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Thank You For Not Trying to Understand My Anxiety

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As negative as it sounds, I want to say thank you for not trying to understand my anxiety. Thank you for not analyzing me, which causes more anxiety. Thank you for the comfort of knowing I can get mad, sad or whatever — and that I won’t wake up the next morning to you packing your bags because you “can’t handle me” or because “I’m crazy.”

Thank you for never using those words.

Words I’ve heard from so many other people who thought they understood the constant back and forth battle of thoughts in my head. Yet, they all concluded I was crazy, irrational, overdramatic and a slur of other synonymous words.

Thank you for holding me tightly and not saying a word when there are a million words going through my mind and all I want to do was scream. For all the times I said a million words to you I didn’t mean. For just keeping your mouth shut because you knew I didn’t mean the vile things this monster in my mind said to you.

For never asking me why I’m mad about something so silly, because you know sometimes I don’t even know why. My guess is as good as yours.

It might sound silly, but I’m glad you don’t always understand it. I’m glad you don’t pretend to. I’m glad you’re strong enough to admit you don’t know what to say. It lets me know that it’s OK to not know everything. That it’s OK not to be OK. That it’s OK to not know why I can’t stop thinking about the “wrong thing” I said at dinner. You know, the thing everyone has already forgotten?

It’s good to know you don’t have all the answers, either. That it isn’t just me. You snap me out of the anxious dark world my mind has created and for a moment, I feel normal. All because you don’t pretend to understand.

Thank you for living through this mental illness with me.

The Mighty is for the following: Write a thank you note to someone who helped you through your mental illness. What about that person makes him or her a good ally? What do you want them to know? If you’d like to participate, please send a blog post to mentalhealth@themighty.com. Please include a photo for the piece, a photo of yourself and 1-2 sentence bio. Check out our Share Your Story page for more about our submission guidelines.

Originally published: December 11, 2015
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