“Anxiety Lied to Me—And I Believed It for Years”

Anxiety doesn’t show up like a villain in a horror movie.

It doesn’t knock on your door wearing a mask.

It creeps in silently.

It whispers. It blends in. It pretends to be you.

For years, I lived with that voice inside my head—one that constantly questioned, doubted, and undermined everything I did. I didn’t know it was anxiety. I just thought it was me.

“You’re not good enough.”

“They don’t really like you.”

“What if everything goes wrong?”

“You’re going to mess this up.”

And the worst of all:

“Something bad is about to happen.”

I believed every word.

I was 13 when I had my first panic attack. I thought I was dying. My chest felt tight. My hands went numb. My vision blurred. I was in the middle of a math class, and everything just…shut down. I remember the teacher’s voice sounding like it was coming from under water. I couldn’t breathe. I asked to go to the nurse. She told me to sit down and “calm myself.”

That was the first time anxiety lied to me—and someone else told me to ignore it.

So I did.

But it didn’t go away.

Instead, it got smarter.

It morphed into perfectionism in high school. I had to get straight A’s, be the best friend, the kindest person, the one who never made a mistake. Because if I didn’t, I believed I would somehow fall apart. That people would leave. That I'd be nothing.

In college, it disguised itself as ambition. I worked hard, stayed late, and joined everything. From the outside, I looked like I had it all together. But inside, I was terrified. Constantly exhausted. Unable to relax. I’d lie awake at night, my mind racing with thoughts I couldn’t turn off:

“Did I say something weird at that meeting?”

“What if I forget something important tomorrow?”

“Am I doing enough? Am I enough?”

I didn’t know I was anxious. I thought I was just “wired this way.”

Then came the health anxiety. Every ache or pain became a symptom of some incurable illness. I Googled obsessively. Every doctor’s reassurance felt like a temporary bandaid over a bleeding wound my mind kept reopening. I was afraid of living, and I was afraid of dying—all at once.

I told people I was “just a little stressed.”

But I was drowning.

And the worst part? I was blaming myself for it.

I thought I was weak. Overdramatic. Broken.

Because that’s what anxiety told me.

It wasn’t until my mid-twenties that I finally cracked open.

I was in a grocery store, holding a carton of eggs, when my chest tightened and my knees buckled. I couldn’t breathe. The fluorescent lights above me buzzed loudly, and the shelves seemed to tilt. I crouched between the dairy aisle and the freezer section, trying to remember how to exist. A stranger knelt beside me and asked if I was okay.

I wasn’t.

That was the moment I knew something had to change.

I couldn't live like this anymore.

I found a therapist. I remember sitting in her office, hands shaking, and telling her everything. My fears, my thoughts, my racing mind, my sleepless nights, my daily panic.

She looked at me with calm eyes and said, “You’ve been living with an untreated anxiety disorder for over a decade.”

I blinked.

A disorder?

“It’s not your fault,” she said gently. “Anxiety tells lies. And when no one ever teaches us how to challenge them, we believe those lies are true.”

That sentence shattered me. And then it rebuilt me.

I wasn’t broken.

I was believing a voice that was never mine.

Over the next few months, I learned what anxiety really was. Not just a nervous feeling before a test or an important meeting. It was a deeply ingrained pattern of thoughts, reactions, and fears that had wired my brain to believe danger was always around the corner—even when it wasn’t.

Anxiety told me people were judging me.

It lied. Most people were too busy judging themselves.

Anxiety told me I had to be perfect.

It lied. Perfection is a moving target—and no one ever hits it.

Anxiety told me if I didn’t do everything right, I’d be a failure.

It lied. Mistakes don’t make us unlovable. They make us human.

Anxiety told me I was weak for needing help.

It lied. Asking for help is one of the bravest things I’ve ever done.

I started doing the hard work. I practiced breathing techniques. Grounding exercises. Challenging my thoughts with logic. I kept a journal of the lies anxiety told me—and wrote down what I now knew to be true.

“I can’t handle this” became

→ “I’ve handled so much already. I’m stronger than I feel.”

“They’re going to leave me” became

→ “If someone leaves because I’m struggling, they were never truly with me.”

“I’m going to fail” became

→ “Even if I fail, I will grow. And I’ll try again.”

It wasn’t easy. Recovery never is. But with every lie I exposed, the real me began to reappear.

I discovered I was creative. Empathetic. Fiercely loyal. And that I didn’t have to be “doing” all the time to be worthy of love.

Today, I still have anxious days. Sometimes that old voice still tries to whisper in my ear. But I no longer mistake it for truth. I know what it sounds like now. I know how to pause, breathe, and say:

“That’s not me. That’s my anxiety talking.”

And just like that, the volume goes down.

If you're reading this and anxiety is lying to you too, please hear me when I say this:

You are not your thoughts.

You are not your fear.

You are not broken.

Anxiety may lie.

But healing speaks the truth.

And the truth is—you’re going to be okay.

Not perfect. Not invincible.

But beautifully, undeniably okay.