Anyone who knows me knows that I am easily perturbed by basic things—things like someone parking in a handicap zone without a permit or someone not even attempting to pick up the trash he drops on the floor of the Union because he knows someone will clean up after him.
One of the small—yet big—things that has made a slight fire ignite within me is the new “trend” of people saying they have anxiety disorders, when in truth they probably have never had a real panic attack in their life. As a person with an actual anxiety problem, I take offense to this.
It is as if people are trying to make anxiety into a normal, day-to-day illness that should not be dramatized or consulted as a true mental issue, like the common cold.
I am not stating that any specific person is faking that he has a mental condition. I cannot tell what is going on in someone’s mind, but I can tell you what anxiety is truly like and how I feel about mental illness being treated as a simple trend.
While people who struggle with stress and other problems deserve our total acceptance and respect, it is important to remember that there is a line between those problems and an anxiety disorder.
I am not a medical doctor, but as someone who has suffered from anxiety in the past, I think it is important to separate the two.
An anxiety attack feels like you are running through your own mind and cannot stop. You cannot breathe, you get dizzy and you fidget constantly. It is overthinking in a nutshell and basically feeling like your head is so filled with thoughts that it may explode. I recall a time that I had a full-on panic attack just because my printer would not work. Maybe that example puts it in perspective.
An anxiety disorder literally runs your life. It determines whether you are stable enough to go out with friends, be in a big crowd of people or even walk home by yourself. If you focus on tiny things that can go wrong in your life too much, your anxiety will make that little thing into the biggest reality.
Now that you know what anxiety really feels like, please take this into consideration before saying you have an anxiety issue, because it is insulting to have this condition (that affects an average of 18 percent of the adults in America) diminished into just “being nervous.”
Mikala Turner is a sophomore social work major from Bruce.
