to imagine the feeling that moment
when I was asked that question would have been it. I was caught off guard. I
felt utter disbelief combined with overwhelming hurt and embarrassment. The
wind caught in my throat. Tears gathered in my eyes, words choked and lost
somewhere in my brain. I sat there with my jaw slack and fingers trembling.
If people thought I was doing
it for attention and anxiety was just a made up mental illness then there’s
something wrong with me. There’s something wrong with me. There’s something
wrong with me. There’s something wrong with me. Anxiety is made up. Anxiety
isn’t real. Something in my brain just makes me think that’s something wrong
with me so I make it up and pretend it’s anxiety. But now my anxiety is a
burden on people around me. Now my anxiety is something made up that people
around me think that I don’t actually have. People think I’m weird and crazy.
Anxiety doesn’t exist, it’s in my head. Something’s wrong with me.
Awesome…
I walked around for a long
time after that and just assumed I couldn’t talk to anybody about what was
bothering me, because I would assume that they wouldn’t believe me. My anxiety got worse and worse. Each attack
more physiological than the last, and ultimately one particular panic attack
landed me in an ER last summer.
Nobody. Wants. To. Live.
Like. That.
Nobody wants to live life
feeling like they’re trapped in an airtight room with hundreds of people and no
one to talk to. Nobody wants to “fake it till they make it” 100% of the time.
Nobody wants to pretend that something they have that affects their lives
everyday doesn’t actually exist at all. It’s like knowing you have a broken
ankle, but walking around all-day and pretending like it doesn’t hurt you at
all. You may be limping and in dire pain, but you aren’t going to bother anyone
by asking for painkillers or a trip to the doctor to get it checked out. That
would be ridiculous.
I write this post to remind
you of the importance of mental illness awareness. Educate yourself. Learn as
much as you can about something that so many people live with. NAMI reports
that One in four adults−approximately 61.5 million
Americans−experiences mental illness in a given year. Approximately 20 percent
of youth ages 13 to 18 experience severe
mental disorders in a given year. For ages 8 to 15, the estimate is 13 percent.
Approximately 18.1 percent of American adults−about 42 million people−live with
anxiety disorders, such as panic disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD),
posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), generalized anxiety disorder and phobias.
The statistics are overwhelming. You can’t ignore it. So I’m begging you, if you’ve
read this far down and I still have your attention will you just please please
PLEASE make it a goal in your own life this week to become more understanding
of the things you don’t 100% know about? Everyone makes mistakes. You've probably in your life at some point or another said something to somebody who struggles anxiety or depression, or any invisible illness for that matter, and said something that really hurt their feelings. Ok. But do something about it so it doesn't happen to somebody else again.
