Not Built In The Same Factory

"For those who never quite fit but still keep walking"

I was in college when I first learned the word anxiety.

Not just as a term in a textbook—but as a mirror.

Suddenly, the strange tightness in my chest had a name.

The overthinking, the way my body would freeze in silence, the constant need to rehearse my words in my head before speaking—they weren’t just my personality. They were symptoms. They were echoes of something deeper I had lived with for years, never knowing it wasn’t normal.

Before that, I had always felt different.

Not the kind of different that makes you feel special—more like a wrong puzzle piece. Like everyone else was built in one factory, smooth-edged and solid, and I came from some strange place where the wiring was just… off.

My thoughts ran in loops.

I would lie in bed at night, imagining a hundred possible disasters from a single sentence I said during the day. My heartbeat had its own mind. Even when nothing was happening, it raced like it was being chased.

But I didn’t have a word for it.

Just discomfort. Just restlessness.

Just a quiet sense that something inside me was always on alert—and I didn’t know how to turn it off.

---

I remember being around fourteen or fifteen when it first became unbearable.

Every day felt the same—repetitive meals, routine school days, the same conversations repeated like worn-out tapes. I remember thinking: “Why am I living if we’re just going to die later?”

It wasn’t depression exactly. It was more like a deep, bone-level boredom—like the soul inside me was starving for meaning and everything around me was tasteless.

The feeling lasted for days. I still remember it like a fog that settled over my life and wouldn’t lift. I kept waiting for something to break it—a surprise, a change, a voice—but nothing came.

I adjusted. Because I always do.

I smile. I adapt. I stay quiet.

But the storm never really left.

It just settled deeper in, like a river carving through stone.

---

When I learned the word anxiety, everything clicked, but also nothing really changed.

Because once you’ve lived for years thinking you’re just strange, broken, or weak, it’s hard to suddenly believe it’s not your fault.

The word gave me understanding, but it also gave me grief.

I looked back at the younger version of me—quiet, self-doubting, always observing—and I realized how long she had suffered in silence, never knowing she was fighting a war.

A war inside her own mind.

---

Even now, I’m still not completely sure. I’ve never had a formal diagnosis. I don’t like to wear labels like badges.

But I know.

I know my nervous system is fragile in ways others don’t see.

I know noise, chaos, and social pressure crack me faster than most.

I know how exhausting it is to live in a world that feels too loud when all you want is quiet.

I still feel that distance sometimes—between me and others.

It’s like we live in the same house, but in different dimensions.

They move through the world with lightness.

I move through it like a person swimming with their clothes on.

---

But here’s what I’m learning:

Maybe I wasn’t built in the wrong factory.

Maybe I was built in a quieter one.

The kind that doesn’t rush.

The kind that notices everything.

The kind that feels deeply, loves hard, and breaks silently.

And maybe that’s not a flaw.

Maybe it’s just… me.

---

I still have days where everything feels unreal. Where I lie in my room listening to music, and life feels like a dream I can’t fully enter. My mom might be in the next room, the world might be moving as usual—but inside, I feel like I’m floating, not living.

But I write now.

And writing is how I return to myself.

Because when I give shape to what I feel, when I name it, when I place it on paper—I realize I’ve been surviving storms no one ever saw.

And that counts for something.