They were like nasty little whispers that would slowly bother me, building up momentum over time. It came in the form of sleeplessness and difficulty breathing every day, along with the onslaught of intrusive worries I wasn't even entirely conscious of. My anxiety came to me in a multitude of forms. I blamed myself for how I felt, pushing myself further into a hole of self-hatred. Even after I thought that maybe what I had was something more serious, I kept it to myself, believing that I wouldn't be taken seriously and that perhaps all I needed to do to make it go away was to be a better person. Retrospectively, I look back and realise I had a lot of the precursors since even before I was a teenager. I began to assume being "emotional" was simply a part of who I was. I had attributed my moods, even my self-harm and obsessive over-thinking back then to the symptoms of being a teenager. But the only way to disarm the suffocating power of these conditions is to talk about it openly knowing that there is nothing shameful about having anxiety and that it does not mean I am a weak person is still something I have to constantly remind myself.įor a time, I didn't realise I had anxiety and depression. I'm not used to talking about it, let alone writing about it, so it's taken me a while to write it several times, I considered not publishing it at all. It's been hard to try and find the right thing to say in this post. Such is the stigma of these conditions, that many of those around me would not have known that this was a part of the day-to-day life of someone who is typically described as being outgoing, sociable and seemingly speeding towards a bright future. The social stigma caused by such a lack of understanding on the topic has left many to fall silent on their own affliction whilst many people commonly view depression as being a serious mental health issue, a lot of people assume that being anxious is simply a part of their personality. The videos outline many of the common symptoms of anxiety, calling viewers to recognise them and take action.ĭisorders such as depression, anxiety and many other mental illnesses are still so largely misunderstood by the general public that many suffer from the symptoms without being aware. As I wrote in this post earlier this year, I have lived with anxiety for quite some time, and so this campaign is fairly close to my heart and the hearts of 1 in 4 Australians like me. Beyond Blue recently launched their I Am Anxiety campaign, an anxiety awareness campaign the first of its kind within Australia, which inspired me to write about my own experiences with anxiety.
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