Ever since I chanced upon that article posted by The Mighty on High Functioning Anxiety, I have started to suspect myself suffering from it. In fact, the more I think about myself and the things I do, the more I read up on it, the more I am sure that I'm living with it. What is High Functioning Anxiety (HFA), you ask? Well, I'm no expert on it yet but I will tell you this. Living with HFA means having plenty of nervous habits. I have a habit of digging my thumb nails into the skin of my fingers and palms, sometimes even digging my finger nails into my thighs, the harder, the better. I cracked my knuckles, my neck, my shoulders, my spine, my pelvis, my legs, my toes, anywhere I could possibly crack, every single day. I peel my nails a lot (although they happen only in a periodic way i.e. if I get started on peeling, I would keep peeling it but there are periods where I'll just leave them alone because I forgot about them). I bite my inner lip quite a lot. All along I thought they were just bad habits of mine but looking bad, they tend to happen when I was nervous and anxious, especially the nail digging and the nail peeling. I could look totally composed on my face but underneath the table or beneath my clothes all these nervous habits would be showing. Living with HFA means constantly being in your head and living in your head. I could be talking to my friends and walking with them but in my head I would be thinking about something else. And it's not just being distracted. It's imagine myself living out another person's life, in my own make-up world with my own make-up characters. And I just play out those scenes and dramas in my head. Sounds eerie I know. It can happen anytime. In the day or at night. Especially when I'm alone. Living with HFA means screaming inside your head all the time and wishing that you could really let all those screams out. I keep wondering about what would happened if I just run out of my house to scream or just stop anyone outside who would listen to me to say what I have to say. Living with HFA means keeping yourself constantly 'busy' to look like some high flyer or pro but in fact you are just giving yourself reasons to stay alive, to feel alive. I feel the need to constantly pile myself with different events, tasks, schedules and what not till my week is pretty much packed and I am completely drained by the end of the week. It's the constant need of finding distractions for myself in order to get away or ignore the real problems that require my urgent attention. But I would still act like life's a breeze and it's all nothing because people need to be convinced or awed even by how I'm juggling my life so well. I need to look like an achiever, a stunner, in some way or another. Living with HFA means finding yourself underserving. Undeserving of opportunities in life, of love, of people, of relationships, of happiness, of living. I always feel like I have to work for them and earn my right for them. But despite doing a lot and going all out, I would still feel like I'm underserving and the devil in the mind just go on and on in your head reminding you that nothing matters, and you don't matter. Living with HFA is being a professional faker, trying to look convincingly fine all the time. You fear about people finding out the real you. You want them to think you are okay, that you are fine. But you are not. You wish they know. But you are afraid of the outcome. I could drop them hints but they would probably think that I'm just being me, or being a little weird, or over the top, or dramatic, or random, but none of their guesses or thoughts will revolve around the possibility of me being mentally unwell. Simply because they are too convinced by my acting. They could not tell. Not even my closest or your loved ones would. How could I blame them? Even I did not know at the start. And it was all so confusing. For all I know, I could be making these all up. Living with HFA means feeling the constant need to escape. Escape from people, from life, from responsibilities, from feelings, from questions, from reality, from the world. From every single thing. And so you would see me going MIA on chats (happens all the time actually) and on my worse days, MIA-ing from people, and this means I would not feel like doing anything, or going out, or having fun, anything, even if it is with my dearest friends. All I want to do is just stay in my own bubble (well, comforts of my blanket) and just wallow in my self-pity, sadness, sorrows, I really don't know what to call those feelings. I'm not even sure if I'm feeling anything. Maybe just numbness. And this could last for days, or weeks. In short, having HFA is a series of extremes and opposite ends. It's wanting more but wanting none at the same time. It's wanting others to find out the truth and not wanting them to know at the same time. It's being vulnerable and coy at the same time. It's the constant struggle of wanting to stay/feel alive and wanting to end it all at the same time. And still, I don't know what is it that I want.
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jacobvanloon
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