I think I’ve made bad judgement about myself and maybe others, and everything. It seems like everything I did is wrong. I can’t stand it. My anxiety disorder leads me to uncertain path, to self-doubt then to fear.

Like I said, we’re in constant terror that we might do something wrong. The anxiety seems to always find where we hide. If we anxious people think that everything’s OK, there must be a problem. It won’t last long.

Here five things people Seems To Understand

Being worrier than the people who are worried about us

Just like the guy at the party, just call him Brian. He admitted that people’s asking about his condition makes him feel worrier. He’s afraid if somebody else sees him as a failure.

As a result, he tends to more withdrawn from the surrounding. He believed others are not usually worried about him. They don’t know him and even in his mind, the people don’t think he exists.

So when the ignorant people (in his view) asked if he’s okay, it means that he has done something so stupid it can be visible to others. That’s it. At the session, he even didn’t realize that we’re there because we have mutual problem: anxiety disorder.

Feeling guilty, then I confessed that I also felt the way he felt. I felt like people’s asking our problems is equal to people’s making sure if we’re not weird.

Then we had a resolution that not all people mean to laugh at our anxiety. They really mean to help. All we as anxious people have to do is to let them help us.
Waiting for a reply seems to take forever

Still talking about the discussion at the therapy session, now a wimpy girl named Lottie took the turn. Her anxiety makes her feel like sweating over small things, like, waiting for people to reply her chat or text.

Then she would blame herself because she thought the people receiving her text might be disturbed by it. She blames herself of her inability to take care of herself and to mind her own business.

We all agreed with her, the nine anxious people there nodded right away when Lottie told her story. Even in virtual communication, we still feel like alien, editing the words for several times before finally press the “send” button.

Anxious people tend to think of the worst. We thought that maybe we had done so many typos. We thought that the people ignoring us, we thought that we should’ve known our place, the insignificant ones.

Why should people immediately reply our message?

We’re nothing and we don’t deserve their attention.

Ten minutes of waiting for the reply seems like ten million lightyears. We can’t be calmed down before receiving the answer even though all we texted was “how are you?” and the simple answer like “fine” is so priceless, whoever sends it.
Avoid gathering

Deep inside, we do want to hang out, travel, even have adventure like those contemporary people. But forget it.

All I can do is to sit down waiting for miracle to happen. All I can do is watching in jealousy the National Geographic programme. Not the programme about animals, of course.

It’s a programme about travelling around the world, tasting various foods, walking around, mingle, being so easy-going.

But they’re just dreams. Let alone travelling around the world. I’m afraid everytime I’m invited to party or casual hanging out at the central park.
I’m anxious as hell everytime I think that I might do something wrong or stupid.

I’m afraid if I say a word then people hanging out with me will turn into deadly silence. I’m afraid if I will ruin their occassion.

So I let it go.

But there’s exception if the invitation comes from people we really trust. My therapy fellows agree they will struggle to make it through, no matter what. They will attend the meeting. They will join to the party even though they know such event will kill them inside.

Stop talking about the future, please.

I hate it, I hate it when people ask about my plan for the next week. What plan? I hate it when people ask if I want to buy a house next year, because there’ll be subsidy or something like that. In short, I hate talking about the future.

But I’m not alone. Jessica, the brunette girl sitting next to me was also hate talking about the future. She’s born in a strict family. Her future is set by her parents and even her aunts and uncles.

The family didn’t care, though. Or they don’t know about Jessica’s anxiety disorder. Everybody in the room knew her family’s name. It’s respectable and I admit that I’m proud to be sitting next to Jessica.

So, as soon as she got a job and lives by herself, she then manages her very lonely life. She doesn’t want to pursue higher career level and always avoids meeting her family.

You see, there’s an urgency about the future. We know we should plan our life. We know it. However, living with anxiety disorder means living with constant fear. Living with anxiety disorder means we have very little choice. We do try to be as ambitious and as optimistic as those motivators. But we just can’t.

All we need is not merely motivational speech and soothing advice. We need some real help. We need longer time to think than the regular people do. That’s all.
That’s all my view points about some habits of anxious people. We know what you’re expecting. We know what the world expects us to be. So please give us a break to regain our guts and put it into real action