Anxiety

Please don’t tell me it’s all in my head

When I can’t get a breath

When the air that should be 

Flowing in and out of my lungs

Is closing in around my chest

Crushing against my ribcage

Please don’t tell me to not worry

When I can’t see a thought for a thought

When disasters and fears

Seem more real than the you standing here

Agonies piling up 

One on top of another

An endless, choked up, immovable, honking traffic jam of nightmares

Please don’t tell me to be positive 

When I can’t catch a positive thought

And make it stick, without

Feeling it laugh at me, twist into

Cruel irony of what could be 

If I were better

Please don’t try to help me

When the pressure of your wish to fix me

Weighs on me, reminding me of my failing

To function, to take breaths, one after the other

To stand without feeling the ground fall away from me

Please don’t tell me to enjoy life

When my false smile didn’t fool you

I’m trying but I’m looking at

The world through a glass plate window

I’m staring in longingly, but I can’t step in

Please don’t tell me to have faith

I don’t know what faith feels like

When your own self fails to take a breath

Of adequate air

An everyday function a baby can manage

How can I have faith

When I can’t trust my self to inhale

Please don’t abandon me

I see your frustration

I feel it too

I know I know 

It’s simple, smile

Don’t worry, be happy

It’s easy

But it’s like my next breath

Elusive and escaping me

Please please don’t leave me

The pressure of failing to please you 

Was suffocating me, but as you

Turn away, as you don’t pick up my call

The familiar heavy knot of rejection tightens

The thick coat of loneliness closes in

Alone, just me and my anxiety

Reviews

[Damien Ridge]

Everyone thinks they understand and know what to do. But for the person feeling it, it's a feeling explainable to an extent. We can write it out but it'll never amount to the actual feeling. It's not as easy as just 'being positive'... But we don't want to lose the ones close to us in the process of figuring it out ourselves. Thanks for sharing, I connect with this a lot!