An Ugly Truth: Living with Anxiety

Lately, things haven't been all sunshine and rainbows (literally... it was 1 degree when I got to Ithaca). The life I have around me is great on all accounts. I like my classes and my professors, I like my friends, I have great opportunities, and hopefully I can have a super fun spring break if I ever get around to planning it. But when things settle down, I find myself in a very unwelcoming but familiar place. I find myself in this black hole. As if I could scream and nobody would hear me. And that's just the way anxiety is sometimes. Living with anxiety is something I have been doing for a long time. I have gotten better at letting my rational side speak over my anxiety, but some days the anxiety will take over. There are tips and tricks galore to help you with anxiety and panic attacks, but at the end of the day, sometimes you just don't see it coming and it gets you by surprise. It's not a constant thing. There are days, sometimes even months, where I can go feeling neutral to positive, and only getting upset here and there like the average person. There are days where it feels as if my life has fallen into place, and I've finally figured things out. And then there are days, like lately, where even when nothing is wrong, it feels like everything is wrong. Anxiety is different for each person, but for me it's a lot about feeling everything one moment, and feeling nothing the next. On the worst days, the days where panic attacks sweep over, it's like I'm blind to everything. Physically, I can't see straight. But emotionally, it's even messier. It's like I know there is so much in me, but I can't find anything. There's a million thoughts but they go so fast that I can't grasp a single one of them. At the end of each day, I go to sleep not knowing what tomorrow will be. Maybe it'll be another hard day. Or maybe it'll be a wonderful day. I know this all sounds ugly and sad, but we all have the less-than-wonderful side of our lives. We spend a lot of time trying to bury that part and bring up only the happy parts, but we can't fix things that way. I've tried really hard to make my anxiety go away. It is my other half, literally. It speaks for me more than I would like it to, and I would love so much to just ignore it. But we can't do that. We can't just say it doesn't exist and push it aside for later. It's here. It's real. And maybe the more I can be real with it, the closer I'll actually be to feeling free from it. My life is wonderful on all accounts. But my mind is a messy place that can't always understand the amazing things that are happening around me. Living with anxiety is an ugly thing, but it is also a honest thing. Today I've decided I would rather be honest withs something ugly than going another moment ignoring the inevitable.