5 Things You Should Know About People With Anxiety

Anxiety is one of those things that people have. Whether it's just common worries about a new job, or worries about the future or about something that is totally not likely to happen, it just depends on the person. Many people in the United States have GAD, which stands for Generalized Anxiety Disorder, which means that they have excessive worry about events that are unlikely to occur.

Now that you know the background of GAD, let's talk about some things you need to know about people who actually have it.

1. It's very common for people who have it to feel that you're mad at them. Many people who suffer tend to overthink things, to the point where they are reading through old text messages or writing down everything that has happened up until the very point where you stopped messaging them back or you acted differently towards them. Even though you may not be mad at them at all, they can't shake the fear that you might be mad at them and even though it seems like it's a very little probability that you'd be mad at them, they take it very seriously and think you are, even though it's probably not the case at all.
2. You may think they're just shy, but they just really don't know what to say. Anxiety makes you worry. A lot. There is common worry about meeting new people and then there's anxiety. If you introduce your friend with anxiety to someone new, they're going to be terrified and think things like, "What if they don't like me?" or, "Am I being to quiet? Are they going to think I'm crazy?" or, "Oh no, if I don't become friends with this person, she/he's going to replace me with them!" It sounds totally outrageous, I know. But that is what happens.
3. It's not that she/he just didn't want to go out, it's that their anxiety was probably torturing them into not going. Many times, we make plans for weeks ahead and think we can go to them. We get excited for the weeks leading up to the plans, but then, an hour before, we start stressing about what to wear, what to do, what to say, and how to act. Even if it's with someone that we're close to, we still don't know who is going to be around us, and if they're going to give us weird looks. It gets to be so much that we just cancel and watch Netflix.
4. There's a reason we use To-Do lists and our calendars so much. Us people, with anxiety, need to have every single moment of the day planned. It helps us relieve anxiety and so when you decide to change one little thing for your plans that we had today, (by "we" I mean the person in your life who has anxiety) it doesn't help. It is much easier for us to just live off of a list and just act like a robot, in a way.
5. It's important for them to get therapy. Chronic anxiety isn't something that will just go away over time; so if the person in your life who has it seems more stressed than usual, more quiet than usual, or seems uncomfortable most of the time, encourage them to seek a councilor. They may be worried about going at first, but it does help a lot.

Thanks for reading!