Anxiety as a Bodily Function

Even as a little girl, I thought I was so over-dramatic and annoying for worrying about things that I shouldn't. I stressed every detail, over-thought about friendships, past conversations, and past interactions. I constantly reread every message and rethought every scenario. I pressed and etched the little things into my head. Repetition. Repetition. Repetition.

Why?

Something that I thought was normal, turned into something I had to be medicated for. I had many reasons for acting the way I did. Let me list it out. (I love lists. Lists are nice.)

1. I am not the most liked person in my family. Big shocker, I'm not everyone's cup of tea.
2. I never had any true friends. Another point. Looks like not only am I everyone's cup of tea, but I was also made a laughing stock in middle school, which brings us to my next point.
3. I was bullied. Harshly. People still can't believe this.
4. As much as I was involved in and out of school, I felt as if I wasn't enough for anyone and always felt this weight to be better. This stress weighed me down for years and still continues to put pressure onto my life.

But back to the make-up of my brain.

I thought overthinking and stressing out was normal. My daily life consisted of me picking at everything I did. Getting short of breath when I thought of tomorrow and what I had to accomplish by day's end. Getting nauseous when confined to a small space, pressed between strangers, when my attention drifts, or when my thoughts fight against me.

It is like my inner person is in constant battle with me, adding more weight to my head and shoulders just to make my day as difficult as possible.

And now that I'm in college, I have come to terms with what this is. Anxiety. Fierce as ever. What if I don't make an A on this test? What if I can never gather the material in time? What if I'm not 10 minutes early to this class? The list goes on. I stress out over bus schedules to make it on time to campus. I check my grades at least three times a day—similar to checking the fridge. Same results and no difference. But I have to check. These are a few examples of a day in the life of me.

As stated before, I do take medicine for this. Medicine can only do so much, in my book. I think anxiety is a self-medicated thing. I have to fight myself every day just to be happy. I have to work towards my goals harder than anyone around me because of those inner battles. I believe in order to become the better self, there has to be a time when you come to terms with everything wrong with yourself. That way you can attack the problem head-on and work through methods to achieve a solution.

Anxiety is my normal, another bodily function to add to the list.

But that's my world. And I welcome you to it.

P.S. Mental health is a problem. I'm here to talk about it as lightly as possible.