Art by Christopher Chen
I suffer from anxiety. And not the normal anxiety that everyone experiences from time to time, like right before an important test or a job interview. Instead, I have Generalized Anxiety Disorder, meaning that I’m experiencing some form of anxiety practically every moment of every day, which is certainly far from pleasant. I go to therapy, I’m on medication, I read scores of books and watch tons of videos about how to cope — and they help, somewhat. But I’m always aware that any situation could take my anxiety from manageable to crippling.
Chances are, you know someone with severe anxiety. Psychology Today, in the article “How Big a Problem is Anxiety?” reports that in any given year, approximately 17 percent of all Americans suffer from some type of anxiety disorder, and this number is getting larger each year. Anxiety can seem fairly benign in the face of other mental illnesses like schizophrenia, but in severe cases, people suffering from an anxiety disorder are unable to hold a steady job or form meaningful relationships and are at risk for a range of health complications like heart disease and ulcers.
You see, for people with anxiety, stress is much more than an inconvenience. If the average person gets stuck in traffic on the way to class, he or she might be upset on the road, and his or her mind may even return to that feeling a few times throughout the day. For someone like me, however, the thought never leaves. The LA freeway system follows me long after I’ve parked my car. If there’s a lecture in class, I’m too preoccupied with traffic to pay any attention. If there’s a test, the hours I’ve spent memorizing the birth dates of Renaissance artists have gone to waste. My brain has been compromised by my anxiety.
For those with anxiety, rumination is a simple fact of life. I overthink everything, from the way I was greeted by a Caf worker to the joke that I told my best friend. My brain is constantly conjuring up ways that things could go wrong. If I have a midterm coming up, I worry about it nonstop, even if I know the material better than I know my own phone number. If I’m going out to dinner with friends, I’m stressed over whether my stories will be entertaining enough, and I’m constantly replaying past occasions in which I’ve been embarrassed, like the time I knocked my water into someone’s lap.
Because I know how my brain operates, I often avoid situations in which the stress will be overwhelming. I rarely go to parties, not because I hate people, but because a party is a minefield of potentially disastrous social situations. The week before the party, my head will be flooded with worries about everything that could go wrong. I could make a lame joke in front of someone I’m trying to impress, I could spill my drink and stain the carpet, I could get food poisoning from the cheese platter and wind up in the hospital with my stomach removed. (Hey, no one said anxiety was rational.) And the week after the party, I’m reliving each moment countless times, wondering if the people I was talking to found me annoying or if there was a piece of spinach stuck in my teeth and everyone thinks I’m a slob.
Does this mean that I just want to hole myself up in my room and never be social ever again? No, it doesn’t (please invite me to your party). Despite my anxiety, I’m a fairly social person, and I will even occasionally go out of my comfort zone and do something that I know will cause me a tremendous amount of stress because it seems worthwhile in the end. But sometimes I decide to stay in because I’ve weighed the costs and benefits of a situation and decided that the anxiety it will cause is not worth the potential fun I’m missing out on. For me, my mental health will always come before new experiences.
So what does this mean for the rest of you? If you suffer from anxiety, know that this is nothing to be ashamed about. If you don’t want to go out with your friends because your anxiety level is too high, just explain the problem and stay in. Never be afraid to explain your situation to others or to lead a less hectic lifestyle in order to manage your stress. And for those without anxiety, don’t pressure your friends. You might unwind by going to a club, but for some of us, that only winds us up. Understand where your friends are coming from and that their brains may work a little differently from yours. Anxiety is dreadful, but the support of others can make it less overwhelming.
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