the weight of the world

 I know there are only so many ways I can write and talk about anxiety but there are times like this that it's all I can think about doing.

When I think back, I can see signs of anxiety in myself for all my life that I can remember. I have always had the need to do everything right and to make people happy. From the earliest time I can remember, I would cry when I did absolutely anything wrong, when my parents caught me doing something I shouldn't have, when I once was told off in class for something I didn't even do. I can't remember a time in my life I wasn't like this, but I remember when I found out it wasn't normal. I was in year 10. A new girl came to our school and as usual, I was the one who would act as their buddy to settle them in. Soon enough they became one of my closest friends, and they would be the one to teach me the word anxiety. The more they conceptualised it, the more I began to picture how I was feeling with what they were saying. I learnt that the panic attacks I was having were that, panic attacks. I learnt that this intense and unbearable worry and panic at doing most things was not a "normal" thing, it was not something that everyone experienced and was not something I should be experiencing. I learnt that my fear of talking on the phone, of going anywhere alone, the worry about even speaking to teachers or going somewhere alone for the first time or just being alone was anxiety. I learnt that the fear I had of eating was a manifested form of anxiety. I learnt that everything I felt, everything everyone just said I was a nerd or a teachers pet for I did because of anxiety. 

As I got older, it just grew. It became not being able to leave my bed because the idea of literally existing just made me panic beyond belief. It became the inability to sleep because sleep was too scary. It became not being able to go to a doctor or dentist because I would have a debilitating panic attack. It became passing out in my room because I was so anxious. There were clothes I couldn't wear because they were to anxiety inducing. Plans I cancelled that I was looking forward too because I simply couldn't. It became everything but functioning. It became having to get drunk to be able to sleep, but being drunk just made everything more anxious the same time. It became self harm to make the anxiety just go away which again just seemed to make it all worse in the long run. 

And whilst now I can function most days, it still has it's moments where I cannot function. Like right now. Where all I can think about is anxiety. Where nothing I do is making the feeling my chest is caving in and drowning at the same time. All I want to do is cry. How do you cope with the weight of the world when the weight is you?The ways I calm the anxiety down don't work anymore. At least none of the healthy ways. Where do you go when it feels like nothing you do is making it better? I push myself each day to try and make the strides to making the scary things that bit easier, but if anything it overall just makes everything feel so much worse. 

This was supposed to get easier as I got older, but somehow, after everything, it just got worse. The weight of the world just got heavier. I'm struggling to see a way to carry it.