I'm not me without my anxiety

By Armelle Mcgeachie

It amazes me that while anxiety spreads among us all like wildfire – crippling even the strongest of minds without an ounce of justification – the way we handle it is anything but as ferocious.

Those who suffer a more aggressive and inherent form of anxiety, well, they have to deal with it chronically; and deal with its most ferocious attacks.

It’s impossible to opt-out of (major GDPR breach if you ask me), but over time, it’s possible to control the wildfire and eclipse its flames so it begins to embody an embryonic version of what it once was.

It lingers nonetheless and perseveres in removing all sense of… sense.

There are some days that I feel so mentally crippled, that I struggle to recollect a time when I don’t have it. Heck, I struggle to remember what it’s like to have normal emotions sometimes. While anxiety commonly perpetuates mundane emotions, it tends to push out other feelings in order to preserve its extremities.

It’s mentally exhausting to carry on whilst you’re imploding; losing your sense of self one blockade at a time. As the darkness starts to engulf me, though, I seem to find respite when I’m at the height of my anxiety – it’s conditioning me to feel my most vulnerable in my normal state. Only when I’m at my worst do I know that it can only get better. And only at my worst, can I start to control it.

It forces me to be introverted, to think deeply and to analyse everything I do; it works to my advantage in more ways than you could comprehend. The only caveat being that I have to bargain with it to finally give me what I need; affirmation. I’m a better person for it and I wouldn’t change it, because I’d be changing who I am.

This is why I’m not me without my anxiety. Despite it renouncing my complete control, I am my anxiety.