I've had serious anxiety issues since I was about 12, give or take. Growing up, I guess I internalized the way people look at you when they think you're crazy; The questions they ask, and the far more terrible ones they don't. Why can't I deal with this mental health thing without causing so much trouble, anyway?! Sometimes I feel like I just don't get it; Like I can't, or won't, or something somewhere inside is keeping me from understanding enough about myself, mental health, how to heal things. Anxiety: All in all, another brick in the wall?

The stress of an anxiety disorder can twist the fabric of life; I can't see it the same way as I did before my "nervous condition" set in. This isn't stage-fright, or make believe. It's not masterpiece theatre. I did not get PTSD from watching too many Twilight Zone episodes. But I am living my life just in case

Managing anxiety: "Sitting with emotion"? Totally useless chapter in The Psychiatrists' Guide to WTF is Up with My Brain (AKA DSM-IV), or are people greater than the sum of their parts? Sometimes I get so anxious I don't know what to do, so I won't do anything. Just in case I make things worse, or my fears are true. How do you deal with the very real issues that keep you stuck in old patterns, between a rock and a wall of ever more intolerable panic? Psychologists talk about learning to be with anxiety. But it's an idea, a theory, and I can't always do it.

The issue is that whilst my internal anxiety alarm* is going off like a Trade Unionist in Wisconsin any other feelings I might have are being drowned out. (*Part I) Talking about a revolution. Stop anxiety For all that I may believe in the validity of my anxiety, it comes with far too many unreasonable expectations. I cannot meet them all, which really just makes it a loud, obnoxious sidekick I could do without. I can't evict my anxiety disorder (chronic PTSD), unfortunately. So I've had to find ways ways to fool it: to get my mind thinking as I may not always believe, or to switch racing, anxious thoughts and frustrations onto a different track.

People who experience anxiety often get stuck in the cycle of avoidance, leaving them feeling trapped, like they can't do anything about their anxiety. For want of better options, they hide - from it, and in many cases, from the world. Having an anxiety disorder is like having a hateful, hyperactive internal alarm system; It only detects the judge, not the jury. The verdict is practically irrelevant: you already know it's guilty. Like predictive text for panic disorders. That alarm doesn't care about the guy flirting with you, or the reassuring smile the waitress gives. What sensations, ideas, emotions, experiences make up anxiety?

It may seem obvious: that one should recognize any progress made in terms of mental health recovery but if I don't stop and look, it's all too easy to (dis)miss; The things that have changed in terms of treating anxiety and PTSD recovery are never the things I would've expected when I started all this. I also have the baggage that usually goes along with anxiety disorders: great expectations. I'll bend over backwards trying to achieve the very things I think will help me, simultaneously imagining that they're impossible for me.

"It'll go away, it just needs time, then I won't have to worry anymore... It wasn't a big deal, or if it was it doesn't matter now. It's over. I'm fine, and I have all these anxiety coping skills. What's there to talk about anyway?" I can't count the number of times I've thought that way about my mental health. The message of silence is one that trauma survivors, and those with mental illness receive loud and clear, from society and often very directly from those closest to them. Most internalize it so deeply that it's years before they realize it isn't their voice. That it never was. That it doesn't have to be.

Crazy isn't always crazy, but I wonder if I'm lost, or if I'm found. I wonder if I'm halfway gone and nobody has bothered to tell me yet. It's a fine line, this sanity thing. Supposedly you either have it, or you don't. But I don't entirely trust this theory. And it is just a theory. Truthfully, they can't tell you what sanity is for sure except that it's something you probably can't ever be sure of. Crazy isn't always crazy.