Definition Essay On Anxiety

My anxiety goes unnoticed. I don’t have the kind of anxiety that keeps me in bed all day, or that makes me crouch in the corner when I’m triggered. Yes, I have had those days when there’s no point to getting out of bed because I know my anxiety will keep me from doing anything, or I’ve been so overwhelmed by something that I have to remove myself from the situation because it’s triggered an anxiety attack. However, the idea of people seeing me having an anxiety attack or even knowing that my anxiety is as bad as it is makes me more anxious than the crowded halls do, or loud noises do, or people in positions of authority do.

The definition of anxiety in a psychiatric sense is this, “a nervous disorder characterized by a state of excessive

uneasiness and apprehension, typically with compulsive behavior or panic attacks.” When I’m walking in the halls, I get so nervous and so overwhelmed that I have to get that nervous energy out in someway, so I reach my hand up to my necklace and I rub my fingers over the cool metal, I also tend to walk faster when I’m in the halls as well. Both of these mannerisms are considered compulsive behavior. Because of my ability to hide my anxiety, many people think I’m making an inappropriate joke when I say something makes me anxious. Just because you haven’t seen me during an anxiety attack doesn’t mean that my anxiety is any less real.
Now is when people have told me, “all people feel a little anxious sometimes, that doesn’t mean you have anxiety.” Those people are right.

Just because I’m anxious sometimes doesn’t mean that I have anxiety, but when that anxious feeling henders my daily life does mean I have anxiety. I love people, and I hate people, but I’m mostly anxious around large groups of people. When it’s just me and a group of people I already know, I’m ok, but I can’t meet new people in a large group setting. I trouble cultivating friendships because of this. I want to have a group of close friends, but I’m never the first person somebody thinks about to hang out with because I’ve said no so many times due to my anxiety surrounding the situation. A friend recently invited me to attend her youth group with her; but I had this ball in the pit of my stomach, my heart started beating really fast, and my breathing started to get uneven all because I thought about the size of the group I would be in. I genuinely felt trapped because I wanted to go and hopefully grow closer to this person, but my body was protesting it. I didn’t feel any sort of relief until my mother told me I couldn’t go because she didn’t want me driving in the forecasted weather. I wasn’t the one to say no, therefore I didn’t have to explain my unseen

anxiety.
I’m a huge Dan and Phil fan. I watch every single one of their videos and when they announced the Interactive Introverts tour, I got really excited. I didn’t get tickets right away though because I couldn’t think of anyone who would want to go with me. I don’t have close enough friends who would go with me just because I wanted to go and I don’t know anyone who watches Dan and Phil. For a split second I almost bought a single ticket and I was gonna go by myself, but then I thought about the crowd that would be there, the area of the city it would be in, and the drive into the city itself, and I closed the window without buying the tickets. Some people might think it was a logical decision, it’s not exactly smart to go to concerts and things like that alone, but those people weren’t riding my train of thought during that decision. I was in no way making a logical decision. That decision was purely based on my lack of breathing, my speeding heartbeat, and my shaky hands. I could have been logical about it and gotten a second ticket and had my sister or my mother go with me, I could have been logical and just asked one of my friends to go with me, I could have been logical in multiple other ways, but I was “logical” by deciding this event that literally made me cry because I was so excited wasn’t worth the trouble to find a way to go with someone. Giving up something you really want because you can’t ask someone to go with you because you’re scared of being made fun of, or giving up something you really want because the amount of people projected to attend makes you stop breathing for a second is anxiety.
Just because your life isn’t affected by my anxiety doesn’t mean my life isn’t affected by my anxiety. Yes, I go to school despite the people there because I have to go to graduate and get out of this damn town! Yes, I go to grocery store by myself and I rush to put change in my wallet because I need to eat! Yes, I make the phone call to make an appointment with the doctor because I have serious health conditions that need to be addressed! Yes, I get up in front of the class and give that damn presentation because I can’t afford to get a bad grade on it! Just because I do all of these things that make me feel anxious doesn’t mean that I don’t have anxiety. I’ve just learned to hide my anxiety because I don’t want to be more trouble than I’m worth. I don’t want my parents to battle the insurance company to get coverage for medication or therapy. I don’t want my parents to lose the battle with the insurance company and pay for medication or therapy out of pocket. I don’t want to take up time with a psychiatrist that someone else needs more than me. I don’t want to make a teacher come up with something different just because I can barely stand in front of the class and give a presentation. I don’t want people to see me as weak. I don’t want people to treat me differently because my heart beats faster than normal in a crowd. I don’t want to be a burden because of my mental illness.
That being said, please don’t ever tell someone that they don’t have anxiety just because you’ve never seen them have a panic attack. That person is strong as hell because they live their life in a constant state of panic because they don’t know if something will trigger them and they need to take a breather, or because they’re surrounded by their trigger and they work hard to make sure that it doesn’t interfere with what they have to get done. Also, never judge a person for not wanting to talk at lunch, or for saying “I think I’ll stay in tonight,” you don’t know what they have to deal with throughout the day. For me, I have to be in a crowd of people every single day and I get anxious just thinking about it. I have to think about my grades everyday because if I don’t and I let them slip, my brain will convince me that I’ll never get into college and life will never get better. I have to keep my facade up at home too because my mom will give up her life to make mine easier. I have to do all of this with no one in my corner. I’m not one of those people that wait for someone else to text first, but I never know how to start a conversation. Just texting other people makes me anxious! So, please, be kind to people because you don’t know their life and you don’t know their mind. Be supportive and help them through it because I can speak from personal experience when I say that being alone in the treatment of any illness, mental or physical, sucks the life out of you faster than whatever is causing the illness in the first place.