What It Is not

This is how it starts.

Its hard to explain this feeling I get. It begins as an itch, bearable if slightly annoying.  And then it becomes a tingling and it starts in my toes and then goes everywhere until I am consumed and the world becomes a spinning mirage of blacks and greys until I can breathe again.

And then I notice. I am curled up in a ball, hands folded over my head as if the apocalypse were descending upon me.  My cheeks are always wet from crying and my lungs are starved as I've just spent an extended amount of time trying to get enough air to stop the dizzying thoughts in my mind from consuming me.  I always fail at keeping the dark at bay, no matter how hard I try, and the monsters that lurk deep in my mind creep out and rule the kingdom.

Now, I am aware of how very dark and depressing that nice description was.  But the other day, a friend asked me what it was like, what panic attacks are like.  And the only way to describe what they are like is to describe what happens during them.  Because when I get to that point, there are too many things going on inside my mind to explain.  A panic attack is, quite frankly, when the world becomes too much and your mind decides it needs to escape.  All I could say to him is that they are bad.

My anxiety is not my friend.  It has not done me any favors, and I think it really freaks people out because nobody understands why I get so worked up.
A few things that set me off:
-I can not be late. And if you are responsible for making me late, good luck with that.
-You may not touch my things.
-Do not go into my room unless I explicitly tell you you are allowed to.
-Just because I've given you permission to do something once does NOT mean it is acceptable to do it more than once.
-Do not touch me with your feet. You know who you are.
-Do not touch me when I am unaware that you are about to touch me. It will not end well for you (truth be told there are about three exceptions to this rule- again, you know who you are).

I self-doubt, I become unreasonable and anxious and annoying and usually revert to tears.  I get over the top over small issues and I detonate over large issues.  I get worked up and obsessive so frequently its amazing.

It is extremely frustrating to try and explain why I am the way I am, and people don't understand why or how I get so neurotic about things.  All I can say to try and explain myself is that my anxiety is not my friend. It is definitely well-known, and mostly well-managed and well-recognized as a part of my life, but that does not mean it is well-accepted.

And I don't know if it will ever be.  Because having anxiety, because being the way I am, means there is a chemical unbalance in my mind. There is actually something wrong with me. And yeah, I'm pretty good at dealing with it and now that I think about it, I really am not that neurotic.  Just picky. Like one of my friends says, I'm a princess. I am a lot better now at being a person who has anxiety than I have been in the past.

But I will say it again, my anxiety is not my friend.