The Anxiety Traps You From All Sides

Anxiety never arrives with a warning. It doesn’t burst into your life loudly; it sneaks in quietly, settling itself in the corners of your mind long before you realize what’s happening. That’s how it began for Arman. Just small things at first—a tightness in his chest, a sudden hesitation before making simple choices, a constant replay of conversations he’d forgotten hours ago. At the time, it didn’t feel like danger. It felt like overthinking. It felt normal.

But anxiety grows in silence.

One morning, Arman woke up and felt as if invisible walls had formed around him. He couldn’t explain it, but every direction he turned in his mind seemed blocked. Fear stood on one side. Doubt waited on another. On the third side was a suffocating whisper telling him something terrible was going to happen. And on the last side stood a voice that sounded exactly like his own saying, “You’re not strong enough to escape this.”

No one around him knew anything was wrong. Why would they? He smiled when he needed to. He worked hard, responded politely, joked when expected. But inside, he felt trapped in a cage he couldn’t see but always felt.

What made it harder was the unpredictability. Some days he felt almost normal—light, capable, like maybe the walls were finally loosening. But other days, they closed in on him, making it difficult to breathe, think, or exist comfortably in his own skin. It didn’t take much to trigger it. A sudden sound. A memory. A small mistake. A look from someone that lasted too long.

Each moment fed the fear.

Each thought built another part of the cage.

Anxiety, he learned, speaks in your own voice.

“What if you fail?”

“What if they see you’re not good enough?”

“What if something goes wrong and it’s your fault?”

Even when he knew it wasn’t true, the feelings felt real. And feelings, he realized, can be louder than facts.

Slowly, the world outside became something he avoided. First, he stopped going out after work. Then he stopped calling friends. Then he stopped doing anything that made his heart beat a little faster. His world became smaller and smaller, shrinking down to only the things that felt safe.

One night, sitting at the edge of his bed, he felt his heartbeat pounding so fast it echoed in his ears. His breathing became short. His hands trembled. His mind shouted danger even though the room was calm and nothing was happening around him.

That was the moment he realized he wasn’t fighting the world.

He was fighting himself.

It was the cruelest battle of all—because no matter where he ran, he carried the enemy with him.

For the first time, he whispered to himself, “I can’t do this alone.” It wasn’t weakness. It was truth. And truth, he would later learn, is the beginning of healing.

The next morning, instead of pretending everything was fine, Arman opened up to a friend. At first the words felt heavy, almost shameful. But the moment he released them, the pressure inside him softened. His friend didn’t have magical solutions. He didn’t fix everything. But he listened—really listened—and sometimes that alone is enough to create the first crack in the cage.

Days passed. Nothing changed overnight. Healing never happens in one moment. But slowly, the walls began to weaken. Some days he breathed easier. Some days he laughed without forcing it. Some days he even felt light again.

The anxiety was still there, but it didn’t hold him the same way anymore. It wasn’t a prison—it was something he was learning to live with, understand, and eventually control.

One evening, while walking home, he felt the old familiar tightening in his chest. But instead of panicking, he paused, breathed deeply, and reminded himself, “This feeling is not stronger than me.”

And for the first time in a long time, the feeling loosened.

That’s when he understood something important

The cage had always been inside his mind and he had always held the key.

Anxiety might surround you from all sides, but strength grows quietly on the inside. And when you begin to trust that strength, the walls stop trapping you—they simply fall away.