anxiety

//written during my 'a' levels period//







anxiety.... is...

the buzzing inside my skull. it doesn't quiet. i want to make it go away, but the buzzing is too loud and distracting for me to do anything about it. the buzzing is so much that i begin to be anxious about the buzzing instead of what prompted the buzzing in the first place.

it's the way my smiles draw my muscles sideways instead of up. a tiny muscle twitch of worry. it's very tiring to smile. the buzzing isn't conducive to such muscle movements. every time i try to smile, the buzzing makes my face move the wrong way.

anxiety is the shaking of my hands, which i keep busy by typing on my phone a lot. when i am not typing in my phone, i press my hands to my chest and i can feel:

the fluttering of my heart, which really feels like fluttering, no exaggeration. it thrums fast and shallow like what i imagine hummingbirds are like. i am abnormally aware of it. it makes it difficult for me to

breathe in deep, breathe in properly. it never seems like there's enough oxygen around. whatever air i get is half lost because i'm almost panting from physical exertion that i never exerted. it makes me

cranky and short-tempered. i know i've been terrible to just about everyone these days. i don't reply properly, and sometimes i don't reply at all. i don't know what to say to them except

talk about my anxiety. because right now, it's always on my mind, from the moment i wake up to the moment i (try to) go to sleep. i wake up gasping in mornings, feeling like there's a metaphorical weight on top of my lungs. i mean, i don't really feel the weight, but air supply seems to be cut off like that. i need the air to fuel my worrying, which fuels my lack of air. i don't like this, which only

makes it worse, because i hate that i hate worrying about something that i hate. that's so meta, im not sure if i can handle it. but i sure as hell can't handle anxiety or high-stakes exams on which my entire future hinges. you can win back money. you can't win back effort or life.

it's nothing like depression. i can tell you that. anxiety... sends my brain into overdrive so hard that i can feel bits of my brain falling off and breaking apart. depression... is like quicksand. all you do is sink.



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im sure i dont need to emphasise again how incredibly shitty that time was for me, but i will anyway because it was so incredibly shitty. my year of depression circa 2011 remains the darkest spot in my short life thus far but november 2015 ramped up my experience of pure suck. ramped it up like an exponential curve. ramped it up so far that i was screeching in my head 24/7 because i've never felt so agitated and my nerves felt like they were being flayed and also my weight was dropping like fuck.