Living With Anxiety

Anxiety happens to a lot of us and is becoming more common on a daily basis. It isn't something to be ashamed of, and needs to have more awareness.

A bit of background towards my own personal anxiety story.

As a young child I suffered with anxiety, but it wasn't always this way. Before the age of around 4 years old I was extremely confident. I would take my older sister into school when she felt shy, I would stand up and perform dramas in nursery, I would speak up in front of everybody and anybody. Things changed around the age of around four years old when my mum had been diagnosed with an illness called M.e ( Myalgic Encephalomyelitis - It is an injury to the Central Nervous System ). This impacted my life a huge amount as it put a lot of worry and strain into my mind. From then on I started to overthink and panic about the smallest of things. It was even little things such as having different people picking me up from school. This gave me ideas that something had happened to my mum, I would panic about who was going to be there at the end of the day or if anybody even would be there. This is where the anxiety stemmed from, and developed as I grew older.

At school I used to suffer with panic attacks and shaking on a daily basis. At the time I didn't understand what was going on or what the technical terms were - I just put it down to being extremely shy. People would always make it obvious I was "shy" "anxious" "nervous" which only made me feel worse about myself. It lowered my self esteem and made me feel small, I never felt confident enough to speak up, be myself or express my own opinions. I felt as if I never fitted in because of this purpose. 

Anxiety shouldn't be seen as a weakness, it should be seen as a strong person holding things together no matter what. I now live for the moment, I realise that anxiety has only made me a more compassionate person who wants to help others through the other side. I now understand the saying "dance like no one is watching you" live for today and don't take life so seriously. Put yourself first for a change and make that change happen. I believe in you and each and everyone of you can take a small step forward. Then one day you will look back and see how far you have come. "I made it out alive" 

BlurOfBeauty