“You’re not good enough. You’re a bad friend. You’re not good at your job. You’re wasting time. You’re a waste of time. Your boyfriend doesn’t love you. You’re so needy. What are you doing with yourself? Why would you say that? What if they hate it? Why can’t you have your shit together? You’re going to get anxious and because you’re going to get anxious, you’re going to mess everything up. You’re a fraud. Just good at faking it. You’re letting everybody down. No one here likes you.”
Other times it can mean...
“...waking up in the middle of the night sobbing because the worst-case-scenario that just went through your head at high speed seems so real, so vivid, that even when it’s proven to be untrue, it takes hours for your heart to slow down, to feel calm again.”
Schuster says her anxiety even had her feeling like she was “unqualified to write this piece.” Our minds can fill us with all kinds of lies and self-doubt. Through her anxiety, at time she feels good at conversation—and bad at making close friends, because “you only show up when you feel ‘well enough.’” She expresses a common fear many feel with high anxiety is that friends would leave “if they they really knew you.” You’d overwhelm and run them off.
Further down in her story she begins to talk about solutions like learning how to ask for help and “sometimes showing up when you’re scared.” A first good step, Schuster says, is calling it by its name: high anxiety. She realizes anxiety can be a natural consequence of a busy lifestyle, but not sure which comes first, the anxiety or the busyness. “Am I always moving because I’m anxious or am I anxious because I’m always moving?”
Toward the end of her piece Sarah Shuster says, “It’s not a noble way to suffer,” and just because you’re “functioning” doesn’t always mean you’re happy.” And just because you’re functioning doesn’t mean you don’t need to slow down.
You can read Shuster’ complete and incredibly honest and compelling full story by clicking HERE. It’s not long, and the imagery she creates, the feelings she evokes, and the awareness she relates —make the read all that more enjoyable. Also included in the story is a 90-second Mighty video called: Things People With Anxiety Want Their Friends to Know:
Thank you to Sarah Schuster for sharing your courage and experience, which might help others going through the same — not to feel alone.