It's Not That Easy
Every once in a while, I'll see a post on social media from a mental health page I follow, and it will say something along the lines of “worrying/ruminating/stressing won't help, just let it all go”. I know these pages and posts mean well, but it bothers me when things like this are put as if they are simple.
As someone who has spent most of my life being told that I was overreacting, or countless other things that invalidated my feelings, this impulse to say just don't worry gets under my skin. Because believe me, no one with an anxiety disorder wants to be anxious all of the time. It's exhausting to constantly be in fight or flight mode, even when you know, logically, that there is no real physical threat to your safety.
Yes, I know that it is statistically unlikely for me to be in a car accident, but that doesn’t mean my anxiety about driving on the freeway magically go away. Trust me, if it did, I would be driving up and down the express way all the time.
No, I don’t know why driving gives me anxiety. Maybe it isn’t about getting into an accident, maybe it is. Anxiety is not so simple to define and find the trigger of. My therapist and I spent months trying to figure out why even sitting in the passenger seat of a car for any amount of time nearly sent me into a panic attack, and we still don’t know.
I do, however, understand why people say these things. They are (usually) trying to be helpful, and they genuinely don’t get why something they see as small would take up so much space in an anxious person’s brain. We don’t get it either.
I think this goes hand in hand with the still surprisingly common idea that mental illness isn’t real. I’ve been laughed at by people who are very close to me for mentioning my anxiety. That doesn’t make it any less real, but it does make me much more likely to hide my feelings and things that actually are what most non-anxious people would see as a big deal. Remember what I said earlier about being told I was overreacting? This is exactly what I did. I still have a hard time trusting myself and what I’m feeling.
It is extremely difficult to unlearn this. The night before I woke up in the hospital with a nearly fatal case of diabetic ketoacidosis, my brother asked me if I thought my symptoms were bad enough for me to have to go to the hospital.
I said no.
Less than twelve hours later, I would be rushed to two different hospitals, and be told countless times that I was lucky to be alive.
Unfortunately, not every thought and feeling you have will be obviously dangerous, and learning which ones are just your anxiety talking is hard. The amount of times I say or it’s just my anxiety when talking about something I’m worried about is through the roof. But I’m learning, and I finally have moments where I feel like I can truly trust my intuition.
How did I get there? Time and therapy.
I will always, always encourage people to go to therapy, whether you know what you’re struggling with, or if you don’t think you’re struggling at all.
Another thing I encourage my non-anxious friends to do: be patient with us. We know our brains are lying to us, but sometimes it can be very convincing. We know it’s frustrating. Please be kind.
Stay safe out there, folks.
—Abbie
