Nobody Wants It

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.