Dear anxiety, this is what I want you to know

Mental Health and Wellbeing 3 Minutes

This post will be raw and come straight from the heart. As some of you may know already from previous blog posts, anxiety is something that I have struggled with for a while now. Sometimes I feel that anxiety is like another person that I have to put up with. Although a lot of things related to my anxiety is personal to me, I want to use this blog post to express my feelings and talk to my anxiety directly as if it was a person. I will in particular say 4 things that I would tell my anxiety if it was a person. Note that this blog post will be specific to my own experiences with anxiety, however it is worth nothing that everyone’s experience with anxiety will be different.

I hate how you are so unpredictable

There are many things I don’t like about you, but the thing I hate the most is how you come in my life in unpredictable times. Whether it’s before I wake up, at the dinner table, or even in the middle of a working day you decide to arrive at the times when I least expect it. Furthermore, you are also unpredictable on how much you upset me, sometimes I can brush you off within a couple of minutes, and other times I am hurt for days on end. I guess the reason why you decide to behave like this is that so I can’t prepare for your arrival. And this is what makes things so hard.

There are some days where you win

I absolutely hate admitting this but there are some days where you get the better of me. Days where you make your presence known early on in the day, and then slowly but surely impose yourself and overwhelm me. Or even days where you come in an aggressive fashion during the middle of the day. It is these days where I struggle to concentrate, get annoyed for no reason, lose motivation and what’s worse is that these often lead to sleepless nights. These days are horrible, and when days like these happen, all I hope is that I can have a good sleep so I don’t have to think about you, but even then your presence makes it impossible sometimes.

Do not underestimate me

I know you get immense satisfaction on the days where you win, and there must be times where you have felt that you have control over me. But I would like to make one thing clear, do not underestimate me, as I will never give you the satisfaction of beating me over the long term. There have been many times in the past where I have faced pressure situations and you have had the opportunity to completely overwhelm me, only for me to turn the tables on you and overcome the situation. And the reality is, you actually haven’t stopped me from achieving the things that I have set out to achieve, and I am determined for it to stay that way. I hope that makes it clear to you that I am motivated to beat you in the long term.

Thank you for everything, you have helped me in ways you probably haven’t realised

As weird and unexpected as this may be, I don’t think I could have a chance to speak to you and not thank you. With you being in my life, I have developed skills such as resilience, adaptability, problem solving as well as many more. You have also helped me make steps to become the best version of myself. I don’t know if making me a better person was your true intention all along. However, whether or not that was your intention, I cannot help but somehow thank you and I’ll probably look back in 10 years’ time thinking about how you have indirectly helped me.

If anxiety was a person, what would you tell it?

Published by nirajshah2003

A lifestyle and mental health blogger that aims to help others by writing blogs :)

Published

46 thoughts on “Dear anxiety, this is what I want you to know”

  1. Thanks for such a beautiful & heartfelt sharing….showing this side of yours will only make you stronger….if anxiety were a person, what would I say….I would recognize it….accept it as the more I would fight, the bigger it’ll grow….give space to let it dissolve….anxiety can have it’s moments but it can never put me down….you’ll find a lots of poems on my anxiety on my blog….coz I recognize & “talk” to it….if you’re interested, here’s the link…. https://navinspoetry.com/?s=Anxiety

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  2. You have said beautifully especially ‘you have helped me in ways you probably haven’t realised’!! I’ve been dealing with anxiety for a long time, it comes whenever it wants and wins most of the time.

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  8. you told it…..i loved it and your lessons you have learned and resilence you have. I remember the feelong and thankfully, no longer embodies me. great expression. 👏👏👏👏

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  9. Nice post. Anxiety has driven me to write and writing is a way I have lessened its hold on me. Readers tell me they have found solace in my story. Funny thing is anxiety almost derailed the publishing of my book. Thanks for your thoughtful writing.

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  10. This is beautiful! I love how you are still able to see that despite how inconvenient and upsetting anxiety is, it has made you stronger. I could relate to this post on si many levels!

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  11. This is beautifully written👏🏾I could relate to all of the above. Some days it wins, other days not so much. Really bad days I just want to hide somewhere. It’s non-stop.
    The most frustrating thing for me is how spontaneous is anxiety, it can come anytime. It’s more like you are working with it one day at a time.

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  12. If I could say anything to my anxiety it would be not get too comfortable here. You won’t be here forever, one day we will depart from one another and i won’t look back. One day you’ll be a distant memory and I won’t have to deal with you anymore. But until then, don’t get used to it here. Your time is ticking!

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  14. I accidentally saw your site and I saw this post of yours. I was teary-eyed while reading this but thanks for sharing your thoughts. What an inspiring message. If I can talk to my anxiety, I will also tell what you said in the last part, “you helped me in ways you probably haven’t realized”. Anxiety is also one of my reasons why I started writing and the reason why I made a blog 🙂

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  16. I hate how unpredictable the attacks are and how it manipulates its way into situations. I would definitely tell it that no matter how often or how strong its attack is, we both know it will still lose in the end.

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  17. This seriously touched my heart! I struggle with anxiety too. I guess if there was one thing I’d tell it, it would be you can mess with me but not with my loved ones! I hate how anxiety bleeds into my relationships and I wish I could block that!

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  20. Great post!! I love how you say that we must not let our anxiety underestimate us. We are stronger than our anxiety. We are stronger than the mental illness. We don’t have to be consumed by it but instead can rise above it

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  21. Wow I absolutely loved this post, and I can completely relate, anxiety can be one of the most stressful things. Sometimes it completely devours you and drains you of any kind of peace, and it’s really hard to escape from that😭
    Thank you so much for sharing and bringing light to such an important topic💕

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