Around a month ago now I was talking to my friends about my experience with anxiety and confessed how it had taken a hold of me the last few times we had all gone out with friends for drinks.
“I’m sure you would have noticed,” I said to them with absolute conviction.
“I couldn’t contribute to the conversation. I couldn’t focus at all, actually, and you would have seen that I was on-edge and borderline panicking while we were at the bar,” I confessed, thinking back to how my heart had been racing out of my chest and an incessant torrent of pessimistic thoughts had taken me away from the present moment- a moment that was supposed to be happy and celebratory.
Confused looks.
“No, you honestly didn’t appear anxious or zoned out at all. We only picked up on it when you told us you felt that way, not because you looked anxious,” one of my friends told me.
So that whole time when my brain was shouting, ‘they know you’re freaking out, you’re making it so painfully obvious by withdrawing from conversation. They definitely think you’re rude and stuck up. No, actually, they think you’re incredibly weird, ’ they had absolutely no clue.
And that’s the thing with anxiety, particularly social anxiety. In those moments where your body is convinced it’s in a life-or-death situation at a bar in Northbridge or at your mate’s birthday party or just about anywhere, you feel completely transparent. Like anyone that glances your way can see straight through your attempt at a calm and collected façade.
To learn that 99 per cent of the time even my closest friends don’t see the intensifying grip anxiety has on me in certain social situations has been truly eye-opening. Most significantly, it has highlighted how anxiety lurks often imperceptibly below the surface of social recognition while feeling painfully obvious to those experiencing it.
Throughout my childhood I’ve been labelled ‘shy’, ‘a worry-wart’, ‘a stress-head’. As a kid, I took on those labels as facts. I am shy. I do stress and worry a lot. Who was I to say my family and friends were wrong? They knew me better than anyone. For a long time, I believed it was just neurologically hard-wired into me to be seized by worry when it came to meeting new people, to agonise over making mistakes in front of others and feel physically sick in the lead up to a speech in front of the class or a sports carnival. That was me and there was nothing I could do about it.
But at some point, I thought to myself, ‘wait, this doesn’t make any sense’.
At the risk of sounding self-centred, I realised that I actually loved being the centre of attention at times. I used to perform my own parody of smelly cat from FRIENDS on acoustic guitar at family barbeques. My friends and I used to make up stupid dances and perform them to our parents in primary school. I used to make my own news program, GTV, where I was rather impressively the news anchor, weather girl, camera operator and editor.
When I realised I wasn’t shy and I wasn’t a worry-wart like everyone had convinced me to believe, I realised I’d just been dealing with anxiety for the greater part of my childhood.
There’s a lot of power in coming to terms with that; in finally being able to start addressing anxiety and the symptoms that come with it. But there’s also judgement, even today.
As an aspiring writer and someone who wants to work in media, anxiety is positioned as a huge barrier to your career; you must be confident and you can’t let fear get in the way of a good story. Likewise, anxiety is also positioned as a barrier in relationships and dating. And so while I no longer have to deal with the shy label, I often feel like I’m consistently trying to prove that I don’t suffer with anxiety and that it is not a barrier to my job performance or my ability to get to know and care for others.
In the same token, I recognise how far society has come in terms of breaking down the stigmas associated with mental health. I’m fortunate enough to be able to write this post with very little fear of being shamed or judged which simply wasn’t possible for generations before me or for people today who don’t have access to the same level of privilege I am afforded as a white, cis-gendered female.
I also recognise that you, reader, are most likely well across anxiety and other mental illnesses. You are probably well aware of how many people live with anxiety (one in seven Australians, currently) and how pervasive mental illness is today. But if I could make one person feel a little more seen or ‘normal’ by posting this, then I’ll be happy.
And if I can remind people of how anxiety and other mental illness doesn’t have to feel isolating and can actually challenge us to bring ourselves to the present moment, to work through our unhealthy behaviours, to truly value the happy and peaceful moments in our lives, I’ll be even happier.