Suffocation of Fear

It almost feels like you’re drowning. The air in your lungs feel like heavy weights and the breath gets trapped in your throat. Everything around you turns into a figment of your imagination. The force of reality pulls you down. You sink further and further. People surround you, even though they’re far away. Panic rises quickly as you see a few recognizable faces talking to you. The difference is they’re breathing. They aren't sinking in a sea of anxiety like you. Nobody can reach you. Not even your friends can save you now.

This is what it feels like to have anxiety. Some people suffer even worse symptoms than this. It’s serious, and  it affects the way you interact with others and how you live your life.

Anxiety causes all kinds of social problems. One and a half million people in our world have social anxiety, this results as people isolating themselves as a coping mechanism for social anxiety. It makes them feel a sense of security that they wouldn't have if they were anywhere else. Being out of that comfort zone can cause the symptoms above or even the feeling of everything becoming too much and needing to escape. Anxiety means you miss out on things you would like to do, but are too uncomfortable doing. That can also interfere with schooling.

Fear. One of the many parts of anxiety. You could have a range of fears. Nineteen million people have fear anxiety in the world, meaning that not only can the fear of spiders put you in a psychotic state of mind, but can make you hallucinate them too. Other very popular fears of people with anxiety is enochlophobia: fear of crowds, agoraphobia:  irrational fear of open or public places, anthrophobia: fear of people in crowded situations, but can also go beyond and leave the person uncomfortable when being around just one person and athazagoraphobia: fear of being forgotten. There are a larger number of fears that can be weird, crazy and abnormal. Also there are the everyday fears that you wouldn't notice. This can definitely interfere with how you interact with others at school and how you react to certain things.

Did you know people with anxiety disorders are three times more likely to go to the doctor and are six times more likely to be hospitalized for psychiatric disorders than those who do not suffer from anxiety? It can make someone so paranoid and cautious they can’t even take being in their own mind anymore. What’s horrible is that a lot of people think suicide is selfish. Would you rather be so paranoid to the point of shaking, headaches, anger and being at war in your own mind everyday? Also to have others being annoyed and frustrated with you because they don’t understand? Maybe a few can handle that, but I know for a fact I couldn't. People with anxiety go to sleep at night being afraid of what tomorrow will bring, or worried if they fall asleep at all. These outcomes are more common than you think, it can even be happening to the person who sits in the back of the class and you wouldn't even realize. You are oblivious to it.

Anxiety is not a joke. It’s not something you pretend to have to be ‘cool’. People with anxiety usually don’t want people knowing they have it. They feel insecure about it.  Sometimes they can get paranoid about others figuring it out. Anxiety causes social problems that turn into fear and can end in worst case scenario. They didn't choose to be that way. However, who said they have a choice. Respect everyone, you don’t know what they are going through.