anxiety

A look at anxiety in its many forms and manifestations; what is the nature of this specific pattern of extreme fear and worry?

5 Ways I Overcome My Anxiety Every Day
I could feel that familiar feeling. As I got jittery, my mind wandered uncontrollably. I reached out, grasping at anything I could hold on to, hoping that it was just a fleeting moment. I felt closed in, like the walls were suffocating me, pinning me down with no ability to move. Yes, I knew this feeling all too well. It was my anxiety, greeting me at the door.
By B. Mapenzi5 years ago in Psyche
It's Coming
She needed a break from the glare and the constant notifications. Living in the world through screens, artificial light, and influencers that mold the influenced. She imagined the trees long and high into the never-ending sky. The creatures chatting up a storm, the warmth and soft humidity caressing her skin. She breathed in the moss growing on the north side of the tree, the sweet wood breathing out slow, slow enough for her to feel the gentle rumble of the roots below her feet. Her toes digging into the soft grass, her lungs contracting and expanding.
By Andrea5 years ago in Psyche
5 Opportunities I Missed Because of My Anxiety
My anxiety is a weird creature. Humongous and loud but also nuanced and subtle. It operates within a realm of constant contradiction, trapped between unending longing for more than the present and inescapable fear of what the future may bring. It serves as a springboard for inertia, fomenting my inability and unwillingness to effect meaningful change in my life. I recently began coming to terms with just how much this impacts my experience. Often, in the dead of night, when everyone else dreams beautiful dreams, I mull over all of the opportunities that have fallen through because my anxious mind and chronic overthinking made me a prisoner. I think, what would have been the outcomes of these circumstances if I had stopped for one second and believed in myself? Always one for self-reflection, I made a list of the top five things I've foregone because I convinced myself I wasn't good enough.
By Laquesha Bailey5 years ago in Psyche
New Grad, New Anxiety?
Let me tell you a little story about the first couple months following my graduation from college. I was excited. It was a rough 6 years of pharmacy school, and now I was going to be living in my own apartment in a new town with a job lined up. I was set up for success, right? First, I just have to get my pharmacist license. Easy. The pass rate of the licensing exam was 95% so, there was nothing to worry about. I had been a decent student and I have all the study materials I should need already purchased. I moved in quickly, since I had no furniture yet, and bought myself a mattress with a financing plan the store offered. Thank goodness I had enough credit for at least that. With my mattress and a borrowed folding table with chairs from a friend, I set to studying.
By Julie5 years ago in Psyche
Day Moonbeams
There’s something in the air that drifts, floats, pops into a semblance of a moonbeam. I wine and dine the thought that it could be a flying moat of dust or a piece of cosmic detritus coalescence. I ponder the thought of trash in a meaningful extraterrestrial form for a moment as I follow the thing to its source. It’s a moonbeam, but in the daytime coming through my window. What if we were all on a floating piece of waste in someone else’s day moonbeam? It makes me feel just as small as that little something moving through the air. I am no more meaningful than that collection of skin cells floating through the air above me. Drifting through the dust moats that have a swirling piercing motion about them. That’s what the day moonbeam reminds me of, a ray of sunshine coming through my window. They slump through the holes in my wall without any regard for my furniture, much like my cat. He looks liquid, the way he moves through the spaces between the dust moats and sunbeams. Like a slug, his eyes seem to leave trailing iridescent worms across the floor. He follows those slipping blundering sunbeams to the head of my bed and stares at me with his eyes like the cold windowpane the sliding beam has stumbled through. Sitting there his purring smells like that moat of dust. Like warm hugs, soft blankets, deep motor roars, and the inescapable way the heat waves off the pavement.
By Abraham Mancino5 years ago in Psyche
Black
I googled the definition of suicidal today. It scared me. I would've never thought myself suicidal because I don't consciously think about killing myself. I don't want to kill myself at all. I don't even want to die. But the definition I read didn't mention anything about wanting to do it. It just said that a suicidal person is someone who is deeply depressed and is likely to commit suicide. Likely to. That could mean anything. It could mean that I could just get so deep in my depression that I just up and kill myself one day. That's not what I want. That's not what I want! THAT'S NOT WHAT I WANT!
By Akilah Simpson5 years ago in Psyche
Scattered
Fuck. My mind is a messy, whirling vortex of noise. In the time of writing those first two sentences I have since installed Grammarly on my Chromebook, becomes confused as to how to actually install it on, and started playing an ASMR video courtesy of Calliope Whispers. Whilst finishing this sentence I have since skipped the Grammarly app and simply downloaded the Chrome extension.
By JC Cansdale-Cook5 years ago in Psyche
The start
When I was little, I always thought that there was something about me that was not right. I used to look at other people in the classroom and I was confused that they were able to stare at the teacher or board and sit completely still without talking or doing something with their hands. I was always the shy kid at the back of the class that did not to talk to anyone except her friends (and herself) and fidgeted with a pen till it burst and would then spend 20 minutes in the toilets to try and clean it up. At least that is who I used to be.
By Ella 5 years ago in Psyche
Tangled
I walked out behind a man at the coffee shop, and yelled, “Hey, Sir! You forgot your murse!”, a fancy word for man purse, but he didn’t seem to hear me. I ran back to pay for my coffee and ran to catch up with him as he turned the corner. He was only a few minutes ahead. I kept yelling and chasing after him to give him back his backpack. Before we knew it, I saw him go inside his apartment building, as I turned the corner. I had no choice since I was already there, to look inside his murse, perhaps his Driver’s license has his apartment number on it. I pulled his wallet out and read his card, Charles Anthony Brenton 18551 Trophy Club Apt 461. Dallas TX. I could not help but notice the bands of hundreds in the murse. It had to be at least Twenty Thousand that would set me free from this financial downfall I am drowning in along with all the other refinements in my life.
By Thanh Vuong5 years ago in Psyche
There is No Such Thing as ‘High-Functioning Anxiety’
I have anxiety, but I love to socialise I have anxiety, but I live independently I have anxiety, but I achieved a first class university degree
By AV5 years ago in Psyche
Welcome to Lizzieland
Today I got a visit from my friend Lizzie. I have no idea when exactly Lizzie came into my life. What I do know is that she has been a constant in my everyday rustics for quite some time. Lizzie is the kind of friend that is smart and obnoxious at the same time. For instance, I have a plan to go to the supermarket to buy bread, but something happens along the way that prevents me to go at the appointed time. Then lunchtime comes, I don’t have bread. Normally, I would not care, but my friend Lizzie sees that and there she goes. “I told you to get organized, didn’t I? How many times have we gone through this? And now there is no bread, so you can’t make the sandwich, and there is nothing else in the fridge andItoldyoubreadwasneededbutyoudidnotlistenandlookatyouknow….”
By Nora Lunna5 years ago in Psyche
Four Years Ago
Five years ago I gripped my phone, captured with a fear I could not explain, and imprisoned in my own head. First came the dizziness and the rest was history. I thought I was sick--and in a way, I was.
By Kellen Pifer5 years ago in Psyche