When anxiety is your normal, you don’t really know you have anxiety. It’s just life as you know it.

Growing up, I never thought I had anxiety. I thought I was just ‘uptight’. I described myself as ’emotional’. I never felt like I had control, but I constantly sought it. However, it never crossed my mind that I had anxiety.

Even as my anxiety worsened, and I began to worry about losing people I love and thinking about death a lot, I never reasoned that it was anxiety. I just knew I would never be the same.

Truth be told, I didn’t really know what anxiety was, or what it looked like, for the longest time. It was just my normal, and I lived it. I think a lot of people with anxiety can relate to this. When you don’t know any other reality, it can be hard to tease apart whether or not you have anxiety.

Are you an anxious person, or are you just stressed? It can be difficult to tell the difference, as both are unpleasant and negative emotions.

Readers with anxiety, I have a question for you: When you first started experiencing anxiety, did you know what it was?

Thanks for sharing!