Anxiety is not being able to control your panic and breathing even when it's someone familiar on the other line.
Anxiety is almost crying when your mother asks you to take the check up to the counter at Waffle House.
Developing anxiety is almost puking and hyperventilating before a competition that you've done a dozen times before, and being confused because this has never happened to you before what's wrong with you now?
Anxiety is stumbling over your words when you try to have a conversation and going home later and almost crying about it, even when you know they probably didn't even notice.
Anxiety is someone making fun of your mannerisms or habits and you beating yourself up about it for days, and trying to keep from doing it anymore.
Anxiety is even considering telling people what's going on with you, and getting teary eyes and a clogged throat.
Anxiety is someone asking what's wrong, and this is it! You can finally get it out! and four words in you're trying not to sob on the couch in front of everyone, because when you cry everyone looks at you, and you wanted their attention before but not in this way because now they think you're weak and helpless and that's not what you want you just want them to understand.
This is what anxiety looks like for me.
Anxiety is a part of my life.
Anxiety is a part of me.
A dysfunctional household is you parents being depressed.
A dysfunctional household is your dad being disabled and always angry and always yelling and you just want him to calm down and please stop yelling because it just makes everything worse. It's him always telling everyone what to do and being impatient and expecting us to know what he's thinking without any context. It's him treating you like you're stupid because you never learned something that he never taught you, and treating you like everything is your fault even if you didn't have a breath of involvement.
A dysfunctional household is you mom being serious about things that are jokes and joking about things that are serious. It's her telling you to get over your anxiety more than once within three days. It's her always going on about everyone else having their issues and everyone else needing to get help and always talking about everyone else, always saying that they need to fix this, always complaining about someone else, finding issues that don't exist, and yet never acknowledging that she's one of the craziest ones of the bunch and she causes all the problems too and she eggs on the little things and makes dad angry all the time and they never stop yelling and arguing and they never realize that maybe they're the reason no one is ever happy at home very long anymore.
A dysfunctional family is your brother being depressed and everyone saying he's bipolar but never too his face because they think he'd just get angry but it's not like they ever try and just calmly talk to him anymore and they're always talking about him needing help and needing to see a doctor but no he's an adult now so they don't care enough to try and get him help when if you really look you can see that he's hurting too and he's lonely and he's just as lost as the rest of us.
A dysfunctional family is your sister who sees all the things that you see and for once you're able to talk about it to her because she actually knows what it's like for you right now, except she doesn't because talks with her about it always leave you feeling worse off because they're confirmation that what you're seeing is real except she thinks everything is more extreme than you pretend it is and it always makes you wonder how much worse it might actually be and how much of it you're still ignoring.
A dysfunctional family is everyone dumping everything in you and they just keep dumping and dumping and soon your dam is might break and not even you know what that will mean and a dysfunctional family is everyone being so caught up in what's wrong with them that they just assume that you're still the strong one and that you can still take anything and they never stop to consider that you're not okay and they never think to ask how you're doing.
This is what my family looks like. Perfect from the outside but the inside is full of termites and sooner or later the tree will die.
A dysfunctional family is what I live with, and I want to get out so badly, and it makes me sad and it makes me angry that I want to leave so soon so badly.
This is what I've been going through.
This is what my life is like every day.
I pretend I'm okay, people don't ask, and I wouldn't be able to tell them if they did.
My life is not the worst crayon in the box but it's not a good one either.
I have cried more in the past two months than I can recall in the past three years.
I cry for other people because I know that I have one of the best lives of many that I know, but I cry for myself more because I am selfish and I am not as strong as I act and because I still don't know what to do about anything and because not much of the happiness I find of late is very lasting and I'm running on very low fuel now and it's just getting lower.
I cry because I don't know how to help anyone around myself but mostly because I don't know how to help myself and no one knows how to help me either.
phrank ms
