Dear anxiety: I want to punch you in the face

I write this post while I experience an amalgam of feelings: confusion. Frustration. Some anger.

I write about mental health, and my mental health specifically, because it's an important aspect of my life and an issue that I am passionate about. I don't do it to try to tell a sob story and gain sympathy or attention. Sometimes I fear that divulging my mental health struggles will make me seem "crazy."

But I find it important to share what I go through because 1, I find it encouraging to read about similar struggles of others, and 2, people who are lucky enough to have never had a mental illness need to understand it better.

Anxiety is so frustrating because it is completely separate from reason. There is reasonable, rational Ann, and there is anxious and depressed Ann. Many times, reasonable Ann will identify when anxious Ann is being ... well, anxious. But once anxious Ann has grabbed a hold of my thoughts, she takes over and doesn't let go. It doesn't matter how much reasonable Ann tries to talk anxious Ann down. No logic works on her.

It started Friday. I get an anxious feeling, a feeling of worry, over nothing in particular. But my mind soon finds and grabs hold of things to worry about; things that may not worry me on a normal day. I think about things happening in the future, and they seem scary. I think about things I've done in my past, or didn't do, and feel like I did the wrong thing. My life is all wrong, I think. I screwed it all up. I'm not on the path I need to be. I'm not reaching my full potential. 

My thoughts go like this: Your friends - it's a wonder you have any. Your job - you're not good enough at it. Your relationship - you don't deserve him. Person X, Y or Z - they're better than you and always will be so you should just stop trying. That social get together this weekend - be afraid of it. Be very afraid - everyone is going to think you're weird and you won't fit in. That pain in your side/weird medical symptom? - probably cancer.

Any situation in life --> worst-case scenario.

My thought process was very similar to this on Friday. Soon after the thoughts begin flowing, the physical effects begin to kick in. My chest tightens up first. Then my muscles tense up, starting with my arms and then spreading to my upper back. I take shorter breaths. My heart beats faster. My palms get sweaty.

Having dealt with this for years now, I've mastered the ability to power through it. I can sit at my desk at work and appear completely normal. I usually try to avoid talking to people, but I can if I need to. I can fake a smile. It just leaves me really tired.

I sometimes get to a point where I reach an incredibly painful level of sadness. I don't feel like doing anything, going anywhere or interacting with anyone. Nothing seems enjoyable. In the worst cases, I don't even feel like eating. I've thought to myself before, "I can't think of anything that would make me feel better right now. Nothing."

It's completely horrible and completely irrational.

I've reached a point of reckoning ... I don't mean to sound cryptic, but determined. I'm determined to do something about this. I've done many things about my anxiety, seeing doctors and taking medicines and self-medicating with various substances and trying to distract myself with various things. I've tried a lot of things, yes, and my anxiety still reaches unbearable levels for seemingly no reason - or for reasons that make little sense.

I am a hopeful person. I've tried many things, but I haven't tried everything. Or maybe I've been doing these treatments wrong. I don't know how to fix this, but I do know that this is not how I want to live my life. I tell myself many cynical lies during my anxious and depressive episodes, but hope for my mental health is one thing that I legitimately believe in. I will hold onto that forever.