Sometimes I tell myself (and everyone else) that I have “mild” anxiety. That I can manage it. That it’s pretty easy to work around, or push aside. Most of the time I don’t even mention it as a constant thing, just that when it’s acting up I say I’m anxious, in the moment, not as a state of being. And sometimes I tell myself that I’m faking, that I’m trying to be a special snowflake, that everyone has it this bad, or at the very least my “worse than normal” is, and always has been, so mild compared to what it could be that I shouldn’t complain. And then I remember that I had to be pulled from an entire unit in my lit class because I couldn’t even think about it without having a panic attack and crying in the school bathroom. I think about the semester I lost to my anxiety, where I was habitually non verbal or crying or shut down. I think about how much effort my at the time best friend had to put in, how much I needed, to keep me even slightly functional, and how it sounds like one of the horror stories of people with anxiety. I look at the fact the only reason I lost a semester instead of 3 years was because I spend so much effort avoiding all my triggers, and had friends who were willing to put similar amounts of effort helping me.
