It is often stated that mental illnesses are rarely understood. In my experience, I would say that is completely true. I love all my friends dearly, they make my life a better place and I know they only want whats best for me. But the majority of the time, our friendship suffers because they don't really know how to be friends with someone who struggles the way I struggle. My anxiety has been at an all time high this year and it has made it difficult to do normal things like attend university, keep down a job or even leave the house. Most days I am plagued by bad thoughts, some are completely irrational and others are not. I often obsess over these thoughts over and over until I find it hard to do anything other than focusing on breathing. Of course, this is my issue and it is my job to find ways of getting through this trying time but some reactions from people in my life have really not helped my recovery.

Anxiety is a word, a bit like depression, that is thrown around far too much. Anxiety is not simply 'feeling nervous'. My anxiety often manifests in physical symptoms. I constantly feel exhausted, or nauseous. I also suffer from digestion and kidney problems and these are exasperated when I feel stressed or anxious. Of course, there are different levels of anxiety, some can suffer minor anxiety, some peoples anxiety is circumstancial, some people do not have anxiety or panic attacks. But I need to make clear anxiety is NOT the same as being nervous. It's far far far more complex. I will often be sat in lectures feeling fine and then all of a sudden a thought will pop into my head and I will immediately begin to have an anxiety attack. Some people say their anxiety attacks make them feel dizzy or they feel numb. I don't get these symptoms, I just go into a state where I feel the dread in my stomach and tears behind my eyes and I cannot do ANYTHING. I have the desire to escape whatever situation I'm in. HOWEVER a lot of the time, I also cannot move as I think people will ask where I'm going or know that I'm having an anxiety attack. So I sit there and have an internal breakdown until I feel it's safe to leave.

I have struggled with a few issues over the years. Depression is one of the most difficult experiences I've ever had but I would argue that my anxiety affects me more day to day than depression did. Although I did suffer from anxiety when I had depression, the anxiety was very concentrated and to related to how I (thought I) looked. I would often be afraid to go out because I thought people would judge my size. Now my anxiety can be caused by anything and I will stress over any tiny little mishap. I often have anxiety spirals where I don't leave the house for days and I cannot focus on anything.

I have always always had a group of people who I consider to be my 'best friends'. I have never, except for maybe in primary school, had just ONE best friend. Over the past few years, this dynamic has changed quite a lot. I still have a lot of close friends, people that I love spending time with, have inside jokes with and share each others lives but I often find it difficult to confide my struggles with mental illness with anyone except the ones who have experienced it themselves.

I want to make this clear now. Not one of my friends has ever outwardly or consciously been dismissive or negative about my issues. And I am incredibly grateful for that. However, I often am thrown into situations where I feel guilty because I have 'let people down' because of my anxiety (or depression or my eating issues). And this is where we have a problem. In this day and age, friendship can take on many forms. I speak a lot more to my friends via text or social media than I do face to face. Why? Because I moved away from my home town over three years ago. It costs a bomb to go back and also is very time consuming (3 hours door to door). Even my friends who live in London all live at least an hour away from me. I am a firm believer that quality friendship time can be face to face or it can literally be a phone/skype/whatsapp conversation (fyi, I hate phone calls and will avoid them at all costs).




There have been situations where I have had to cancel on plans or on people or on visits home. Not always because of anxiety but it usually is. Often on the other end is hostility. No understanding. And then this triggers a MASSIVE wave of anxiety and self hatred. 'I'm not a good enough friend' 'I'm a horrible person' 'I don't deserve friends'. People always assume that it's because the person 'cannot be bothered to make the effort'. I'm telling you, if that person couldn't be bothered to make the effort, they wouldn't have made the plans with you in the first place. OR they would flake out way before. I have not once agreed to go to something I didn't plan on going to. I have got to the point now where if I think something is going to trigger an anxiety attack or I feel will be difficult attending, I will just say no immediately. Which is sad because the only reason I'm doing that is so I don't face emotional blackmail further down the line. Obviously if you miss something important, your friends do have a right to be upset. After all, you are part of their life and they want you there. But you should never be made to feel guilty if you cancelled for a genuine reason - whether that reason be mental illness related or not. The world would be a much nicer place if everyone just took a chill pill to be honest.




I often feel detached from my friends. Apparently this is an Aquarius trait but it's definitely something that has got worse in the past few years. I often find it difficult to tell people I am upset with them and I often feel on the outside. I think this is partly due to growing up. A lot of my friends have children, they are settled down and I have moved away.  It is REALLY difficult to keep your friendship healthy when your lives are all completely different. I also think the other part is because I feel like my friends don't really get what I'm going through. I never want to put my downers on my friends and also when I have some of them haven't really reacted in the best way; 'You REALLY think you were ill?'.  This is really difficult because half of my battle is actually me accepting that I do struggle. It took me years to admit I had suffered with eating issues, it took me years to admit that yes, I probably was depressed.. I never felt like I had the 'right' to be ill. Other people were smaller, other people had it worse. What did I have to be depressed about? And hearing this echoed in my friends - even if they didn't exactly mean it how I read it - that didn't exactly help me. I know all of them love me but sometimes I still feel as alone as if they didn't.

I don't really know what this post has been about. I'm finding it extremely difficult to order my thoughts at the moment. I hope the next entry will be more coherent than this one.

Til next time..
x