When You Spend Every Day Hiding Your Anxiety
Hiding.
That is what you spend your life doing.
You hide your fear.
You hide your sadness.
You hide all of those repeating thoughts about literally everything. The thoughts that make you question everything.
No one can possibly question everything that much.
You hide your social anxiety. You hide the fact you actually hate meeting new people, even though you like people. You think maybe you actually hate them. You better hide that thought away too. When someone might start to suspect, joke about your antisocial behavior. If you laugh about it, they don’t know the issue is so real and so deep. You feel like you’re drowning.
Just keep your head above water.
You don’t show people the days you can’t get out of bed or the days you cry in front of your children or the days you don’t have the energy to shower. You are shrouded by this cover of a smiling, happy, outgoing, driven mask. It hides all of your brokenness.
This mask keeps you safe.
If you hide all of these things, the worst parts about you — if people don’t know the true you — they can’t reject you. Everyone leaves or rejects you, right? Better hide that thought quickly, before someone catches on.
Being alone is better than being left.
You’re tired of hiding, of merely surviving, yet constantly needing to project success. Tired of needing to act fuller than the empty shell you are. But you have to keep it up. It is your security blanket, your safety net. No matter how tired you are, you have to hide it.
You will show no weakness in the face of fire because you are not weak.
Hide the fact you get overwhelmed by things like paying a bill; Lord help you if it’s late at all. If it’s late, that’s even more stressful, and you just want to stick your head in the sand and … just shove that away too, hide it all. Keep this fragile existence.
Your show of unwavering strength will inspire others.
Keep smiling. Keep laughing. Keep joking. Keep moving. Keep doing. Keep it up. Always. Never stop. Hide away all the bad. All the bad is what will make them leave, hate, make fun of, throw back in your face in anger, use as a weapon against you. Don’t stop. Don’t breathe. Don’t trust.
You are your only and best friend and absolute worst enemy.
No matter how hard they press. No matter how hard they seek to understand you. Don’t ever let them find you. That is how worlds end and lives are blown apart. You know this. You live this.
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Unsplash photo via Hemera Technologies
Mia is a mother of two wonderful humans and one amazing floof, she is happily married to a partner who supports her unconditionally. She writes poetry, lyrics, and other content from the heart. You can find her with her family living day to day life- mindful of the blessings she is sure to be grateful for each and every day. Her struggles and experiences with anxiety, depression, PTSD, C-PTSD, being a TBI survivor, and a lifelong ADHD diagnosis do not define her. She strives to utilize her experiences to help others in anyway she is able.
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