the thing about anxiety

it is not pesky little butterflies in the pit of your stomach as you wait for test results or open a college acceptance letter or await your favorite gymnast's performance on the balance beam. It is not nerves before a big exam or your first day at a new job. It is not "excitement" or "motivation" or any other euphemism that might make it just a little bit better.

it is ten sleepless nights in a row and bad dreams about evil mammoth rats and the certainty deep within your soul that everything will fall apart; everything will come crashing into you so fast you will not have seen it coming, not even a little bit. It is the world being much too large and much too small at once. Claustrophobia. Lost lost lost.

it is choking because you cannot catch your breath. It is caught in your throat and you just cannot recover it. It's too tangled up in ugliness to exhale. It is only feeling safe when every inch of you is covered in blankets or wrapped around someone you love, and even then you look back to make sure the fear -- that fear! -- doesn't come back to get you.

it's fear of this, fear of that, fear of everything. But not little fears, no, you see, the world will end, it's not a little problem, it's a big problem, and you are so certain beyond measure that it will happen to you; oh you just wait, it will happen to you.

and you hate it but you cannot seem to explain it and no one seems to truly understand because the nature of it is completely inexplicable.

once when I was younger, I read a blog written by a young girl crippled by anxiety, completely paralyzed. And I thought, how silly, can't she hold herself together? But then it happens to you, and by then you've been completely blindsided.

you don't want to depend on little blue pills for the rest of your life, so you put your big girl panties on and take a deep breath, or ten, and try to ride it out. Just ride it out. It will get better, not immediately and not even soon, but eventually it will get better, and of this you are certain, just as certain as you are that your worst fears will come true.

it will be okay, because it always is. And that's the good thing.