I love solitude and I hate solitude. Yes, it's
confusing right? Well, this is me all day, every day. I don’t want friends over at my place, I don’t want to go anywhere, I don’t want to be around people, I just want to be alone, and I would love it if people would respect my solitude. Also, me at home by myself: I’m so bored, I feel stuck, my life sucks and people hate me.
I know it doesn’t make sense, but this is what anxiety does to me, every day. It makes me the most confusing person ever; I confuse even myself at times. Most times I prefer to be by myself at home where I feel safe and secure instead of being around people who may say mean things to me and hurt me; but when I’m alone in the house it sucks, and I feel like the whole world hates me. Do I love solitude, or do I hate it? Do I want people or not?
Before I knew that I was dealing with anxiety I struggled a lot, and my friends didn’t understand (I didn’t understand me anyway). I would make plans with friends to go out on a certain day, but when the day comes, I would start feeling scared out of the blue then I would cancel on my friends. I had no idea why I was doing this, but I knew that I struggle around people, and the struggle lives me feeling unhappy and tired. I would avoid going out with friends, but then I would sit at home and sulk that I have the worst life ever and I don’t have friends. I know it’s crazy.
Well, this is anxiety, it makes you avoid people and believe that solitude is your thing, it tells you to stay at home where no one can hurt you, it tells you that you’ll be happier by yourself. When you listen to it, it switches up and tell you that solitude is not your thing, that you need people, but people don’t like you, it tells you that you don’t have anyone. At the end of the day, you are confused, and everything sucks.
Anxiety is real, may our friends and families be aware, maybe they’ll learn to understand us better, maybe they’ll know to try harder and not give up on us, maybe that’ll make things a bit easier for us. May they understand when we say no to that lunch or dinner at the last minute, may they understand when we say we don’t want visitors only to complain of loneliness a few minutes later, may they understand when we don’t pick up calls only to cry that people don’t care and don’t love us.
One can never deal with anxiety by themselves, it takes a family, it takes friends, and it takes a community. We may never be able to explain how it feels to live with anxiety, but we will always hope that people may understand from the little we are able to say.