Anxiety

Having anxiety is something I’ve dealt with for years but I never really realised what it actually was. I think a lot of people throw around the word 'anxiety’ as something to describe a nervous feeling which is maybe why I struggled to come to terms with the seriousness of it. Even at 18 I thought having anxiety was just a ‘normal’ teenage thing to happen, but it’s not. Everyone will feel anxious at some point in their life but for some people, it's difficult to deal with these feelings, I am one of those people. So I thought I’d tell you about how my anxiety affects me.

I’ve always been a happy and confident kid. I think doing Theatre definitely helped me with that, but I have always been a big worrier too. I worry about everything, even now I worry about things that shouldn’t even concern me. I envy people who have hardly any cares but sadly I still haven’t learnt how to just ‘chuck it in the f*** it bucket’. In High School, I found that I’d worry about things that I couldn’t control which I think really affected my Mental Health. I worried that the train I was on would blow up or that I would be stabbed by the businessman who sat next to me. None of these things ever happened by the way and I found that listening to music helped distract me from these thoughts so I never really thought much of it. I wish I could tell you that I worry less now but I don’t, I worry just as much as I did 6 years ago but now I tell someone if I’m paralysed by worry. I’ll text my boyfriend and ask him to remind me that he loves me and I’m going to be ok, which he always does.

Definitely tell someone if you feel overwhelmed with worry, more often than not there’s nothing to worry about and you will be ok, or write your worries down. When you read them back a week later you’ll realise how silly it was that you ever worried about such a small thing.

For example; One night when I was in Sixth Form I was scrolling through Facebook and I saw ‘You really know yourself if you can answer 27/27 on this ‘BuzzFeed quiz’ So I thought yes, of course, I know myself I have a really good sense of who I am. I clicked the link and it was a massive list where you have to tick all the things you know about yourself. The list included ‘blood type, bank details, favourite flavour of ice cream etc’ it hit me that I didn’t know the answer to any of those questions. It filled me with so much panic because I kept thinking well if I was in trouble and needed to tell someone by blood type I wouldn’t know. The Ice-Cream thing too, I didn’t know what my favourite flavour was, I love every ice cream. I was up all night because of that, trying to figure out ‘who I was’. Not knowing if you prefer Chocolate over Strawberry is probably not that big of a deal to you reading this, but to me, it was the end of the world. It was on my mind for weeks, the fact I didn’t know who I was really bugged me, but then I forgot about it. I genuinely forgot it happened and It wasn’t until I read my diary a year later that I was reminded of it, and I laughed out loud. It was so funny to me that I cried over a BuzzFeed Article.

My experience of Sixth Form was 2 years of deep Anxiety, some days I couldn’t even move because I was too sad and anxious. I felt so overwhelmed with everything that I almost left at the end of my first year but I didn’t. The main reason I stayed was that I wanted to stick at it and push myself to see it till the end. So I stayed but every day I wished I could be literally anywhere else even though I was having fun in some of the classes, in the back of my mind I always had a feeling of anxiety and sadness. I’d wake up and think if I go into school today I’ll get killed on the way home, I know it sounds silly but I genuinely would convince myself something bad would happen if I left the house. It definitely helped me when my Flatmate was with me because I knew he’d protect me if we got into a situation like that. Intrusive thoughts are really debilitating especially when you obsess over them. My consistent absence from Sixth Form meant that I was really behind on work which stressed me even more. I think that Sixth Form is super hard and I’m in awe of anyone who can get through it unscathed.

Looking back I’m so proud of myself that I got through it I can’t believe I was so sad and so anxious every day for 2 years and still managed to come out with D*D*D (We won’t talk about my English A-Level mark) I still feel anxious but It definitely happens less now. Some days I won’t get out of bed and that's perfectly ok. Some days I’ll feel on top of the world and wonder why I ever felt so sad and that is ok too. I think you really just have to feel all your feelings sometimes and accept that it’s not always going to be ok. There will be bad days/weeks but there will also be the best times and trust me, you don’t want to miss out on those.

My DM’s are always open and if you want to talk about your experiences on my blog please email me at letusbecandid@gmail.com

Peace,

Cadi x