Anxiety is shit. Anxiety is something I am still trying to conquer. I have my good moments where my confidence is through the roof, my insecurities don’t exist and I don’t give any fucks about what others might be saying or thinking but recently it’s not been like that. My anxiety has put me back into my shell again and as much as I am trying to get on with day to day life it’s been a challenge.

Since last week my anxiety has been giving me a few troubles. I’ve struggled to socialise, I’ve struggled to be myself around others and it’s taken its toll on me. There have been a few moments where I cried. In fact, I cried last night at a works do. The works do is something that has been planned for a few days now and I was looking forward to it but yesterday was a anxious day for me. I ripped a chunk of my thumb nail off just from fidgeting and biting it during my anxious moments. After a busy day at work topped off with a day of dealing with anxiety I was exhausted. But once work was finished with I took myself down to the pool and spent a good half hour there by myself which made me feel so much better but I still wasn’t looking forward to the evening. Everyone from work was going which made me feel pressured to go as I didn’t want to be the only person not there. So I reluctantly went and when I arrived I walked into the room and everyone from work was there and I felt all of their eyes on me. I swear down I almost shit myself. To get to the kitchen area I had to walk through where everyone was sitting so I power walked through the crowd with my head down and eyes on the floor. I was close to panicking. The girls that I work with were sat at the very front of the room so I had to walk through everyone who was sat at the back of the room to get to the girls. I didn’t say a word to anyone. I couldn’t talk. I didn’t know what to talk about, I couldn’t keep a conversation with anyone so I went and sat on one of the chairs drinking my wine and eating my pizza. It was hard to look at people. Part of me was screaming on the inside and I think it was showing on the outside. After a while me and one of the girls I work with went outside as I needed some fresh air and I just burst into tears. This has been different to anything that has happened before though. P asked me what was wrong and I was honest. I told her it was my anxiety and I’ve never done that before. In the past whenever I have cried due to my anxiety I always used to come up with some reason as I never thought people would understand how anxiety could make me feel so shit but I was so honest with her about it and it was so easy. Mental illness is still somewhat a taboo subject but its only like that because we aren’t always 100% honest about it. We create excuses which can sometimes end up making our mental health worse and it needs to stop. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t feel much better after telling P what was going on. I was still shitting myself about walking back into that room filled with people who saw me rush out the door, maybe saw me close to tears and they were about to see me again after disappearing for about 45 minutes but I openly spoke about my anxiety without caring about whether P would understand or not. She did. She was a great listener. We sat on the grass in the dark, looking at the sky and we saw the moon appear from behind the mountains and it provided me with some sort of peace. I’m still here. I made it to Australia and I’m working in a gorgeous place. Despite everything, I made it.

As the night went on the crowd grew smaller and I began to feel better, calmer and more at ease. Towards the end I was quite enjoying the night. I ended up staying a lot later then I originally thought I would. I woke up this morning still comfortably in my shell, but I don’t feel as anxious as yesterday. It’s my weekend off and I plan on doing a lot of resting and having a lot of me time.

Anxiety is something that not everybody will quite understand but there’s nothing wrong with being anxious. It’s okay to be honest about it. It will probably be more helpful for you to be honest about it. It might help get that weight off your chest but I understand if at the moment it’s not that easy. I get it.

Stay positive and one day soon your anxiety will get easier to understand and deal with.

Sending my love to you all,

Emma xo