what-even-is-thiss:

Things about anxiety that suck and I never see anybody talk about

I’m just ranting from my own experience because I’m frustrated. Feel free to rant about your own as well.

• It causes freaking digestive problems because when in fight or flight your digestive system basically shuts down but guess what my fight or flight response is activated all the time so some weird stuff happens that I won’t get into.
• Sometimes you lose circulation in your extremities so your fingers and lips and toes get numb or cold and it SUCKS
• You’re constantly taking short breaths and don’t get any oxygen to your brain so I can’t think at full capacity. Nice.
• When you do finally take a moment to fill your lungs with enough air you’ve been going so long without enough oxygen you feel dizzy and it’s very confusing.
• Sometimes you don’t even know what exactly you’re afraid of or you do know but can’t articulate it so when people try to help and ask you to talk through it you can’t and you feel like a doofus and get even more anxious
• That weird trance you get into during and right after your breathing exercises that isn’t meditation or hypnosis but it’s freaking weird.
• When you finally calm down for the first time in weeks or months and being calm feels so foreign at this point you start lowkey freaking out because WHAT IS HAPPENING
• Mildly dissociating and feeling nothing but knowing you’re anxious by the way your body is reacting
• The chest pains that sometimes make it feel like you’re dying even when you’re not having a panic attack
• Being tired like, all the time dude. From fighting your own body and brain. I need sleep.
• When people assume you have depression because in many ways it can look similar from the outside but it’s not the same and it’s frustrating because you know you don’t have depression and you can’t speak for those that do
• Those days when you’re scared of loud noises like an abused cat
• Going partially nonverbal. Like, you can talk and fake your way through things, but the entire time it’s taking up all your concentration and willpower and it would be so much easier if you could just not talk for two days because talking is so frightening or you’re so tired it’s hard to talk.
• That feeling near the end of a panic attack where it’s hard or nearly impossible to move and it feels like your body is made of lead
• Crying and hiding in the corner wrapped up in a blanket very frightened because you accidentally burned dinner and it feels like everyone hates you now
• The start of panic attacks where it feels like this isn’t reality and you have to ask someone if this is real or constantly count your fingers or something.
• When you’re about to do something that makes you anxious like talk to a secretary and suddenly it’s like there’s an invisible rope pulling you away and you just nope out of there
• Literally walking a mile out of your way to avoid talking to someone because you’re convinced you’ll say something wrong.
• Those weird looks you get sometimes when you’re quietly singing to calm yourself down, especially if you’re like me and nursery rhymes and simple songs are what you sing to calm yourself down. Like, an adult walking around quietly singing sing a song of sixpence has to look weird.
• Not only can you sometimes tell you might get a panic attack that day, it has a taste. That’s right. A taste. Not just a feeling. A taste.
• That weirdly calm voice your therapist uses that just seems… slightly creepy at times. It takes some getting used to. Espeally if your particular brand of anxiety makes you suspicious of people.

That’s all I could think of for now. I’m a mess today. Like I said feel free to share your own.