I have anxiety.
I have compulsive thoughts and they get so bad that I can’t complete tasks. I have a fear of not ‘being good enough’.
I don’t even know what or how ‘being good enough’ looks like - what’s the standard? I have no idea but I go through hell everyday trying to reach that blurred line.
Doing anything from washing the dishes to completing an university essay begins and end the same way. In utter and complete anxiety of failure.
Am I scared of failing? Maybe. I am scared of not doing what I should be doing. And what I should be doing are things that other people seem appropriate and rightful for me to do. I don’t want to let them down. So is it okay to let myself down?
I don’t want to be anxious. I don’t want to create scenarios that have failed endings because that’s how I think it’ll end.
I would like to enjoy living in the moment. Not thinking about the dishes in the sink back at home.
Oh but everyone has dishes and laundry and shit. Why am I whining? I don’t know. I would love to experience the joy of the detergent running down my wrinkled fingers but I can’t. Instead I am stressing that the plate is going to fall and break into a million pieces and I’ll fail at washing dishes.
Does it ruin things? Yes. Anxiety makes every aspect of my life hurt like I’m swallowing stones.
Everyday conversations drift into a collision of ‘what if’s’ and ‘it won’t work out’.
I come up with reasons to leave people in my life because I can’t keep up with everyone. I don’t want to come off as rude or simply a bitch. But I do. Because my mind sometimes just isn’t mine.
It hurts.
Maybe I want to prove to myself that I’m okay. And sometimes I know that I’m okay and that everything may just turn out fine. But mostly I feel like someone is tossing heavy clouds filled with rain and sadness, assuming that I’ll be able to hold the burden. But I can’t. Sometimes the clouds tip over and I can’t run after them.
I talk myself out it. “It’s fine. Nothing important, everyone has anxiety. You’re just over exaggerating”. Then I go to sleep. But I can’t sleep because I’m worried that my alarm won’t work so I toss and turn and cry inside because I am so tired.
Don’t be sad. Be positive. Everyone say’s that this is life and it’s normal what I feel. If it’s so normal, how come I feel like a stranger in my own skin?
I could romanticize the whole thing and write it out like a Twilight story. I could say it's a wonderful feeling to wake up with a headache and stress from nothing but the truth is it's nothing but horrible.
Anxiety heightens my emotions. I feel more. More sad, more depressed, more stressed.
Though going in and out of depression for the last three years and having constant anxiety has made me a deeper person.
I stare into darkness and think about worst case scenarios. So much so I should get paid for it as a full time job.
And when the day ends and I make it into bed after all the worrying and stressing over I come to a realisation. I am an army of one. A stressed, anxious, overzealous solider in my own army trying to fight the war of living life as a ‘normal’ person.
