when you cant tell if you’re just nauseous or if you’re about to have an anxiety attack
The Anxiety Ninja
I have a personal story to share that encompasses invisible disabilities, mental health, and ableism. There was this time where I went to hospital emergency with my best friend because I was clean out of places to go for professional support for my anxiety, and was told that the hospital would be my best bet because there was one right beside campus where I lived.
While in the waiting room, someone who was dressed as though they were a convict (orange jumper, handcuffs, and was accompanied by police officers) appeared. My friend and I were chatting, and ended up commenting amongst ourselves about how his shoes looked like Crocs. We made some joke about how being forced to wear Crocs was pretty serious punishment. This stranger who was passing by must have caught our conversation, because she commented something along the lines of:
“Shouldn’t he be sent to the mental health ward?”
(I can’t remember the exact quote as this was several months ago, but it connected the convict to “the mental health ward”)
After this person departed, I leaned over to my friend to try and make a joke about the one thing that was on my mind: “Hey, but isn’t that where I’m going?”
This stranger didn’t know that I was there for mental health help. She didn’t know why the convict (if he even was one) was there, either. Yet the assumption was made that he had a mental illness and I did not. I catch people nearly every day making comments like these that completely ignore the fact that there are disabilities and mental health issues that do not present visibly. Furthermore, to assume that someone has something on the basis of a stereotype, appearance, or symptom, is equally as problematic.
So stop making jokes about wanting to kill yourself. Stop using “depressed”, “insane”, “OCD”, “anxious”, and ableist language as adjectives. Stop bringing up suicide like it’s juicy gossip that doesn’t hurt the people around you who hear it. Although being invisible can be a real privilege at times, there are other times where people will invalidate you directly for not looking the part, or make hurtful comments your struggles without even knowing that you have them. A piece of advice I hear all the time is that you have no way of knowing anyone’s full story and struggle. It’s time for people to start thinking about that more when it comes to issues such as this. The message of this story is also exceptionally important regarding the similar way that sexuality and gender are not visible, but are heavily stereotyped or attributed to specific behavior.
Anyways, this hospital story luckily ended in me having a doctor that had a jawline so sharp that I bet it could open a letter, my pronouns being well respected, and my friend was able to finally get some studying done without being distracted in the waiting room. Plus, I got this fantastic story to help me explain invisible disabilities and mental health.
TLDR individuals with invisible disabilities are essentially ninjas and we will hunt you down
It’s very challenging for me to do, but I have on occasion been successful with channeling my anxiety attacks into artwork. It can calm me down, and as an artist, I want to capture my experiences visually.
I refuse to be invisible.
TW: there is some intensity with mental health in the writing, be wary of that if you’re trying to read it.
what happens to all your teen angst when you’re 20… like where does it go
they diagnose it as anxiety
15 facts about people with concealed anxiety
1. They don’t hide their anxiety, they hide their symptoms. To have concealed anxiety isn’t to deny having it – only to do everything in your power to ensure other people don’t see you struggle.
2. They have the most anxiety about having anxiety. Because they are not comfortable letting people see them in the throes of an irrational panic, the most anxiety-inducing idea is… whether or not they’ll have anxiety at any given moment in time.
3. They come across as a paradoxical mix of outgoing but introverted, very social but rarely out. It is not that they are anti-social, just that they can only take being around others incrementally (which is mostly normal). Yet, on the surface, this may come across as confusing.
4. They make situations worse by trying to suppress their feelings about them. They are extremely uncomfortable with other people seeing them in pain, and they don’t want to feel pitied or as though they are compromising anyone’s time. Yet, they make things worse for themselves by suppressing, as it actually funnels a ton of energy into making the problem larger and more present than it already was.
5. They are often hyper-aware and highly intuitive. Anxiousness is an evolutionary function that essentially keeps us alive by making us aware of our surroundings and other people’s motives. It’s only uncomfortable when we don’t know how to manage it effectively – the positive side is that it makes you hyper-conscious of what’s going on around you.
6. Their deepest triggers are usually social situations. It’s not that they feel anxious in an airplane, it’s that they feel anxious in an airplane and are stuck around 50 other people. It’s not that they will fail a test, but that they will fail a test and everyone in school will find out and think they are incompetent and their parents will be disappointed. It’s not that they will lose love, but that they will lose love and nobody will ever love them again.
7. It is not always just a “panicked feeling” they have to hide. It can also be a tendency to worry, catastrophizing, etc. The battle is often (always?) between competing thoughts in their minds.
8. They are deep thinkers, and great problem-solvers. One of the benefits of anxiety is that it leads you to considering every worst case scenario, and then subsequently, how to handle or respond to each.
9. They are almost always “self-regulating” their thoughts. They’re talking themselves in, out, around, up or down from something or another very often, and increasingly so in public places.
10. They don’t trust easily, but they will convince you that they do. They want to make the people around them feel loved and accepted as it eases their anxiety in a way.
11. They tend to desire control in other areas of their lives. They’re over-workers or are manically particular about how they dress or can’t really seem to let go of relationships if it wasn’t their idea to end them.
12. They have all-or-nothing personalities, which is what creates the anxiety. Despite being so extreme, they are highly indecisive. They try to “figure out” whether or not something is right before they actually try to do it.
13. They assume they are disliked. While this is often stressful, it often keeps them humble and grounded at the same time.
14. They are very driven (they care about the outcome of things). They are in equal proportions as in control of their lives as they feel out of control of their lives – this is because they so frequently try to compensate for fear of the unknown.
15. They are very smart, but doubt it. A high intelligence is linked to increased anxiety (and being doubtful of one’s mental capacity are linked to both).
http://neverignore.info/15-things-you-need-to-know-about-people-who-have-concealed-anxiety/
holy shit this is me.
This made me fell so valid that you for making this
I love this and I want people to stray away from the mentality that there’s something wrong with finding pride and power in the things that others would call a weakness. It’s not romanticizing, it’s surviving.
this vine made me 100% more emotionally stable
Why that when I watched this I did not question if he could actually predict the future or not.
dealing with the worst case scenario
- your condom breaks
- you feel a lump on your breast
- your friends are ignoring you
- you’re stranded on an island
- you got rejected by a crush
- you get into a car accident
- you got stung by a bee/wasp
- you got fired from your job
- you’re in an earthquake
- your tattoo gets infected
- your house is on fire
- you’re lost in the woods
- you get arrested abroad
- you get robbed
- your partner cheated on you
- you’re on a ship that’s sinking
- you fall into ice
- you’re stuck in an elevator
- you hit a deer with your car
- you have food poisoning
- your pet passed away
- you fall off of a horse
- you or your friend has alcohol poisoning
- you have toxic shock syndrome
- your house has a gas leak
I feel like this could be useful in my future
