AES121 This Thing Called Anxiety

Last Wednesday night, I got a text from Kak Mamat, asking me to write about my anxiety. When I’m asked to elaborate more on my anxiety, it’s a very vague yet complicated thing. I don’t think that there is a singular definition of what anxiety is and how it affects people. Because it is personalized and it varies depending on your experience. Usually, people like to jump to the conclusion that anxiety is equivalent to fear, but in my case, it’s totally different. There are certain things or certain parts of myself that I choose to push inside myself and never let people see those sides of me. But when I’m tired, I break down, and It’s like I let go of this Pandora’s box that’s been sitting inside of me. Anxiety is not fear, but experiencing an anxiety attack can be something that’s scary. 

My heart starts to pound really fast, my stomach hurts, my lungs feel like they’re closing up, and there's this sensation that something is crawling under my skin. The worst thing about it is that there's not much that you can do about it than sitting down and taking deep breaths. I definitely think that this is the kind of thing that ‘takes one to know one’, thus that’s why people who don’t struggle with this sometimes think it’s not really that big of a deal. And there's nothing wrong with being confused about what anxiety is, but it doesn’t really give someone the right to invalidate other's experiences of it. 

For sure it’s something that’s hard to overcome, to be honest even at this point, I don’t think I have succeeded in overcoming my anxiety. But it goes without saying that I’ve come a long way in terms of coping with anxiety in my life. It is very tricky though, from my personal experience anxiety isn’t something that you can just brush off like any other emotion. Because it’s kind of like this virus that hacks your system so you only have partial control of what’s going on. So what I usually do is I just sit with it, and that’s probably the best way to do it. With this, I’m not saying that you have to hold onto the feeling, but pushing it isn’t gonna help. Just sit there and acknowledge what you’re feeling and also acknowledge that this feeling isn’t gonna last forever. The fact that I’ve been through this over and over again doesn’t make it easier, but knowing that I’ve been through this before and everything will be okay definitely helps. The point is, that just because it’s hard, it doesn’t always mean you can’t do it. 

As Sylvia Plath once said “I took a deep breath and listened to the old brag of my heart. I am, I am, I am.”