how life sounds like with anxiety

I think it is easy to say that life with anxiety is hard. I don't remember when I started feeling anxious and from when living with it felt like a burden to me. I feel like anxiety has always been a part of me and from a certain moment, I just started adjusting to it and seeing it as a part of my personality. It doesn't define me, yes, but at the same time it is part of me and I can't do anything about it, besides dealing with that noise.

It feels heavy to speak about it sometimes... you can see online people saying that we have to choose our words very carefully because nowadays everybody labels as anxiety every kind of thing. But I ask, is there a real right way to consider anxiety? Because I don't feel like we necessarily need panic attacks or massive consequences, to consider someone's reaction an anxiety reaction, right? As for depression... it can be visible and it cannot be. But they're both depression, right? 

I grew up stomaching sentences like "go over it, stop feeling this way" or "oh come on! again? you're saying it is anxiety?". And all the time, I felt like something was off, and something was not valued the way it should have. I grew up and experienced different kind of moments and situations that put my anxiety on a very hard challenge. I used to feel drained and powerless most of the time, tired, sad, almost sick. Everything was in my stomach, in my body and in my chest. I used to feel cold, to shake, to tremble even when there was no apparent reason to feel that way. At least, who was seeing me like that, used to think so. I felt it all, and I knew where it was coming from but somehow I was too scared to say it out loud just because I thought someone would have made me feel like those feelings weren't enough worthy. 

But the worst enemy for me was my brain...

They call it anticipatory anxiety or commonly, future tripping. I feel like my anxiety comes mostly from the events that are not yet happened, what the situation could be, how the moment could make me feel, what people could think about it... 

Now, I will just try my best to describe what's in my brain in those moments. 

It is like feeling inside a room. You close your eyes and you see nothing, right? Well, in those moments I can see everything that can happen at a specific event, at a specific situation if it will not go the way I wish it would. You can see everybody laughing, everybody staring at you, and you try to picture the best way you can show yourself without embarrassing yourself. It is a sort of a training. I don't know how to explain that in the clearest way possible, but it feels like you are preparing for the most awful moment of your life, so you know how to behave... just in case. 

You feel you head saying "what if..." and the whole loop starts right there: when everything feels so real and deep that you wish your head shout up for just a little while. And to be clear, I am not just talking about events where you have to be the center of the attention, but normal and usual stuff... can be everything: a family dinner, an hang out with friends, parking and making someone wait behind you, choosing the wrong card at a store... anything, not just big things. Also the smallest daily things you could do. 

I used to live anxiety way worse than how I live it right now, maybe I have faced different situations that gave me the "who cares" vibe that I needed, but there are still moments I feel at the worst even without anybody noticing it. Especially when it comes to life choices, big projects or anything that can literally change my life. What if I make a mistake? 

When I was younger, my brain totally blocked. I used to feel my heart beat racing in my ears, my eyes going blind and my stomach hurting so much it felt like I was about to throw up. Not to mention, the shaking of all my body, the cold trembles and the burden on my chest that gave me hard time breathing. I don't know why it started, I just feel like it gave me so many consequences in other situations and moments of my life that I might call them easily, traumatic. 

Personally, my ears and face turn red when I am embarrassed and, when anxiety kicks in, my voice trembles and I have to catch breath from time to time to just speak normally. This was the most uncomfortable feeling for me, because when it came to just deal with body trembles or stomachache I was the only one experiencing it, nobody actually saw it, but when my face turned all red... you can easily understand that, everybody saying "oh you're red!" and laughing, it was not helpful... it made it worse and my face turned into a very very red tomato... definitely not embarrassing... 

But speaking about most important things, life with anxiety, sometimes can also include giving up to things just because dealing with it might feel like digging a deep grave for your body, and it would be more painful than actually giving it up completely and avoiding it. And this is a really toxic behavior, I know. I gave up things in life because of the anxiety of exposing myself too much or just because of the fear of reliving those traumatic feelings. When just the thought gave me anxiety, what could happen if I actually choose to do it? It was mostly my brain and fear speaking. And thankfully for so many things, growing up and forcing myself to do them, helped a lot erasing the thought of failing or embarrass myself even before anything happened. But as I said, it is not always that easy and it depends on what you're living and feeling in that moment, how strong your brain can be and how it can fight against the worst feelings. And I always joke about this with myself... it feels like being Hulk and Dr Banner sometimes, or even better Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Your brain and your heart sometimes don't work simultaneously. And this is what hurts the most, I guess. 

Maybe I'd say something shallow but I feel like living with anxiety is a full time job. So exhausting and so painful that sometimes you just wish you could take a break from your own brain. Because yeah, it is all in there. I feel like at a certain point you just accept it, you don't feel it's so hard anymore, but still wish it wasn't there. It is just normal to think it that way. But as many says, Life still goes on.