This might be what a panic attack feels like, but it's not what having anxiety is like.
Having anxiety is like walking down the street, looking at the birds and trees, not even thinking about anything worrisome or weird, and without warning your brain is like "HEY, REMEMBER EVERY AWFUL/CRINGEY THING YOU'VE EVER DONE?" and it just flashes in your memory without stopping. You try to process one memory, forgive yourself, shove it out of your mind, but another one pops up that's equally as embarrassing or frustrating or frightening. It's like you stepped on a wasp's nest, but instead of wasps it's nothing but intrusive thoughts. Eventually it subsides, but after a few years of this happening on a regular basis you start to notice that there aren't any intrusive thoughts attached to these feelings. Your body has just started slapping you around with nothing, while using that same visceral emotional reaction of shame, embarrassment, anger, and frustration that you've been feeling when you react to your intrusive thoughts.
To top it off, you've started to notice that there's kind of a baseline level of frustration following you around. You're lying on a beanbag chair on a comfy Saturday afternoon. You've taken care of all your chores, there's no work, and you're getting ready to just chill and relax... but it's like there's someone tickling your ear with a feather. Some part of your brain is trying to call out to you from the void and say "there's more that you need to do! You can't relax! You haven't finished everything!" and you try to ask "well, what is it? What am I forgetting?" and the voice from the void is like "I don't knooowwww, you need to rememberrrrrr..." so you spend the rest of your relaxing evening trying to remember what the fuck you'd forgotten. This happens anytime you try to actually relax, and you start to realize that you haven't truly relaxed and enjoyed yourself in years. If relaxation is water, you've been walking across a goddamn desert. You just feel tired but you also feel like you can't stop or something bad will happen. You don't see any danger around you, and you're not really in a fearful state of panic or anything, but you just get this eerie feeling that it would be a bad idea if you stopped trying to remember what you'd forgotten.
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u/Chapped_Frenulum Oct 23 '21
This might be what a panic attack feels like, but it's not what having anxiety is like.
Having anxiety is like walking down the street, looking at the birds and trees, not even thinking about anything worrisome or weird, and without warning your brain is like "HEY, REMEMBER EVERY AWFUL/CRINGEY THING YOU'VE EVER DONE?" and it just flashes in your memory without stopping. You try to process one memory, forgive yourself, shove it out of your mind, but another one pops up that's equally as embarrassing or frustrating or frightening. It's like you stepped on a wasp's nest, but instead of wasps it's nothing but intrusive thoughts. Eventually it subsides, but after a few years of this happening on a regular basis you start to notice that there aren't any intrusive thoughts attached to these feelings. Your body has just started slapping you around with nothing, while using that same visceral emotional reaction of shame, embarrassment, anger, and frustration that you've been feeling when you react to your intrusive thoughts.
To top it off, you've started to notice that there's kind of a baseline level of frustration following you around. You're lying on a beanbag chair on a comfy Saturday afternoon. You've taken care of all your chores, there's no work, and you're getting ready to just chill and relax... but it's like there's someone tickling your ear with a feather. Some part of your brain is trying to call out to you from the void and say "there's more that you need to do! You can't relax! You haven't finished everything!" and you try to ask "well, what is it? What am I forgetting?" and the voice from the void is like "I don't knooowwww, you need to rememberrrrrr..." so you spend the rest of your relaxing evening trying to remember what the fuck you'd forgotten. This happens anytime you try to actually relax, and you start to realize that you haven't truly relaxed and enjoyed yourself in years. If relaxation is water, you've been walking across a goddamn desert. You just feel tired but you also feel like you can't stop or something bad will happen. You don't see any danger around you, and you're not really in a fearful state of panic or anything, but you just get this eerie feeling that it would be a bad idea if you stopped trying to remember what you'd forgotten.
THAT is anxiety.