Stop telling me not to get upset because being anxious is not a choice
Anxiety is not a choice, therefore, it makes no sense to tell me to relax. I will not do it because it is not I who can choose whether to do it or not. Anxiety is not something that I can simply turn off, like a TV.
Anxiety is not something I can decide to put or not to put on like a pair of jeans. Anxiety is not a decision, like going for a coffee, buying a newspaper, driving a car or going on foot.
There are days when it seems to me that that feeling has passed, days when I delude myself that maybe it's all over, that finally it's gone. But all of a sudden, when I least expect it, it returns from the deepest part of my head.
It returns and erupts when I do not want it to, maybe in a moment when I'm feeling absolutely fine. So, I cannot just "relax", or even worse "decide to be happy".
It is not like renting a movie because anxiety and depression do not have a button to "pause" them. When you say absentmindedly "relax" you do not realize that you are minimizing my suffering. And when you trivialize my apprehension you are ridiculing the essence of my daily life.
It is as if you are telling me that anxiety is not a real disease, not something "real", to be taken seriously. If I had a broken leg, would you tell me not to think about it and just keep walking? If I had any other illness would you tell me to smile and let it heal by itself?
I do not think so. So please. Stop telling me to go to sleep when I do not know how to do it, advising me to listen to music to feel happy, judging me, and believing that you know how I feel, because you have absolutely no idea.
You do not know what it means to have a dark cloud that accompanies you continuously, you do not know what it means to be inside my head. You do not know what it means to be always afraid, to live in a state of panic, in terror of what will happen.
Anxiety and depression are serious problems, they are diseases, they are not an attitude, they are not exhibitionism, they are not stratagems to attract the attention of others. Believe me, if I could I would relax, and if I had been given a choice, I would choose to be well.
