ANXIETY
__________________
What is...
Anxiety?
...
Anxiety isn't just feeling nervous before public speaking.
It isn't that feeling you get right before a test.
It's feeling like the world is watching you, lurking around the corner and waiting to scream at you for one mistake.
It's shaking hands and bouncing legs and bitten-through-nails digging through your skin as you drag them up and down your arms.
Up. Down.
Up. Down.
U p. D o w n.
It's thinking that your life is over because you got a low grade on a quiz in Math class.
It's not being able to breathe, despite having all the air you need in your lungs.
It's throwing up before and after school presentations, if you even manage to get through it.
It's tight, close-lipped smiles to a stranger you've never met because you're worried about what they'll think of the words that spill through your lips, no matter if you'll likely never meet again.
Sometimes it's being unable to stomach your food because 'what if I throw up in front of everybody?'
Sometimes it's being unable to leave the house because 'what if the grocery store gets shot up while I'm there?'
Sometimes it's not wearing the clothes you like because 'what if they make fun of me and then no one will be my friend and then when I graduate everyone will forget about me and I'll die sad and alone with no one to share anything with because I wore
This
Specific
Shirt.'
Sometimes it's just barely-there-adrenaline thrumming under your skin that builds up until you spiral into an anxiety attack.
It's choking on the air you're trying to drag through your lungs as you spiral slowly down, down, down.
It's always wondering,
What if
What if
W h a t i f
It's wishing you could go silent forever so no one could hear the shrill scream desperately trying to escape from your soul, mind, and body.
It's knowing something will go wrong.
It always does.
Doesn't it?
...
You don't know.
You're never sure.
Never certain.
Always questioning.
Always fearful.
Always thinking,
What if.
What if.
W h a t I f ?
:)
